Plenty of Horne
The Holton Bridge Swings
Kinetic sculptures enliven the gathering place below the Holton Bridge. And Weird Al holds court in MKE.
Get a daily rundown of the top stories on Urban Milwaukee
Kinetic sculptures enliven the gathering place below the Holton Bridge. And Weird Al holds court in MKE. Back to the full article.
Photos - Page 2
Categories: Plenty of Horne
The swings are a really fun addition to the space. Very quirky, yet well-planned and well-built. If you haven’t tried them out, they’re a blast. More of this creativity in the City, please.
Side note: I certainly hope the Brady Street BID can find a way to maintain the bridge and associated urban spaces. While it was designed to withstand a good amount of abuse, it’s already in need of some care: light bulb replacement, straightening of bike racks, and surface repair to the concrete.
Weird AL rules!!!!!!!
I was one of many at the dedication of the marsupial bridge, we all heard the Mayor declare that there had already been budgeted the money to build a staircase DOWN from the marsupial on the Lakefront Brewery side. It was a sweet surprise!
Nothing has been done, the money no doubt spent elsewhere long ago. It’s a beautiful thing, that walkway, and to the extent that it is responsible for the existence of the Media Garden, it’s even more than that. But its functionality is diminished by the fact that getting DOWN from its northern/western end is harder than many of people want to bother with. No big deal on a bike, or for an inspired walker (the longer the walk the better!), but I am certain the marsupial bridge would got lots more use had the City held up its (only) end of the deal. Mr. Mayor, are you with us?
Keith – that area has been designed by La Dallman Architects: http://ladallman.com/prj_trestle_stair.html
I believe this went out for bid not long ago, with construction slated for this Spring.
Chris, you are on top of things. Unfortunately, the Marsupial Bridge is not within the Brady Street BID district boundaries, but plans are underway for some kind of funding; perhaps a non-profit. But Keith, you are right that the stairs took forever. They were removed from the plans due to budget constraints. I would have compromised elsewhere. As I wrote in 2006, Patton could have got a stairs up there in a couple of shifts. You could order them off the rack from Badger Railing. The process seems unbearably slow, especially since the connection leads to Lakefront Brewery, the area’s draw.
As much as I love the marsupial bridge, I have to say, it could stand for a bit of maintenance. Many of the foot lamps along the sides are unlit. Some of the deck boards could stand re-bolting down and many more need re-staining. An annual pressured water wash is called for to clean bird droppings and graffiti off. From what I read here, it’s unclear the where the money will come from for that, which is very unfortunate.
Given the amazing weather this past weekend, the park was packed! Many people (including myself) were there until the wee hours of the morning on Saturday night, swinging away. I am a huge fan of the Marsupial, which inspired the foundation of beintween.org, and ultimately our pop up park.
Many ask, what is it for? Why did you do this? How did you think of this? The simple answer is for fun, mostly. The way complete strangers stop and interact with one another here is fascinating, and is certainly something every city needs more of. We had been experimenting with the tire for months with the R & D of ‘matireal,’ and were inspired by the fundamental tire swing. Beyond this, it seemed an obvious choice to make use of the bridge’s structure, just like the Marsupial. The translation of this idea into a reality was only made this possible by the members of beintween and several in kind donations from Home Depot.
The park, in many ways, is an underlying example of beintween’s initiative to ‘make [art] do [work],’ as we are attempting to do with our current initiative, the artery, which would extend the Beerline Trail into the community of Harambee. For more on this project, please visit our Kickstarter @ http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keith-hayes/matireal-a-creational-trail?ref=live or have a look at our 2:1 scaled prototype now embedded in the gravel below the NW most swing.
Despite a late night on Saturday, a half dozen of us spent a full day at the park Sunday shoring up all the swings, including the replacement of two that had been since taken down. This included tying new knots, installing chained connections at the beams (rated for 3,800 lbs per swing), and inspection of the ropes and cables. We elevated each swing due to the stretching of the rope over time, and made them all parallel to the ground with a better knot system. We’ve added a horizontal brace to the bench swing to prevent some of the twisting that we’ve noted when visiting the park, as well as mesh drapery to animate the wind. The trash receptacle (made by stacking tires’ sidewalls) has been emptied and new bags installed. We also picked up a good amount of trash as well. We also installed a new swing in the northeast corner of the park for a total of 10!
beintween is happy to create so much with so little, and to repurpose illegally dumped tires in a positive way. We look forward to it gifting our pop up park to the City of Milwaukee as a permanent element in what will soon become the Marsupial Matireal Garden. We are hopeful that our installation and upkeep of this pop up park over the last two months will inspire the City to support our ‘creational trail blazing @ the artery!
How can I get to the swings? Whats the address
@Diana This is the address for the restaurant across the street from Swing Park (I don’t think it has a real address0 1758 N Water St, Milwaukee, WI 53202.