A Walking Tour Of Milwaukee's Lower East Side (Proxam's Hometown W/O)
Written: Oct 25 '03 (Updated Dec 11 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: I love it here near Lake Michigan . . .so will you!
Cons: It's getting costly
The Bottom Line: I got a little long-winded here, but there was a lot to cover and I left so much out.
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| ed_grover's Full Review: East Town Association |
It seems I've used up my write one review about Milwaukee in the Travel Destinations Category and you're through here reviews. Thanks to SurgRN911, I found a way of joining Proxam's Hometown Write-Off by coming in a different door. You gotta be creative here, kids.
This is the area I've lived in for the past twenty-five years and it's home to me. When I moved here it was simply known as the lower east side; no capital letters, nothing special, just a nice place to live near the downtown area and the lake. It was made up of fine brick old homes and low-rise apartment buildings. It was convenient to five different bus routes, the bike paths and it was inexpensive as well. A few apartment buildings (under 25 stories) went up a few blocks away about 15 years ago. They were dubbed the Yankee Hill Apartments and the rents they got caused everything else in the area to skyrocket. Well, the lake and some lovely parks are still free . . . so far, so I'll stay where I am for as long as possible.
Things started to change in the late 1960s and along came the East Town Association, and now our once quiet area is now known as East Town. The association was formed in the early 1970s and is made up of merchants and business people in the area. They're located right in the heart of things at 770 North Jefferson Street not four blocks from where I live. Their web site is http://www.easttown.com/. They have a very easy to use web site with links to a newsletter and a usable map that lists 56 galleries, shops, restaurants, bars, hotels, churches and service businesses.
The ETA is responsible for starting and promotiong the weekly Saturday Morning Farmer's Market, a monthly Gallery Night, Jazz in the Park on Thursday nights and the biggest of them all, Bastille Days, a four-day French celebration held over July 14th holiday that takes over the whole of Cathedral Square Park and spills into several side streets. This is the Square where Milwaukee's first Courthouse and City Hall stood. All these events brought lots of people into the area, and now they want to live here, too. You can read all about of them in my review called Milwaukee Sizzles in the Summer.
Among the disasters they've been involved in were the Winter Follies and the yearly Ice Rink that took up the main part of Cathedral Square and made quite a mess. It was nice for skaters but . . . the park grounds were never repaired properly the following spring. The rink was moved down near City Hall and now it turns out that the it has a cracked surface (or something) and the City can't afford the $400,000 fee to fix it. It was closed down last year; this year, too, as far as I know.
Since the demise of the Ice Rink, the Association has been putting up Christmas lights and canned Musak in East Town parks. The decorations of glitzy plastic garland with blinking lights on steel armatures in the shapes of toys and so on weren't bad, but last year they promoted the most awful computerized display of Christmas lights that have ever been viewed. There was a forest of abstract Christmas tree shapes made of wood frames covered with white nylon. They changed color and was done to that horrible coordinated Musak. The wind and snow damaged a lot of them and all I can say is that it was ghastly. I hear they plan to do it again and I think it's a bad move on their part.
The East Town Assn. got involved in a promotion for the Milwaukee Symphony (or at least one of their members who owns an art gallery did) and these horrible four to five-foot fiberglass sculptures called "Beasties," designed by a fellow named Dennis Pearson about 20 years ago, began to appear all over the downtown area and the east side like huge rats. They were decorated by groups of children, other amateur "creative" types and some folks who had the nerve to call themselves artists. I thought it was too awful to comprehend and it was also a direct copy of what Chicago did with their decorated fiberglass cows or some other tacky animal image. The sponsors of these ugly things spent a total of $130,000, and fortunately we haven't seen or heard anything of them since.
The Whole Area:
Let's take a look at the boundaries and makeup of the area. It's comprised of that part of downtown east of the Milwaukee River settled by Solomon Juneau and called Juneautown. Sol was one of Milwaukee's founders and a fur trader, he got a huge park on the lakefront named after him. There is also a Juneau Avenue and the big bell in out City Hall is named after him; it tolls the hours through the day and night in a deep but not distrubing tone.
The area on the west side of the River was settled over an early Indian village by James Kilbourn. It was dubbed Kilbourntown. James eventually got a double avenue named after him. Now he's catching up to Solomon Juneau in that Milwaukee's newest high-rise condominium right across the street from Juneau Park is using his last name and calling the building the Kilbourn Towers. It seems there was a great rivalry between these two men. None of the streets that cross the Milwaukee River meet up; all the bridges had to be constructed at an angle and they attest to the fact that Milwaukee's founding fathers didn't exactly get along with each other.
