Friday, 23. May 2008 Photos
Transpak 235 E. Pittsburgh Ave The Edge The North End The Residences on Water The Brewery
May 23rd, 2008 by Dave Reid
Les Paul, Mike Cudahy and the Rise of the Uber Geezers
The Wizard of Waukesha is bringing his act to Milwaukee’s Pabst Theatre in June! If you don’t know the significance of that sentence then you don’t know the history of rock and roll. Les Paul, who turns 93 on June 9th, grew up in Waukesha and is probably more responsible for the popular music of our time than anyone. He is credited with inventing the design of the modern electric guitar and introducing recording techniques that revolutionized the music industry. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that when a group of Paul devotees came to Michael Cudahy with a plan to create a Paul tribute at Discovery World, the planets seemed to align. I started this column as a tribute to some extraordinary graybeards among us and this breaking news about Paul’s upcoming concert just gave me a new lede. While so many of us in Milwaukee pout about the leadership vacuum on our local scene, a handful of wealthy and accomplished elders are stepping up to the plate. First and foremost, idiosyncratic and irascible Michael Cudahy has been coming to the rescue of various struggling institutions in the city for years. Take a look at his profile in the March, 2007 issue of Milwaukee Magazine by Kurt Chandler. The man was born into one of this town’s most prestigious families but he dropped out of school and seemed destined to become the black sheep of the Cudahy clan. His story gives a 20th Century Midwestern twist to a legendary Shakespearean tale. This Prince Hal ne’er-do-well eventually launched a medical electronics firm that earned him a fortune. Ever since selling Marquette Electronics to GE, Cudahy has been dedicated to giving away millions. The Medical College of Wisconsin, MSOE, the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee all benefited from his largesse. But Cudahy isn’t the type to just write checks. He took over the Pabst Theater, brilliantly restored it and established it as the city’s most magnificent entertainment venue. Anyone who visits Discovery World, the city’s outstanding science museum, soon realizes what an impact Michael Cudahy has had. While the building’s glorious design resulted from a conflict between the philanthropist, the neighboring Milwaukee Art Museum and city planners, the spectacular facility is a living testament to Cudahy’s vision and commitment to this region. At 84, Cudahy isn’t the oldest benefactor on the local scene. That honor probably goes to Joseph Zilber a wealthy 90-year-old developer who is engaged on a spending spree to kickstart a Milwaukee Renaissance. He stepped up to the plate when the WE Energies-sponsored proposal to redevelop the Pabst City site was rejected by the Common Council. While that project is still very much a work-in-progress, Zilber has invited criticism by replacing the Pabst sign with one featuring his name and attaching a tacky video billboard to one of the buildings. But Zilber has also announced plans to bankroll a new initiative to address the poverty and other challenges facing Milwaukee to the […]
May 23rd, 2008 by Ted Bobrow
Milwaukee Post Office To Move Next Door To Airport
In one of the worst kept secrets surrounding the future of downtown Milwaukee, an announcement finally arrived today that the out-of-place and severely dated United States Post Office located on St. Paul Ave, next to the brand spanking new, gorgeous Milwaukee Intermodal Station, is moving south to be closer to the airport in a new, more efficient facility. This is a huge win-win for both areas. First, this should increase commerce surrounding the airport by adding a labor-intensive business near a large retail stretch. Second, it’s obviously going to be a boost for efficiency for moving mail in-and-out of Milwaukee. With a significant amount of mail moving through the air, this should get it sorted and on-and-off planes faster and reduce costs for USPS. In regards to downtown Milwaukee, the Third Ward, and the Menomonee Valley, this is the start of a huge boost that has been a long time coming. The new Milwaukee Intermodal Station that is quickly becoming a well-known gateway to Milwaukee is in a terribly misused and underused area. Eliminating the Post Office and replacing it with nearly any mixed-use building would be a huge boost for the area and trigger development in underused buildings and surface parking lots across the street. The land that Milwaukee’s Central Processing Facility for USPS currently occupies is not only in a great location because of the proximity to the train station, but it sits on the Menomonee River immediately adjacent to where it merges with the Milwaukee River. Any development on the site will certainly seek to reconnect the neighborhood with the river and further foster urban Milwaukee’s image as an area that is increasingly connected with its natural capital. If you want to consider the kind of visual impact replacing the Post Office will have, consider the Harley Museum set to open soon just across the river. Not only has that development triggered another development in the Iron Horse Hotel, but it’s taken a long underused property and made it a legitimate piece of the city again. Replacing the Post Office will not only trigger development north across St. Paul Ave, but will increase the value of the Harley Museum and all of the land along that stretch of the rivers.
