Passing Through

My wife, Maria, is leaving Historic Milwaukee Inc (HMI). She needs to find a job that will pay her more money. I understand that and support her in that quest.

Ironically, I'm getting more involved with HMI. I've completed guide training and soon will be mentored on how to conduct a tour for our patrons. Specifically, I will be trained to conduct the Brady Street Twilight Tour.

Brady Street is one of those neighborhoods that has gone through a lot of life times and a lot of people in it's history. It is a now a thriving neighborhood of boutique businesses and home to residents, who, to the suburban and rural residents of this area, would kindly referred to as colorful.

Yesterday, I worked on the annual fund raiser event called Spaces and Traces. Every year HWI selects a neighborhood and focus's on it for one day. Multiple vintage and historical homes, buildings and businesses, churches and public buildings are featured. We place guides at these locations, who educate the visitors on the significance of these sites, both historically and architecturally.

This year we worked in Bayview. Presently Bayview is experiencing a renewal that is both welcome and yet greeted with suspicion and uncertainty by the long time residents. Par of the welcoming is a regeneration of business and job activity. Small, locally owned businesses seem to be opening daily. The restaurants, flower shops and other speciality stores, while not competing with the big box retail stores in the suburbs, are making many of these neighborhoods walkable and homey.

The trepidation arises from, well, change. It seems any change creates the feeling of facing the unknown. One of the things that seems to be a unifying target in Bayview is the concept of condominiums. For some reason the idea of anyone building condo's in Bayview is liken to betrayal of local mores and a betrayal of values.

Now, you have to understand that just to the North of the Bayview area is another area known as the third ward. This formerly was a district of warehouses and industrial buildings. Those buildings have been revived as condominiums. Teeming with young professionals and empty Nester's, who are returning to the city, these Third Ward condo's portray an image that is just plain anathema to a long time Bayviewer. They simply don't want it in Bayview. I suspect they have nothing to worry about, but any effort such as the condo's that are being built on the edge of Bayview on Kinnickinnic and Beecher, are greeted with derision and disgust.

Part of the problem is that in this neighborhood of puddler's cottages and beautiful old homes that are for the most part well taken care of and owner occupied, some one plopped a high rise apartment building that is, and there is no way to say this kindly, ugly. You can't blame the locals for their suspicion when you witness this blight on an otherwise great neighborhood.

Change will happen in Bayview and if the residents stay engaged, they will influence the direction of that change can be influenced. That in itself is good thing. Reality rises up when you look at the axiom of land use versus value. You simply can not build single family dwellings on property that is surrounded by high rise buildings in Downtown Milwaukee. Basically the higher the price, the higher the building is a good rule of thumb.

In my opinion, Bayview is not in danger of this kind of development yet. However, as the middle class is shrinking and home ownership is becoming more difficult. The substance of these older neighborhoods was established by the growing middle class of the early and middle twentieth century. What is sad is that the middle class of today may have trouble affording them.