To learn more about the book, what better source is there but the author himself. Christopher Roy is a freelance writer long-time Clevelander whose work has included projects for Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, and National Public Radio. He holds a Maste of Arts degree in History, is a past board member of the Cleveland Heights Historical Society and Tremont History Project. The following is extracted from the book's introduction.

For a relatively brief period (roughly 1885 to 1930), vaudeville also was everywhere. In 1900 there were more than 2,000 vaudeville venues in the United States—from gilded performance palaces to military armories to amusement parks and tawdry temporary structures. Over the years, Cleveland’s downtown had more than 60 theaters that featured vaudeville. Coast to coast, around the year 1900, the only venues attended more frequently were school and church.

Thus it seemed appropriate that this book should project the same eclecticism that symbolized vaudeville. It is, as a result, a sort of literary gumbo—a peek at turn-of-the-century Cleveland through the lens of vaudeville, and vice versa. However, it is also intended to be a light, non-fiction story; a historical picture book; and a time machine through which (using QR links) readers can access period audio and video. Most of all, I wished it to be a celebration of an art form that, in the literal and figurative sense, was popular entertainment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. . . the one with everything. Conversely, there are many things that the book isn’t.It isn’t a scholarly profile of vaudeville or Cleveland. It’s also not a comprehensive go-to source for information about vaudeville players, palaces, or potentates. Nor does it present a clear-cut survey of vaudeville’s myriad performance categories: Singers might also be comedians. Comedians sometimes were athletes. Athletes might also be thespians. And into what grouping should we place speed-typists, purgators, mentalists, or fire eaters? In net, scene as it unfolded (and later folded) in Cleveland, Ohio.

As suggested by the title, the centerpiece of the story is a hole-in-the-wall pub on East 4th Street in downtown Cleveland, along with its owner, a crusty German immigrant named Otto Moser.4 For 100 years, Otto Moser’s place was not just a tavern; it was the gathering spot of choice for patrons of every stripe and (almost every) color. But from 1893 to the end of the 1920s, an astonishing number of vaudevillians made Otto’s little saloon the place where (like Cheers) “everybody knows your name.” No-one knows the exact number of vaudeville greats who visited Otto’s. But what we do know is that more than 650 performers were immortalized via a (usually signed and sometimes dated) photograph of themselves or whatever alter ego their roles required at the time. A great majority of those images remain in decent condition and (courtesy of Scott Kuhn, the last owner of Otto Moser’s) were lent to Cleveland State University, where each photo was scanned as a super-high-resolution tiff file.