Robert Klara is a longtime magazine editor and writer. He’s served on the mastheads of numerous titles including Town & Country and Architecture, and he’s currently a contributing writer for American Road magazine. His articles, essays, and profiles have appeared in a wealth of periodicals including American Heritage, the New York Daily News, The Christian Science Monitor, Classic Trains, and Victorian Homes.
Through a variety of genres (book reviews, essays, and travel pieces), Klara has made a specialty of obscure, forgotten, or overlooked facets of American history, with a particular emphasis on railroading and urban architecture. He was first to bring to print the story behind the notorious 1930s Riviera nightclub atop the New Jersey Palisades; profiled the caretaker of the world’s largest pipe organ; and authored a feature on the design and development of the Pullman Company’s famous sleeping-car blankets.
In March 2010, Palgrave Macmillan published Klara’s first book, FDR’s Funeral Train: A Betrayed Widow, A Soviet Spy, and a Presidency in the Balance. The product of a year’s research, the book is the first to tell the inside story of the train that carried Franklin D. Roosevelt’s casket over a thousand miles to his final resting place during the darkest days of World War II.
Klara holds a B.A. in English from Fordham University, and an M.A. in literature and creative writing from the City University of New York. He lives in New York City.