May 23rd, 2008 by Jeramey Jannene
Milwaukee sinks
Milwaukee has some awful public art (revolting!), and some successful public art. (sublime!) Well, we aren’t the only cities suffering from bad public art. Google “Bad Public Art” and you’ll get my drift. The Art Newspaper reports that “statues in Britain are Revolting – and so are we.” They call it an “epidemic of Frankenstein Monster Memorials.” One such monster was tagged with the suggestion, “remove this tin can.” A colossal sculpture of a couple embracing is described as “a couple who have just been refused a mortgage.” Another, depicting Nelson Mandella with outstretched arms, is quipped as “ Mandella describing the size of a fish he may have caught in his angling days.” You’ve got to hand it to the Brits’ wits. It’s no laughing matter when these disasters are parked on our front lawns, which is to say our public spaces – though if you pay attention, there are some disasters on private lawns. Bad art is viral in nature. It spreads and multiplies and divides. We’re stuck with it until it rusts, crumbles, is carted off, or hidden from sight. Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin is being bombarded by a federal arts panel who object to the depiction of Martin Luther King Jr., the model of which will become a 28-foot-tall statue. “Too confrontational,” wailed the panel. An image of the clay model was posted on AOL in May, and since everyone out there claims to be an art critic, it was put up to a vote. Milwaukee has a MLK sculpture on MLK Drive. In 2003, an 8’ x 16’ painting depicting Mr. King and various black leaders was removed from the County Courthouse’s public rotunda to a less public area. County Executive Scott Walker led the charge on the removal, causing the (then) director of the Haggerty Museum to snipe, “It’s not the job of lawyers and judges and police officers to be censuring public art.” The Haggerty had loaned the Courthouse the painting, which maybe proves it’s unwise to look a gift horse in the mouth. The flip side is that Marquette has a really bad sculpture memorializing Pere Marquette. It’s near their glorious, perfectly proportioned chapel on the west end of the campus. In the wake of Mary Louise Schumacher’s (MJS art critic) article about the proposed two-story bronze disaster memorializing lives lost in the sinking of the Lady Elgin, numerous comments, pro and con, have washed up on the media shore. A few argue for a public arts administrator to oversee what stuff goes where; others argue against that tactic and cry out for public input across the board. But who is the “public,” and why would masses of people with varying tastes be more effective? I vote for a public art administrator who knows what art is. There’s another question involved in this flap, a very basic question … what’s the point of memorializing folks who went down with the ship? Why are we looking back and wringing our hands instead of […]
May 22nd, 2008 by Stella Cretek
ANARCHY Online
the nice version Slamdance is the independent alternative to Sundance. the 3-drinks-in version Sundance is a marketing platform for sell out, studio filmmakers who pretend to be indie, Slamdance is a festival of discovery showcasing 1st time filmmakers that are DIY as fuck. Why the post? ATTENTION Milw Film Kids: If you have a short film and want to screen in Park City @ Slamdance 2009, this link is the key to the back door. http://slamdance.com/videos/categories/anarchy.html Get. On. It.