East Town is bounded on the on the west by Water Street and the Milwaukee River. To the east are the shores of Lake Michigan. The northern limits are marked by Ogden Avenue and the East Point Commons, a huge, upscale townhouse project that was built over an abandoned freeway spur. The spur was originally planned by some politician to connect to a route north and would have ruined our lakefront. Thankfully the good citizens of Milwaukee voted it out of existence. The rest of the freeway connection as far to the west as 12th Street has been demolished and new housing, parks and businesses are in the process of springing up.
Ogden Avenue connects to Prospect Avenue near the north end of Juneau Park. Here one finds most of what remains of Milwaukee's early grand mansions. What hasn't been put to other uses was torn down and there are larger apartment buildings and towers dating from the 1940s to the present. Among the treasures that are left you can find Villa Terrace, The Charles Allis Art Museum and the Milwaukee Conservatory of Music with its ceilings and windows by Tiffany & Co.
Back down Prospect Avenue to the south, near Juneau Park are the once grand old Astor and Knickerbocker Hotels. The Astor has become more of a residential hotel, while the "Knick," as it's fondly called, has been converted to condominiums. Both still have Tiffany glass and American Impressionist paintings in their lobbies. The "Knick" has a trendy bar and restaurant with a terrace overlooking the park. There are some wonderful 1920s-30s art deco apartment buildings on the area, too, but they are filled to capacity with people who have no plans of ever moving.
This small area near the lake is filled with very old churches: All Saints Episcopal Cathedral and Rectory, St. James Episcopal Church, Emanuel Presbyterian Church, Summerfield Methodist Church and the Universal Unitarian Church. Further back toward the downtown area are Old Saint Mary's Roman Catholic Church and the much newer St. John's Cathedral among others I may have forgotten not having been a churchgoer for many moons.
The southern boundary is Clybourne Street and the I-94 Freeway; it used to house the Milwaukee Road railroad yard and it's still kinda tacky down there. Even there the changes are a comin'. Over on the lakefront is
The Milwaukee Art Museum with it's new addition, The Quadracci Pavilion designed by Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava.
A few hundred yards to the south of the Art Museum is The Port of Milwaukee and the home of the Great Lakes Schooner The Denis Sullivan, a reproduction schooner that was completely built on site by volunteers. A review of that attraction will be coming up next spring when a maritime museum that will teach visitors about the history of Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes will begin being built and will become the home of the schooner.
My Turf:
When I moved into my present apartment almost 20 years ago the rent was $210 a month, including everything but electric and phone. I still have a bargain apartment for an area that now has rents upwards of $750 for one-bedroom apartments with no views and few amenities. My building's management put up an iron fence to prevent the street people from taking shortcuts through the sidewalk between our building and the next one so they could get to the lake after they had been to St. John's for the free food at noon. As a result, I ended up with a private garden and now the owners would like to get their hands on it and charge a bundle for rent; not in my lifetime!
Where once there were Mom & Pop grocery stores aplenty and a plethora of reasonably priced service businesses, only one original dry cleaner remains and they've gotten so haughty I won't even go in there anymore. The local eateries and bars were replaced by trendy new spots that cater to the moneyed youth of today. Drinks in the local bars are in the $5 to $7.50-range and eating out is an adventure in how to spend all of your available cash. There are a few reasonable spots like the Mykonos Gyro & Café and a Chicago-style pizza joint nearby, but most folks cook their own meals at home. A brand new super-duper grocery store was built by the Kohl's chain in the last two years, but the grocery part of the company went belly-up and now we are waiting patiently for a new tenant. It's a long walk over to Ogden Avenue where the other big grocery store lives.
Over on the east end of Wisconsin Avenue at Jefferson Street are the Pfister Hotel and the Milwaukee Club. The hotel now has something like a 30-story structure that was added to the original building sometime in the 1960s when things began to perk in this area. Both Lobstergirl and tombarnes have written excellent reviews about this hotel. I've stayed there, but never as a paying guest . . . if ya get my drift.
One street west on the corner of Milwaukee and Wells Streets is a wonderful Art Deco boutique hotel called Hotel Metro. It was rehabbed into Milwaukee's first air-conditioned building. Again, I've stayed there but could never write a review about my overnight experience. Back east on the corner of Jefferson and Wells Street the glorious old Layton Art Gallery stood until it was unceremoniously torn down and replaced by an ugly rusted-steel parking structure. I had my first official art instruction at the Layton, which became part of the founding group that made up the Milwaukee Art Museum. All that information is found in a book I reviewed on the subject.
On the opposite side of Jefferson Street is Milwaukee's oldest china and glassware store, George Watt's & Son. It's been at that location for over 60 years and George occasionally tries to run for Mayor and never makes it. Mother insisted on getting all her china there, but that's another story. Following right up on the Watt's store are a row of beautiful old Cream City Brick mansions and town homes that have been taken over by everything from antique shops to beauty parlors and restaurants.
