Marsupial Bridge Update

April 1st — According to the attached e-mail from architect James Dallman, the concrete walkway of the Holton Marsupial Bridge will be poured beginning today at 10:00 a.m. This will be a prodigious task for the contractors at Lunda Construction. The engineering for the project was undertaken by Bloom Engineering.

Hello,

Sorry for the short notice, but we have been informed that tomorrow, Friday April 1st [no fooling] at around 10AM the first Marsupial bridge concrete pour
will be underway, starting with the segment of the bridge just north of the river.

[If you decide to take a look, just be careful around any heavy equipment moving around on the site, and it is not recommended to get close to the
actual work area without permission from the contractor and proper headgear.]

Hope its a little warmer than today!

Best to all

James L A D A L L M A N A R C H I T E C T S Inc
225 E. St. Paul Ave. Suite 302
Milwaukee, WI 53202
414 225 7450
fax 225 7451
dallman (at) ladallman.com

Dealer in Fake Prints Moves Biz to Ebay

James Kennedy, the art dealer from Northbrook, Illinois who was found guilty of possessing fake Picassos and other artworks in Milwaukee County last year allegedly has not let himself be deterred from spreading more forgeries upon the face of the planet, according to this email from a reader:

Dear Mr. Horne,

James Kennedy came to mind a little while ago as I was searching on eBay. I found some listings for prints which made me suspicious. The seller (who is “kfinearts”) is located in Northbrook, Illinois. Some of the items looked like fakes to me, although I couldn’t be 100% sure. Also, the prices seemed too low. I wrote to the seller about one item. He responded and gave his name as Jim Kennedy. Perhaps he is the notorious James Kennedy. This seller has sold a few prints. Here is the link to one item. You can check the feedback for other items that he has sold there.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=20148&item=7300626479

In the feedback section, you will find two Miro prints which are identical and have the same number. But that could be just a mistake in the listing.

/s/

Name Withheld by Editor

Sure enough, if you check, you will see that items #7305170692 and #7302755852 are each described as “Hand Signed by Miro, 100% guaranteed.” Each is listed as being print #23 of an edition of 225, with a COA (Certificate of Authenticity.)

Never mind the duplication, the buyers seem content. Raua105 paid $200 for one of the Miros (23/225) and enthused in the buyer feedback forum, “thank you for a good item! Delivered quickly!!”

Redbead1023 also bought Miro print 23/225 and wrote “item as described, prompt shipping.”

Assistant District Attorney Kurt Benkley, who prosecuted Kennedy for forgeries that were described in court as “laughable,” when informed that Kennedy had been active on eBay since February 10, 2005 said, “why am I not surprised?”

Unfortunately, Benkley says the arm of the Milwaukee County District Attorney does not extend across the Illinois border. “I can’t prosecute Kennedy unless one of the purchasers is in Milwaukee County.

“Perhaps you could contact the Illinois Attorney General’s office and see if there might be an interest there.”

Well, as a first step, we’ll post this on milwaukeeworld. Please use the internal search engine to check on previous milwaukeeworld stories about James Kennedy.

Karos Trial Approaches

Local art dealer and convicted felon Marilyn Karos will be before a federal judge April 1st (no foolin’) on charges that she did “corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct and impede the due administration of justice in the case of Richard O’Hara v. United States, Case No. 04-1603, pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.”

Trial will be on April 11th .

Milwaukeeworld.com has written about Karos earlier this year after she was charged in the case, and you may remember she promised James F. Cosi, a witness in the O’Hara case a $75,000 payment if he would sign a false affidavit that would help spring Richard Francis O’Hara from jail. Kosi, of Chicago, went along with the scheme, and worked in concert with the FBI.

Meanwhile, Karos is free and certainly gets around. On March 19th she shopped at Glorioso Brothers Grocery on Brady Street, inquiring of the deli counter worker if he still “dabbled in paintings.”

