2008 Near North Side Area Plan Online Survey
In January of 2008 the Near North Side Area planning process got underway with a Kick-Off event held at Eaton Corporation. Today the Department of City Development launched an online survey asking residents for their input into the planning process. If you have thoughts on what will further the growth and development of the Near North Side Area, which includes part of the vitally important 30th St. Industrial Corridor as well as parts of the 1st, 6th, 7th, and 15th Aldermanic districts, then you can participate by completing the Near North Side Area Plan Survey.
Apr 18th, 2008 by Dave Reid
DNR Open House on 30th Street Corridor
Fitzsimonds Boys and Girls Club Cafeteria 3400 W. North Avenue Milwaukee, WI More Information
Apr 18th, 2008 by Dave Reid
Three Signs
I am superstitious, so I’m wondering what’s coming our way based on three signs I was given this morning. 1. A practically mythical turtle, whose singularly rare appearance is supposed to portend a major event, has been found by Cleveland Metroparks Zoo researchers in a lake in Vietnam. 2. An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale shook southern Illinois early this morning. Its epicenter was 38 miles northwest of Evansville and the quake was felt as far away as Florida. 3. I hit 92% of the notes in AFL’s “Miss Murder” on Guitar Hero 3. I was playing on medium, but 4 stars is 4 stars, and unprecedented. As recently as last night I could only hit 79%, but this morning I passed 90% twice. What does it all mean?
Apr 18th, 2008 by Jon Anne Willow
Walking on air
This is the best time of year. The best. Someone I used to know called it “that summer feeling.” It’s not summer yet, not by a longshot — there aren’t even leaves on the trees — but you can FEEL it coming. You can smell meat grilling and grass getting heavy, see hot sun on bare shoulders. You can let yourself wear shoes without socks or leave your sweater in the car. It’s enough to make you delirious. Every little beautiful thing becomes monumental. Walking to the Public Market for lunch. Buying flowers. The trains passing, the bells on the drawbridges ringing as the bridges raise for cargo boats. Driving with the window down and turning up the radio a little louder. The wind sucks a yellow curtain through an open window and it blows out there all day like a greeting to the passengers on the Amtrak. The barista you love surprises you by knowing your name! Isn’t that something! The egg salad sandwich you order for lunch (from What’s Fresh, perhaps) is delicious! God almighty! The moon is out and it illuminates the hem of the clouds! It’s a miracle! Walking north in Riverwest a few days ago, I hallucinated the lake on the horizon. It was early morning, the sun was fresh and every blue thing in eyeshot (in this case, a far-off warehouse) took on a grandeur that could only be explained as lake-ness. Perhaps I’m disoriented, I thought. Maybe I’m headed east. Perhaps the lake has always been in this direction. Of course, feeling like a gleeful tourist in my own life really calls into question the stability of any relationship I have with my emotional world. If all it takes to turn around the bone-dry melancholy of the late winter is a warm breeze, a little luck and a lot of sunshine, how did I understand anything that happened between January and March in a genuine way? Is it possible that this sense I have of majesty, affirmation and the fundamental rightness of the universe, despite all reports that would lead me to believe otherwise, is just a whim? A function — nay, side-effect — of some fairly routine meteorological phenomena? Probably. But I don’t care. Tonight my inside man at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (to protect his professional integrity, I won’t say who, though you can probably guess) wrangled me a fabulous seat for Music Director Designate Edo De Waart‘s debut engagement, conducting Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Due to some serious dawdling on my part, I missed my hand-off and was provided with further instructions to look for my ticket in the grating under the first tree to the left of the stage door. Surreptitiously I snapped up the goods (the triumphant absurdity! picking up a ticket to THE SYMPHONY off of THE GROUND, like some lucky accident!) and hustled into the Marcus Center, feeling windswept, sweaty and a little conspicuous in beat-up black boots and big fur-hooded vest in a cocktail-hour, nice-cologne […]
Apr 18th, 2008 by Amy Elliott
Friday, 18. April 2008 Photos
The Residences on Water St. Catherine Residence Harley Davidson Museum
Apr 18th, 2008 by Dave Reid
Milwaukee Vodka Maker Moving to Walker’s Point