At the corner of Wells Street one finds a series of updated bars that are filled with students from The Milwaukee School of Engineering that's located along the northern border of the Square, A half block up Wells running east and west along the southern edge of Cathedral Square Park is the spot where my grandfather had his blueprinting business. Now that space, and everything else to the next corner east, contains the almost completed Cathedral Square Condominiums.
The 18-story building covers a full half-city block and runs back to Mason Street on the south. It's being touted as a condominium, but it's actually a combination parking garage (12 floors) on the south end with office spaces above and 30 condominiums in the $200- to $300,000 range facing Cathedral Square Park to the north. The picture on the web site looks almost too wonderful, but in reality it bows out on one side and looks like it's going to explode. It's all sheathed in pre-cast concrete blocks and strips of cream, gray and clear glass. There are numerous indentations and unexplainable bumps on some floors. I think it's ugly and have been calling it the Lego Building, which seems to be catching on.
Along the whole east side of Cathedral Square is Saint John's Cathedral, a vital part of the area as is noted by the name of the city block-sized park that stands at the center of the area. The Cathedral has a jolly new Irish Archbishop who came here from St. Louis to replace the one that got caught up in those nasty church scandals of not so long ago.
A few more blocks to the east is my apartment at the corner of Cass Street and a boulevard called Kilbourn Avenue I found out that this lovely boulevard was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead of New York's Central Park fame (if it's a boulevard, why is it called an Avenue?). It has a direct view from our County Courthouse straight through to the east and Juneau Park.
Directly across the street from my apartment and facing north is The Milwaukee Women's Club. The ladies (none of whom even remotely live in the area) were sufficiently offended by the unkempt display of our glorious spring flowers thriving in the boulevard plantings. They seem to have "gotten" to some City or County official and the whole planting was ripped up by the roots and replaced with a series of metal sculptures that they donated to the City.
They said they were doing good for the people (us poor slobs) who lived in the area and put up these things on poles that were supposed to represent geese in flight. They look more like bombers, and the locals didn't like it one bit when the lady artist wanted "rubble" (actually really big rocks) put under her birds; this all happened during 9/11 and it was an image no one wanted to see. Now there's pea-gravel on the ground and folks are getting used to the Art, but we'd still rather have our flowers.
Two multi-million dollar condos (with purchase prices to match) are presently in different stages of construction and planning on the lakefront across the street from Juneau Park. Our only big building in the area, The Regency Condominiums, went up on the northern corner of Kilbourn Avenue at Juneau Park about thirty years ago while I was off in California or Washington DC.
The Regency Condo owners are now in a snit because they say they are losing their view to the south. Poor them; no one ever stopped to consider whose views they were blocking when they put up that pile. and there were plenty of them. Kilbourn Towers is being built directly across the street from them. The 60-foot hole (that's all there is right now) is two blocks from my apartment. That end of the boulevard will be blocked off for over two years.
Another neighborhood group is suing to have all progress stopped, the hole filled and the land returned to park use because of changes in the design and perks constitute a change from the original plan. Someone is trying to stop the University Club Tower project and it's just like the ghosts of James Kilbourn and Solomon Juneau are having another row!
According to our local free (and liberal) newspaper, the complaints are coming in fast and furious. We have everything from safety and traffic violations to accusations that City officials didn't have the right to sell that tiny piece of parkland. The twin apartment buildings directly to the west of the new building have lost all views to the lake and tenants say the buildings shake like a small earthquake is going on while dishes, vases and other items have fallen off shelves and been broken.
Not the least of this building debacle is that the University Club, a building with historic designations is planning to put up their own tower in the parking lot directly to the south of Kilbourn Towers. The lawyers of the two companmies involved have been having at it at the meetings of the Zoning and Planning Commission that is televised on Milwaukee's City Cable Channel. It's really all about who gets what views: The Kilbourn Tower will have a very limited view to the south. The University CLub Tower will have no views to the north. They will both, however, have fantrastic views to the east overlooking Lake Michigan, while all views from buildings behind them will be blocked. So shut up already!
In about four years when all the dust clears, everyone will be raving about our two new landmarks. I hope I last long enough to report in to you about it. My, this has gotten almost as long as the walking tour I gave Tom Barnes when he visited Milwaukee last summer.
I hope you all enjoyed a peek inside my world. Welcome to East Town!
Ed Grover – 2003
Here are a few other hometown reviews that I couldn’t work into this review as hyperlinks. I guess I went a little nutz there, so forgive me.
Comments On Milwaukee's Art & Architecture: http://www.epinions.com/content_2715852932
And then there's the town I grew up in:
Hartland (another Hometown W/O): http://www.epinions.com/content_2745868420
Hartland Deux (a holiday W/O): http://www.epinions.com/content_48871542404
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Friends
Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime
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Epinions.com ID:
ed_grover
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Member: Ed Grover
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Reviews written: 332
Trusted by: 401 members
About Me:
Ed's last words for Epinions members and links to tributes are on his page.
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