May 22nd, 2008 by Howie Goldklang
Choreographer’s triptych
In a triptych of ballet selections, The Milwaukee Ballet captured a complete repertoire of styles in Season Finale. This last performance of the 2007-2008 season showcased the entire company in extraordinary fashion through the work of several choreographers with a captivating trio of pieces: The Kingdom of Shades, Aubade and Offenbach in the Underworld. Beginning the evening with costumes in classic white tutus and coats, gilded in gold, the dancers in The Kingdom of Shades presented traditional ballet with arabesque sequences and corps divertissement. This selection from the full-length ballet La Bayadere, a love story of a temple dancer and noble warrior in legendary India, features pas de deuxs by Diana Stetsura and David Hovhannisyan. The couple danced in perfect sync, with Hovhannisyan skillfully showing the exquisite positions and pointe technique of Stetsura. Set in a tropical forest of trees, these royal dancers filled the stage as Andrew Sill conducted a portion of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra to music by Ludwig Minkus and the choreography of the ingenious and influential Marius Petipa (1818-1910). The second selection, Aubade, was a world premiere, choreographed by Milwaukee Ballet’s own Artistic Director Michael Pink as a modern interpretation of lovers leaving each other at dawn. Featuring impressive dance sequences performed by both men and women, this contemporary and romantic vision of ballet took place on a sparse stage shadowed in morning light, from lighting designer Nicholas Phillips. Smooth and evocative, this corps of ten dancers completely covered the stage as Francis Poulenc’s music played through each movement. To finish the evening and season while celebrating the 100th birthday of choreographer Antony Tudor (1908-1987), the Milwaukee Ballet performed Offenbach in the Underworld. Amid the ambiance of an Art Nouveau set similar to one of Edouard Manet’s paintings of a Paris café, Offenbach delights with stellar performances offset by comic storytelling. Three central pairs of lovers spar through dance while a legion of “local French ladies,” in plaid silk skirts and matching bowed hats, step to the music of Jacques Offenbach as arranged by George Crum. Devilishly showing their sheer black stockings and ruffled undergarments, these flirtatious dancers lifted their skirts to steal several dance scenes, especially in their rendition of the high-kicking can-can. Only the audience’s imagination could fill in the ending to the story of this 1870’s evening in Paris. When the curtains closed to silent awe, as after a burst of colorful fireworks, the audience had experienced a trio of distinct styles in ballet and choreography and the work of three prominent artists in three periods in dance history: a display of the visual and intellectual spirit of ballet, an art that is equally strenuous and elegant. This Season Finale leaves a sense of the promise of the Milwaukee Ballet’s upcoming season that will begin in fall 2008, bringing another season of richness to a company with incredible value to the city’s art community. VS
May 21st, 2008 by Peggy Sue Dunigan
Committee Approves Appointments
The items that stood out the most on the agenda were resolution 071355 and 071358. These resolutions would appoint Joel Lee and Boris Gokhman respectively to the Business Improvement District Board #41. This BID represents Downer Avenue which has been at the center of a continuous development project by New Land Enterprises. These appointments were approved but at May 20th Common Council meeting because the BID intends to rework some details and BID boundaries.
May 21st, 2008 by Dave Reid
To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday
In 1983, Michael Brady’s touching drama To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday generated a landslide of critical praise, marking Brady as a promising new playwright. Over a dozen years later, the play was adapted for a film, which bombed critically and financially. The play is still produced, but probably not as much as it deserves. The story itself may not be all that impressive, but the script impressively compensates for the plot: the dialogue is crisp, clever and inventive, and the characters carry a strikingly vivid depth. One of the quietest companies in town, Soulstice Theatre, has opened a thoroughly entertaining production of the drama that runs through the end of the month. Randall T. Anderson plays a semi-retired teacher named David who leads a reclusive life on his island home. He is having difficulty moving on from the death of his wife Gillian, a situation which is complicated by his nightly conversations with the memory of her (played with a great deal of emotional magnetism by Ana DeLorme). Anderson delivers David’s intellectual charm in a deeply articulate performance. Brady populates the rest of the play with interesting characters memorably represented by Soulstice’s cast. Hannah Richtman, a high school junior, plays David’s daughter Rachel. Rachel, concerned about her father’s inability to move on after her mother’s death while still coping with her own sense of loss, has a remarkable amount of intellectual and emotional