Tuesday, December 7, 2021

The Cleveland Journal's Sunday Magazine

 


Oh, Boys and Girls and everyone on their own Self Identified Spectrum of Gender, Cookie is dating himself when he tells you that there were once big fat Sunday Newspapers, chock full of news, features, travel, living, life, living life, and sports section.  

Classifieds were in their own chunky section! Comics galore in COLOR!  And then there were the locally produced Sunday Magazine inserts, printed on better paper that were sort of shiny.  They had long articles and short stories of featured articles.  The articles were heavy with local content,  with locally placed writers and headlines like "HIGHLAND HEIGHTS CELEBRATES THE ANNUAL GOURD FESTIVAL" and  "AMRAP, LOOKING AT PARMA DIFFERENTLY".

Sadly, over the last 30-40 years, these magazines have been discontinued in all of the most ginormous markets, replaced with PARADE, itself just a shadow of its former glory.  Headlines now include "Affirming Yourself" and "Celebrity Gossip" which really isn't gossip, such as "What's Joan Van Ark Up to These Days?" and Harry Styles, Does He Date?"  (The answers usually read,  "Former TV Star Joan Van Ark was born in 1943, and business herself with reading and taking longs walks on the beach," and "MEGA Star Harry Styles, born in 1994, is very much in demand, and a well know fashionista. Perhaps he'll update us on activities when cupid acts.")  So it really isn't in-depth, or mildly interesting.   

The Cleveland Daily Journal's Sunday Magazine also had local gossip ("Our sources tell us that Mrs. Edwin Smith Standish, of Shaker Heights, has been tapped to Chair the Cleveland Symponic's Societies annual Fund Raiser which will be themed Escapade in the Equidor, this winter..." and "Our sources tell us that Cleveland City Council member Mary Rose Oakar is a career-minded lady who hopes to become a congressional representative..."

Alas, the Journal ended its role as Cleveland's fifth most popular news source in 1963.  

The building, is now the Lake Line Luxury Lofts, market-rate condos, decorated in neutral gray tones, offering exquisite views of downtown Cleveland ("that you will not find in any other location!" because only one building stands on its site, right?) and the I-71 corridor.  

The main floors, once populated with well-known locally owned businesses along with the Cleveland Curmudgeon Club, and Stouffer's Slid on Inn, is now populated with expensive tightly focused boutiques (Raffia Rendezvous, Birkin and Birkenstock's, for example) and a raw-juice bar that you could find in any city. And the perfunctory Starbucks, of course. 


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