The worker said, “certainly not of the quality you deal in,” which flattered Ms. Karos no end. She then said that her son was busy collecting paintings by Wisconsin artists, which indeed he has been doing through advertisements in the daily newspaper.

Emily Groom Alert

Helen Johnston, a niece of Wisconsin artist Emily Groom is busily cataloguing the work of the former teacher who died, at 100, in 1973. Groom’s paintings hang in a number of prominent Wisconsin collections and museums, including the West Bend Museum of Art. Some of the Groom paintings hang in private clubs and organizations, such as the Woman’s Club of Wisconsin, the University Club, the offices of the Bradley Foundation and the offices of the Milwaukee Foundation.

Of the latter painting, Ms. Johnston notes that it is listed as being on “permanent loan” from the Milwaukee Art Museum. The Bradley collection Groom is likewise on loan from the Art Museum. “What exactly is a ‘permanent loan’?” she asks, and it is a good question.

The best answer is that a permanent loan is a comfortable way for the Milwaukee Art Museum – technically a private institution – to favor private clubs where the powerful hang out with free interior decoration.

Perhaps the time has come for all lent artworks from the Milwaukee Art Museum to be inventoried, catalogued and brought into public view – if only for a brief while, so as not to leave any blank spaces on the walls of local foundations.

Another option would be to open the Bradley Foundation’s gated headquarters and borrowed art treasures to public view.

(If you know of any Emily Groom paintings in private or public collections, please contact milwaukeeworld.com, and we will pass the word along. – Ed.)

20 Years on Brady Street

If you wanted to find a milestone that established the transformation of Brady Street into the funky success it is today, a handy one would be April Fools Day, 1985. That’s when Jim Boland and Chuck Pins, childhood friends from Dubuque, Iowa, opened up shop at 1695 N. Brady Street, intent on providing Milwaukee residents with a bewildering variety of “aero amusements.”

Twenty years later, Art Smart’s Dart Mart & Juggling Emporium remains in business in the corner storefront, stocked to the Jim Hawley-painted rafters with darts, juggling equipment, flying discs and other amusing devices, including magic tricks and other amusements.

The eclectic merchandise helped pave the way for other merchants to take a chance on the neighborhood. The store’s stability also made for a landmark on the street. In the short space of one block, Art Smart’s is joined by Sciortino’s Bakery, Glorioso Brothers, Regano’s and the Brady Street Pharmacy as among the very longest-surviving businesses on an ever-changing street. (Glorioso’s is 29 years older than Art Smart’s, to put things in perspective.)

Boland plans to celebrate with the Art Smart’s 20th Anniversary & Customer Appreciation Party Saturday, April 2^nd from 7 p.m. on at Club Garabaldi, 2501 S. Superior St. Big Muddy will perform.

In Other News

Alds. Dudzik, Davis and Wade have been granted $4,500 from the Common Council to travel to the 2005 International Council of Shopping Centers spring convention in Las Vegas. The trio hopes to bring more merchants to the city, and will doubtless tout the success of Midtown Center here. … Ald. Bob Bauman took the train March 19th to Chicago to attend the Regional Summit for Fast Trains in Chicago. Julia Taylor, the president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee was a featured speaker at the event. Bauman said the summit was okay, but that without an Amtrak as a coordinating agency, it would be impossible to create any high speed train routes in this country.

He made his comments after the Bush administration announced its plans to kill the nationwide rail system.

City Hall Fix?

We do have a poser of a problem here. City Hall is crumbling, but a project to restore it attracted only two bidders instead of the national attention the city government expected. The bids came in wildly over budget, and the project seems imperiled at this time.

Back to the drawing board, as they say! Since the original specifications called for work throughout the entire facility, perhaps the city could scrap plans to replace all of the 1100 windows in the structure, as planned, and could concentrate on immediate repairs to the massive bell tower, which is where the work is most needed. The other work could be put off for awhile, the important stuff could be done, and we could finally be rid of that hideous scaffolding in place there.

(Updated April 1, 2005)