FO BEVERAGES A HOBBY Originally uploaded by strobist Great Lakes Distillery, Milwaukee’s local vodka distiller, is moving their operations from Capital and Holton to 616 W Virginia St in The Tannery complex of buildings. This has been picked up by a lot of other sources (including the JS, The Daily Reporter, RNN, and the Business Journal) so I’m not going to bore you with details on what it includes, but the tours sound great. I’m more concerned with what it means for the city. Guy Rehorst wanted more space, and he could have went anywhere in the metro-area and still called got away with calling it Milwaukee’s vodka. He chose to stay in urban Milwaukee though. Why? I haven’t talked to him directly, but here’s a couple guesses. It’s nice being close to your customers. It’s also a plus when you’re located by a Harley museum to generate a steady stream of customers for your tours. Being in a historic tannery building feels cool too, one could imagine. What does his business mean to Milwaukee? Realistically, not a lot of jobs directly, but there are other benefits. Everyone involved in local alcohol production deserves a huge round of applause from me, as do the people that drink it. Milwaukee is going to drink it’s share of alcohol, so it’s best that it’s made in Milwaukee. Every time you sip Rehorst compared to Absolut more money is staying in Milwaukee. Same with Lakefront, Water Street, and Alehouse beers vs Budweiser (and yes, even Miller). So while none of these distilleries create massive amounts of jobs, they keep wealth from leaving the city, and hopefully long-term bring wealth in (as they ultimately sell outside 124th Street). They also have this huge marketability asset that makes all of them being so close together so great. They’re great places to go. Now Guy’s tour is not running yet, but I imagine it’ll be something people talk about. It’s yet one more thing for people to do in urban Milwaukee (see: Fonz statue) that isn’t enough to draw people to come here on their own, but adds to a mixing pot of great things that make Milwaukee special compared to somewhere huge like Atlanta or small like Janesville. Milwaukee is a great place to be and with entrepreneurs like Guy Rehorst, isn’t anywhere close to losing it’s alcohol heritage, even with Miller moving to Chicago or Dallas (yeah, I said it).
Apr 16th, 2008 by Jeramey Jannene
In Praise of Mike Gousha
We are a polarized society on so many things but there is at least one thing that people of all political stripes can agree on; local television news is a vast wasteland. Chicago attorney Newton Minow used that term in reference to all of television way back during the Kennedy administration when he served as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Much has changed in the nearly half century since Minow chastised the broadcasters who were responsible for the thin gruel then beamed into America’s living rooms. We’ve seen highs and lows in most everything including network news, children’s programming, prime time comedy, drama, game shows, so-called reality shows, etc., etc. But when it comes to local news, broadcast television has been a remarkable disappointment, failing to live up to its potential to contribute to an informed, involved population so overwhelmingly and completely that there is really no argument. Let’s look at the evidence… Almost every day the average local news broadcast proves worthy of the phrase that critics use to demean and dismiss the field; “If it bleeds, it leads.” Correspondents and camera crews stand ready to respond anytime a local resident falls victim to violence leading to the obligatory live standup with the breathless reporter on the scene in front of the obligatory yellow police tape. That is, unless a weather event threatens to affect rush hour traffic, in which case the usually attractive “talent” (at least that’s how industry professionals refer to the folks who go in front of the camera) get to stand bundled up against the elements, often with affected traffic visible behind them. But let’s face it, coverage of crime and potentially serious weather events are dwarfed by the true raison d’etre of local television news here in Milwaukee and that’s keeping track of the Green Bay Packers. It’s probably unfair to refer to the extensive coverage of Brett Favre to describe this phenomenon since there is something truly extraordinary about his relationship with Wisconsin. The former Packer quarterback, and it pains even me to refer to him in the past tense, is like royalty and arguably many, probably most, of the viewing population in the Milwaukee media market feel a deep, personal connection with Favre that is something like family. “All Brett, All the Time” came to an apocalyptic crescendo recently when Favre announced that he would indeed retire. It happened to come on the day that cycling superstar and cancer advocate Lance Armstrong was traveling across Wisconsin with Gov. Doyle to support the proposed legislation to ban smoking in all workplaces including bars. Before Favre’s statement was released, inviting Armstrong seemed to be a stroke of brilliance. The biking icon’s popularity is quite high and his commitment to fighting cancer and promoting health issues is sincere and, well, strong. Not only were his personal appearances guaranteed to attract press attention but his appeal to male sports fans would draw the attention of a demographic not always sympathetic to health promotion issues. […]