maturity, which Richtman gracefully and admirably brings to the stage. Ellen Sommers plays her friend Cindy, who stargazes with David and Rachel at the beginning of the play. Richtman and Sommers work well together, which goes a long way toward grounding the play’s social center. They are soon joined by Rachel’s aunt Esther (Jillian Smith) and uncle Paul (Jeffrey S. Berens) who bring an old student of David’s (Amber Page) to his island home in an effort to motivate him to be less solitary. Soulstice performs the play in the Marian Center’s Academy Studio Theatre, which will be familiar to anyone who saw Dramatists Theatre show last season. It’s an intimate theatre to begin with, but Soulstice’s use of the space for this production amplifies its intimacy considerably. A stairway bisects the seating area that directly faces the stage. Those in the seats flanking the stairway are extremely close to the action. The Boulevard Theatre is known for bringing its actors close enough to touch, but Soulstice’s blocking for this production is closer to the audience than anything that I’ve seen in half a decade of covering theatre in Milwaukee. Director Char Manny places some of the most emotionally intense scenes right next to the staircase. Sit in one of those first two seats flanking the staircase and you’re only barely further away from the actors than they are from each other, imparting the feeling of almost being directly involved in some of the most intense conversations in the play. If you were any closer, you’d be in the production. The acting might not perfectly live […]
May 20th, 2008 by Russ Bickerstaff
Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares @ The Pabst Theater
By Ellen Burmeister Photo by CJ Foeckler Ecstatic, chilling, astonishing and profoundly moving: at a time in which most vocal music is digitized and synthesized to the nth degree, the sound of the Bulgarian Women’s Television Choir (known since the 1980s as “Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares” — the Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices — from their renowned, influential recordings) is a refreshing blast of reality in an increasingly homogenized global culture. Emerging from one of the lesser-known corners of Eastern Europe, this choir of about 20 women is a living example of the effects history can have on art. While many of the arrangements they performed at their May 16 appearance at the Pabst Theater are the creation of modern Bulgarian composers, the music they perform reflects the influence of past empires and invaders: Ottoman Turks, Byzantines, and even far older traditions from the ancient Greek world. Even their tone is something very different. While trained singers in the West concentrate on rounded, open tones powered from the diaphragm, the Bulgarian style comes from the throat and head. This is music meant to be performed outdoors, and its hyper-focused timbre ranges from sustained straight notes that seem to go on forever to vocal acrobatics that evoke Middle Eastern music. Starting the program arrayed across the stage in stunning regional costumes, the choir filled the pitch-perfect space of the Pabst with one amazing arrangement after another – all a capella and all memorized. These were not simple repetitive tunes, either: they broke into two, four, even six parts. The harmonies were even more astounding, “breaking the rules” with seconds, sevenths, and forays into quarter tones, gliding in and out of dissonance and resolution with ease. Add in the demands of mind-boggling rhythms and tricky diction, and the result was an entirely new exposition of the possibilities of “the choral art.” In the second half of the show, the group switched to more contemporary black concert dress. The effect was interesting; it helped to showcase the music itself, and seemed to put it in a more “modern” context (the opening number, “Mehmetyo [Girl’s Name]” included close harmonies and rhythmic undertones that evoked minimalist composer John Adams). Director Dora Hristova handled these formidable forces with ease, but this multi-generational group also exhibited the kind of ensemble sensitivity that only comes from years of practice and rehearsal. Boldly confident in their entrances, seemingly intuitive in their group interpretations, and charming in their interaction, they also easily broke off into trios, quartets, and other small groupings, some with male vocalists. This is music that definitely challenges our ideas of what choral music is all about, with its unexpected yips and cries, snippets of dialogue, and full-throated, wavering chords. Ancient and post-modern at the same time, the sound of the Bulgarian Women’s Television Choir reminds us that the human voice on its own is still the most powerful, versatile instrument ever created. VS To listen to clips of Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, visit the […]
May 20th, 2008 by Vital Archives
Southwestern Chief
