Milwaukee is the talk of the internet today, as the major news outlets announce the Fonz statue to the world.  VisitMilwaukee has officially raised the $85,000 needed to build the statue.

I’ve been in support of the statue since I first learned of it because it encourages visitors (who come to Milwaukee for completely unrelated reasons) to stay downtown, walk downtown, and spend their money downtown.  One more thing for Milwaukee visitors to do.

• Mary Louise Schumacher is still opposed to the statue because it’s too trivial.
• The Associated Press has an article that sums up what is happening, and even mentions Brenner leaving town.

The best part of the entire thing is that Henry Winkler and company held a press conference to announce the completed funding in front of the Culver’s at the Shops of Grand Avenue.  Couldn’t they find a slightly better location?

My sources, namely Twitter, tell me that Mike Brenner and his Hotcakes Gallery will soon be a part of Milwaukee history.  The eccentric gallery owner promised to close his gallery and leave Milwaukee if the Fonz statue was fully funded.  Well I haven’t heard for sure that that has happened yet other than from Brenner, but it’s more or less inevitable at this point.  Brenner has announced that July 3rd will be the last day to purchase artwork at Hotcakes Gallery.

Brooks Barrow, owner of the Brooks Barrow Gallery in the Third Ward, vowed to leave town if Brenner did.  I’m awaiting to see what Brooks has to say.

Personally, I think Brenner is acting pretty unreasonable about the entire thing.  I guess if you need a scapegoat to close your business, opposing a bronze statue of a Milwaukee legend is a good route to go.

Links from the Milwaukee-informationsphere

• Mary Louise Schumacher is yet another art person doesn’t think it’s a good idea to build a recognize landmark that will increase pedestrian traffic in downtown Milwaukee.
• Hofbrauhaus Milwaukee, a proposed German beer hall and restaurant, is likely coming next The Brewery development at the old Pabst brewery in Blue Ribbon Hall after the settlement of a lawsuit involving Brew City Redevelopment LLC with the complex’s former owners, WisPark LLC. The article makes no mention of the existing Old German Beer Hall and how urban Milwaukee is delightfully reinventing itself more in the fashion of a city like Munich, Germany.
• Robert Kern, of Generac fame and fortune, is powering a change in the way the state handles engineering education through his foundation (Kern Family Foundation). Two urban Milwaukee schools are at the center of this in MSOE and Marquette, through the recruitment of Project Lead the Way students form high schools and their participation in KEEN (Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network). Urban Milwaukee would like to applaud the efforts of Robert Kern for his visionary leadership in truly investing in the future of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the entire Fresh Coast economy and education system.
• The Journal Sentinel takes a look at how you can reduce your power consumption and what effects it will have. Absolutely worth your time to read.
• Dave Reid takes a look at the Kane Commons development and gives us a construction update of the Breakwater Condos and The Residences on Water.

Henry Winkler
Originally uploaded by chelsea tobe

Urban Milwaukee and Fresh Coast Ventures, LLC would like to throw their support behind the “Bronze the Fonz” campaign. The urban, pedestrian-friendly location of the statue on the riverwalk will only give Milwaukee visitors one more reason to stay downtown, walk downtown, and spend their money downtown.

A couple grumpy art gallery owners in Milwaukee apparently are not seeing how the statue will encourage visitors to “stay downtown, walk downtown, and spend their money downtown”. This would inevitably help their business by increasing foot traffic in the area, but that doesn’t seem to matter to them.

Most important to these art gallery owners is the fact that the statue is an icon of mediocre public art. Milwaukee Art Museum Director David Gordon also appears to be upset that the bronze Fonz might interrupt the development of a fancy new public art development coming to Wisconsin Avenue in a few years (of which I can’t seem to actually find any details other than the artist is Janet Zweig,).

Fonz-implementers have claimed that the statue will be out of the Wisconsin Avenue sight lines of the Milwaukee Art Museum and new Wisconsin Avenue public art project by being placed on the riverwalk. Good, problem solved. Let’s build this statue.

No one is going to make fun of Milwaukee for having this statue and every first time visitor is going to want to see it and get their picture taken with it, just like that “bean” that our neighbor to the south has.

Build the statue. It’s only going to help people have one more thing to do in downtown Milwaukee.