Apr 16th, 2008 by Ted Bobrow
A Streetcar Named Desire
It’s the most depressing play I’ve seen in over a year. I checked. Tennessee Williams didn’t just want to tell a sad story — he wanted to agonize about it for eleven relentless scenes. He might not have known at the time that he was writing what was destined to be one of the most respected works of American drama to come out of the twentieth century, but he knew how to tell a story people wanted to remember. This month, Blanche, Stella, Stanley and all the rest of the characters from 1940’s New Orleans renew their suffering on the stage of the Sunset Playhouse in Elm Grove. Director Mark Salentine has said that he wanted to go back to Williams’ original Broadway script, which focuses on the plight of Blanche DuBois, played here by Mary C. DeBattista. DeBattista renders an impressively complex performance as a fading beauty with faltering psycho-emotional stability. Angela Beyer makes a solid contrast as Stella, exuding an earth-bound pragmatism that fits really well in the role. As Stella’s husband Stanley, Andy North grounds his aggression with a driven, stubborn emotional gravity that maintains the dynamic between the three principals. This isn’t a perfect vision of imperfection. Environmental sounds are extremely flat and musical scoring added to amplify the intensity proves more of a distraction than an enhancement of the atmosphere. But few minor flaws aside, this is one of the best productions Salentine has directed in recent years. The flow of movement and emotion across the stage is impressively well-modulated. The full ensemble immerses the production in an organic atmosphere aided by a realistic J. Michael Desper set and fight choreography by Gene Schuldt. It’s difficult to make stage fighting convincing, but as we’ve seen before, Schuldt does well with messy brawls; his fight choreography is particularly graphic. His talent is in perfect form here to show the full brutality of drunken human aggression. And then there’s the smoke, which creates an intense sensory atmosphere that drives home the earthiness of the production. I’ve seen and smelled cigarettes wafting across an audience before. Sometimes the smell of cigarette smoke in an auditorium brings the reality of a character or two into the audience in a novel way. In this production, there are only one or two characters in the entire show that don’t smoke. Stanley’s got a few guys over for a poker game and there are at least four lit cigarettes onstage. The smell of cigarettes, however brief, fills the entire auditorium. A hazy miasma rises into the stage lights. This is a gritty, gritty production, perhaps the darkest Sunset production in years. VS Sunset Playhouse’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire runs through May 3. For more information call the Sunset Playhouse box office at 262-782-4430 or visit the Sunset online.
Apr 16th, 2008 by Vital Archives
Be a Friend of Milwaukee’s Rivers at the 13th Annual Spring Cleanup!!!
It’s that time of year again-the winter snow has melted away, and spring is here! In an effort to curb the degradation of Milwaukee’s three rivers and connect people to their water resources, Friends of Milwaukee’s Rivers is organizing its 13th annual Spring River Cleanup. The cleanup will take place on Saturday, April 19 at 36 locations throughout the Milwaukee area, stretching from Milwaukee’s South Side to West Bend. Volunteers will work from 9 am until noon, pulling tires, shopping carts, bottles, cans and other trash out of the rivers and adjacent parkways. Last year over two thousand volunteers turned out to clean the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic Rivers. Many schools, community groups and organizations will collaborate with Friends of Milwaukee’s Rivers to participate in the cleanup. Partners include Alverno College, Brewer Company, CH2M Hill, Eastbrook Church, Friends of Hank Aaron State Trail, Groth Design Group, Menomonee Valley Partners, Milwaukee County Parks, Public Allies, Sixteenth Street Community Health Center, Trout Unlimited, Unitarian Universalist Church West, University School of Milwaukee, UW-Milwaukee Service Learning Department and Urban Ecology Center. Visit milwaukeerivercleanup.org for site map and other information.
Apr 16th, 2008 by Vital Archives
Celebrate 7 Years of STRIPWAX at the Hi-Fi!
Come see one of VITAL’s own amazing artists this May at Hi-Fi. You won’t want to miss it!
Apr 16th, 2008 by Vital Archives
