This is My Milwaukee: This is My Home
After reading the A.V. Club’s commentary regarding the JSOnline blog, “This is My Milwaukee”, I was inspired to share the specifics of my own nostalgia and love affair with this fine city. Milwaukee and I have had a tumultuous relationship akin to anything or anyone you have known your entire life. I’m a native, born and partially raised. I went →
27: Milwaukee Central Library
In the last month, the Central Library has been a regular part of my regimen. It’s a remarkable building, the atrium especially: a glorious dome ceiling, elegant marble piers and balustrades, and a mosaic floor. Milwaukee architects George Bowman Ferry and Alfred C. Clas received the commission based on their Beaux Arts design following a national competition held to find →
RazedontheRoad
Razed is taking a brief interlude from the daily activities...in New Orleans.
Day 13: Sunrise
Sunrise is the sort of place I have in mind when I talk about buildings that are a part of our daily lives. Countless people pass by the neighborhood market while commuting via Locust Street, a continual succession of neighborhood residents stream in and out of its doors on a daily basis, and more often than not I →
Locust Street Festival: Celebrate Riverwest!
Locust Street Festival has for the past several years has been one of my favorite weekend festivals/block parties. It’s the kick off to festival season and an official sign of summer. Beer in the street, the one day a year to have breakfast at Nessun Dorma, live music, and familiar faces at every turn. This may be old news to →
Anchoring Walker’s Point, J.L. Burnham Block
A brick-maker’s sons, New York natives Jonathan L. and George Burnham came to Milwaukee in 1843. The men pioneered Milwaukee’s brick industry; cream city brick: the City’s other namesake. As early as the spring of 1844, the brothers were making brick in the Menomonee River Valley, the steep banks of the valley proved the easiest place to extract Milwaukee’s stock →
The Grand Hostelries of the Fifth Ward
Just over the Water Street Bridge leaving the Third Ward, one enters the northeast corner of Walker’s Point. As South First Street curves into the south side from East Seeboth Street to East Pittsburgh Avenue, immediately on the right hand side sits an enigmatic, triangular median surrounded by the hardly distinguishable remnants of a once thriving hostelry district. As it →
A Chronicle of A.F. Gallun and Sons Demolition: The North Building
After little over a month, the Gallun Tannery building at the north end of the complex has been reduced to it's foundation, scattered debris, and an open view of the condos across the river. Below are a collection of the images I took on my way to work over the last month.
Herman’s Railway Exchange Building
This week I’m steering away from the little-known-near-ruins that have frequented my blog posts and turning to what may or may not be a lesser appreciated downtown skyscraper, the Railway Exchange Building at 229 East Wisconsin Avenue. The idea arose after a friend proclaimed his ardor for the building to which I posed the question: Do people know how great it is? Aesthetically, →
In Defense of the Historic Preservation Commission
Milwaukee’s historic structures are our legacy, beacons of our heritage standing as structural documentation of our ancestry and the stories of the generations that came before us. The five buildings threatened by demolition for the proposed Marriott hotel are a significant structural component of Milwaukee’s history; they are irreplaceable. Each loss of historic buildings damages the charm and character of →
Auf Wiedersehen, Gallun
On Tuesday demolition of the vacant Gallun Tannery building began. I had the opportunity to watch some of the first anti-climactic blows that took apart the southwest corner of the building as each muffled crack of the wrecking ball sent a cluster of bricks and mortar to the ground. A portion of the buildings south facing wall was blown off in →
Chief Lippert Fire Station
With the holidays behind us, it’s back to the matters at hand that being buildings to know, cherish, and appreciate. Thus I bring forward another long time object of admiration and another building that may lie on either side of veneration or disdain as those near ruins seem to be amongst my favorite in the city. Located at the northeast →
In the Efforts of Compromise, Commission conditionally approves demolition
After a lengthy public hearing, Milwaukee’s Historic Preservation Commission approved the demolition of five historic buildings in the East Side Commercial Historic District under the condition that the facades of the existing buildings will be restored and new construction should be set behind them. Concerning new construction, the Commission deferred the request to build the new hotel for thirty days →
The Issue with Neglect
Before we get knee deep in building histories and the desire to preserve, I think it is necessary to shed light on what has inspired this blog in the first place, buildings that have been razed in Milwaukee, and what more often than not leads to this happening. While some occurrences of building destruction our out of our hands, like →
Looking Up
Welcome to RazedinMilwaukee. My name is Megan E. Daniels. This is my blog. I would like to take a moment here to lay out my intentions for what lies ahead. Through regular posts and images, I aspire to provide Milwaukee’s residents with the City’s architectural history by discussing the historic buildings, neighborhoods and preservation concerns currently arising in Milwaukee, to make known →