There is nothing finer than riding snug in the belly of Amtrak’s Southwest Chief as it slices a wedge near Ft. Madison, Iowa, crosses the glittering Mississippi, and begins its crawl through Illinois, where the land is mostly flat. The Chief, bound for Chicago, often gives way to freight trains, but that’s okay. It gives me time enough to study the lay of the fields dotted with clusters of modest farm houses and out-buildings. From where I sit in my tiny “roomette,” the geometric clusters resemble bleached and blank-faced pieces from Monopoly games. The land embracing Mendota, Illinois (home of the Sweetcorn Festival and the Union Railroad Museum) is scattered with farm buildings that exist to serve the land. They are the last remnants of what I like to call “The Real McCoy School of Architecture.” Stripped of frou-frou, and devoid of “isms,” you betcha farmers would laugh if their buildings were referenced as “architecture.” For many years, modernist architects such as R.M. Schindler and Louis Kahn tried to re-invent simplicity by assembling squares and triangles, cubes and wedges, and yes, the finest of their efforts are beautiful in the way that a simple outbuilding on a farm is beautiful. It seems though, that when an “ism” is attached to architecture, the particular movement (for example, modernism), becomes a thing unto itself. It becomes fashionable. Certainly it may be naïve to compare the farm house squares and triangles, cubes and wedges, with the works of talented mid-century modernist architects, but on the trip north to Chicago, it occurred to me that maybe the kudos for modernism should be heaped on farmers and not architects. The plain and simple buildings they built for their families, their livestock, and their machinery, are years removed from the concept of modernist designs birthed by architects to please clients, and themselves. Entering Chicago on a train is a trip through time, and wow! Chicago, glorious Chicago, has a wealth of modernist architecture, much of which can be seen by taking a tour boat ride on the Chicago River. Or you can sit by the bronze lions fronting the Art Institute soak up the diverse wash of humanity toting Nordstrom and Ikea bags while chatting on their cell phones. Smart folks heading to Milwaukee catch The Hiawatha out of Chicago’s Union Station. Along the route is the compact and smartly designed Prairie-style building (MARS), which serves as a stylish connection to nearby Mitchell International Airport. Milwaukee’s Amtrak Station on St. Paul Avenue is currently undergoing a major re-do, complete with a glassy façade that references the 6th St. Bridge to the west, perhaps too much so, as it tends to detract from the wonderful structure, however the new station is a big leap beyond the dismal wreck it replaced. The building I live in is defined as “modernist,” and the street I live on, Prospect Avenue, was once a Sauk Indian trail. On a clear day I have a view of the pitched roofs of houses […]
May 19th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
Weekly Milwaukee Development Bookmarks
Articles from the past week covering development in Milwaukee. JS Online: Razing fees for big box stores get 2nd look JS Online: Leaky fountain adds to MacArthur Square quagmire JS Online: Housing makes surprise rebound; weakness remains Ledger-Enquirer.com | 05/15/2008 | A pizza slice of new urbanism life JS Online: Developers vie for Associated bank job JS Online: Construction trimmed on 2 hotel projects JS Online: Land gets a new lease on life Marquette to break ground on Law School building – Small Business Times Ruvin drops condos from Aloft project – Small Business Times Local tourism economy remains strong – Small Business Times Home sales still declining in Milwaukee – The Business Journal of Milwaukee: Zilber donates $50 million to start Milwaukee neighborhood effort – The Business Journal of Milwaukee: JS Online: Zilber money comes with hope JS Online: Area home sales drop JS Online: Mandel Group named to finish condo project JS Online: Will Milwaukee, like Youngstown, wither? JS Online: Building permits decline in April JS Online: Marcus plans theater complex in Park East
May 19th, 2008 by Dave Reid
Zoning Committee Halts Empowerment Village
Although, this Zoning, Neighborhoods & Development Committee meeting had a light schedule it did have one item of significance. Resolution 071292 and resolution 071181 made up the proposal for the re-zoning and sale of the city owned land located at the intersection of South Fifth Court and West Rosedale Avenue. This project which is better known as Empowerment Village pitted members in support of affordable housing versus environmental groups over a piece of city owned land. The environmental groups challenged the city’s right to sell the land and argued that during the Southeast Side Planning process this land had always been planned as a green space that would include a bike trail along the Kinnickinnic River. Alderman Michael Murphy pointed out that “we have to balance the needs”. But despite his words and Cardinal Capital‘s efforts to work with the environmental groups to alleviate their concerns by decreasing the size of the building, by paying for the bike trail to be built and by putting a conservation easement in place to protect much of the land as open space a compromise couldn’t be found. The committee voted to place on file these resolutions essentially denying this project from moving forward. The site location is pictured below via Google Maps Street View. View Larger Map
May 17th, 2008 by Dave Reid
