Milwaukee Favorites

Favorite thing: Classic Art Deco Office Building on the eastern side of downtown. Influenced by the classic step pyramids of Egypt and Babylonia - not to mention New York and Chicago!

Designed by the local firm of Eschweiler & Eschweiler, the Wisconsin Gas Building is sky-lit beautifully at night. And the top of the tower serves as a nightime local weather forecast: a flashing flame means precipitation within twenty-four hours! Dark red means a warming trend, gold means a coming chill, and blue signals no temperature change. Who needs the Weather Channel!

626 E. Wisconsin Ave.

Favorite thing: John Plankinton (1820-1891) is regarded as the father of the Wisconsin meat industry, and he is remembered as one of the fathers of Milwaukee as well. Originally from Delaware, he moved to Wisconsin in the 1850s and quickly became involved in the meat packing business, associating with Philip Armour and gradually creating a company with interests all over the Midwest.

The Plankinton Arcade - at 161 W. Washington - was actually created in the 1930s. It's now the centerpiece of the eastern end of the Grand Avenue Mall. It's actually quite a nice space, pleasingly proportionate and classically refined. "Meeting at the Plankinton statue" is a good idea if you have to rendez-vous with someone in downtown Milwaukee!

Favorite thing: This beautiful Beaux Arts structure once housed grand downtown department stores. The monumental facade looking out over the Milwaukee River was designed by Herman Esser. Each of the thirteen Ionic columns stands over 50 feet tall!

It was originally a Gimbels, later a Marshall Fields. Now Borders occupies the ground floor - I'm not sure what (if anything) is above.

2 more images

Favorite thing: You could also call this the "Arch building," as the designer, Solon Spencer Beman, was certainly extravagantly fond with the Romanesque rounded arch - he used 72 of them on the facade of this structure!

It was originally created as the headquarters of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, which may partially explain its decorative extravagance. Let Joseph Korom, author of the handy book "Milwaukee Architecture," describe the exuberance within: "The 611 Building has one of the most magnificent interiors in Wisconsin, featuring colorful marble walls, decorative iron newel posts (capped by spiked, polished copper finials), and two-story ionic columns. Dazzling ceramic tile patterns in the floor form a colorful nineteenth-century tapestry. A light court, surrounded by office windows and elevators, rises from the second floor to a great glass and iron canopy, a web of trusses, and more than 2000 translucent glass squares that allow sunlight into this grand space."

Favorite thing: Did you realize that in the 1870s, Milwaukee was the WORLD'S LARGEST port for wheat? And that Milwaukee also was home to the world's largest wheat commodity market? The Grain Exchange Building was built to house not only the offices of the merchants who presided over this world grain market, but also to be home for the octagonal trading floor where buying and selling in large quantities took place.

Local banker and railway entrepreneur Alexander Mitchell financed the construction of the Grain Exchange Building in 1879. He hired prominent local architect Edward Townsend Mix (also responsible for the nearby All Saints Cathedral and St. Paul's Episcopal Church) to create a six story Italianate structure, complete with the 175 foot bell tower which rises from its center.

Alexander Mitchell (1817-1887) was was one of the great figures from the Gilded Age of Milwaukee's industrialization. He was also President of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, and the South Dakota town of Mitchell (home of the famous Corn Palace) was named after him. Mitchell's son John was a prominent US Senator from Wisconsin, and his grandson William (aka "Billy Mitchell") was a prominent World War I aviator - after who Milwaukee's "Mitchell International Airport" is named.

Favorite thing: Another successful rehab in the Third Ward, the Buffalo Building is a good example of creative reuse. It was built in 1900 for Phoenix Hosiery Company - they made socks here! Later, space inside was used by a variety of textile manufacturers and clothiers. lots of south-facing windows - the light must be very good.

Now space inside is divided between office, retail, and residential. I like the fact that there are a variety of different uses in a single building.

Favorite thing: The Renaissance Building is a prime example of the warehouse chic that has been transforming older cities around the world.

A local filmmaker has created a documentary about the Renaissance Building which I'd like to see sometime. Apparently the structure was first renovated by a creative and free-spirited collective of artists and crafters who used it as studio and retail space. When well-heeled suburbanites "discovered" the place, it helped make the Third Ward fashionable and chic. But before too long, rising rents and "mainstreaming" forced the artist right-brain types out, and none of the original rehabbers are still there. It's a familiar story-cycle of urban renewal: capitalism working in the same way as forest regeneration.

Favorite thing: Like so many cities, Milwaukee has been redeveloping its older warehouse district into condos, shops and restau-bars for the smart urban set.

Handscome six and seven story redbrick structures line broad boulevards, often backing up to the rivers which were important thoroughfares of commerce in the 19th century. The creative class has discovered the appeal of this place with a sense of Place, but there's still a great deal of untapped potential here.

Myself, I only recently "discovered" the appeal of the Third Ward - which is conveniently located just to the south of the downtown center. But I'll be back often - and I have the sense that the Third Ward neighborhood is going to be an important anchor of downtown Milwaukee for decades to come.