New on the airwaves

88nine, RadioMilwaukee, started broadcasting in its new format this week. I have to wonder if Milwaukee's ready for two independent radio stations.

I'm a huge fan of WMSE, the city's alternative station for many years. They've hooked me on Americana, Latino, rockabilly, and soul, and furthered my fondness for blues, old rock, and pop of many flavors. I swear by the Chicken Shack and Way Back Home.

That said, WMSE often isn't terribly radio-friendly. Their willingness to push boundaries and expectations often means they'll play stuff that is a turn-off to someone who wants to listen to "good music" and doesn't want to hear "Hotel California" for the ten thousandth time -- be it screechy Indian pop, screaming hardcore metal, broken-voiced primative folk music, or painfully unmelodic and atonal free jazz. (WMSE has taught me to hate free jazz.)

In the evenings, Milwaukee's NPR affiliate, 89.7 WUWM, also offers music in a similar vein of "diverse but appoachable pop", but it's often rather low key and... well... boring. Saturday at the Cafe used to drive me nuts. I wanted to call them up and yell at them: "It's SATURDAY!! It's the best time of the week! It's a happy time! It's beautiful and sunny outside! PLAY SOMETHING PEPPY!!!" The syndicated World Cafe plays good music but frequently diverges into 15-20 minute interviews which get very annoying if you just want some background music. So while I appreciate WUWM, I've never fallen in love with it as I have WMSE.

This new station seems to be pushing to grab those listeners who like diversity but aren't always up for WMSE's often challenging playlists, and want a bit more zing than WUWM is willing to offer. In that, they sound much like Philadelphia's 88.5 WXPN, creators of the World Cafe. It's a format that I've long hoped would find commercial success, but I'll accept this instead.

So far, I don't think WMSE and RadioMilwaukee are really in direct competition with each other; WMSE's format focuses more on intense exploration of various genres, whereas this new station seems more about maintaining a relatively even keel, touching on a bit of this, a bit of that. It suits people who might like reggae or hip hop, but don't want to sit through three solid hours of it. They're different approaches. I just hope that it will expand the base of member-supported listeners, rather than drawing away WMSE's base.

I wonder how long Milwaukee can support two independent radio stations. Few cities are so lucky. Enjoy it while it lasts, folks.

Some recent stories of interest:

- Riverwest Currents reports on progress at the North Avenue reservoir, which is being taken apart and rebuilt into park space. I drive past this thing going to and from work, and keep meaning to write something about it, but they say more than I could -- and have better photos to boot.

- A Whitney Gould column reflects on opposition to construction projects and how it can negatively impact developers' ability to do work in the city... as well as the quality of the final product.

- From the Journal-Sentinel, the 11-story condo has cleared another hurtle with approval from a review panel of the Common Council.

- From the Shepherd-Express, two differing visions of regional rail transit around Milwaukee.

Blegh! I biked to work today, taking advantage of temperatures around freezing. After three weeks of temps see-sawing around zero, it felt absolutely tropical.

Sadly, there's a month's worth of muck on the roads, well-stirred by the intense humidity of melting snow. By the time I got to Brady Street, I had half of Wisconsin splattered on my bike and myself.


Also: those condos on N. Prospect still have that botched up pavement in the bike lanes, and again it nearly killed me as I headed home this evening. They've also taken up more of the lane with a construction fence and a pile of shoved-aside snow. Annoying!


Also also: Unrelated to anything urban, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band at Potawatami's Northern Lights Theater were awesome. Happy Mardi Gras!

Milwaukee's Discussion Void

As I skim back over my just-posted take on a St. Louis development proposal, I'm struck by how many links I ended up putting in it. It's amazing how many people in St. Louis are already discussing it, just days after its announcement.

The contrast is stark: I challenge you to find any comparable discussion among the residents of Milwaukee. Apart from this blog, and one or two other bloggers who occasionally touch on issues of urbanism, architecture and development, there's nothing. Silence. A void. There simply is no online community discussing the physical form of Milwaukee or its future. There's Whitney Gould at the Journal-Sentinel, and then nothing.

Granted, Milwaukee can afford to rest on its laurels a bit -- our last Mayor went on to become president of the Congress for the New Urbanism. When Norquist first came to town, he saw a new Walgreens on Brady Street with a ghastly parking lot in front of it. "Why'd you build it like that??" he asked the developer. "'Cause that's what the code says we had to do!" was the answer. So he promptly set about changing the code. Then he tore down the Park East freeway; we're just starting to fill in the 16 acres of downtown land that it opened up. It's Milwaukee's poor fortune that he was unable to tear down the 794 approach to the lake and the Hoan Bridge; replacing it with a surface boulevard would have connected downtown to the 3rd Ward, to the benefit of both.

Now we see the results of all that, as urban buildings are popping up like weeds all over downtown and the East Side.

Milwaukee's damn lucky that way. In St. Lous, outdated zoning laws mean that every last bit urbanism must be fought for, tooth and claw. It's a case-by-case battle, never-ending and often lost. In Milwaukee, people complain because our neighborhood density is increasing. But we don't know how good we've got it.

"We'll never be like Chicago!"

Having lived and debated both north and south of the Windy City, I have heard Chicago brought up many times as an example of how to carry out some particular aspect of urban design and planning. And without fail, somebody will pop up with the stock local pride response: "St. Louis/Milwaukee isn't Chicago! And we shouldn't try to be!"

It drives me crazy, because it completely misses the point.

Chicago, while plagued with the same problems that most Rust Belt cities must deal with, is a highly successful urban environment when compared to most American cities. It packs considerable population density across a large area, enough to support a busy and thriving mass transit system. The rail portion of that system succeeds because it runs so frequently that it's a viable alternative to driving. It's desirable not to drive because things are so dense, parking so scarce. Things are dense because a large volume of historic buildings have been preserved, and where they have been destroyed they've been replaced by buildings of greater density. It has both major chains and small local stores. It has a diversified economy, fueled by this variety of scales. It has busy street life. It has, in short, all the hallmarks of a true urban environment.

But those are not the trappings of some kind of mythical aura of Chicagoness that if emulated will turn all your citizens into zombie Bears fans. They are the basic requirements of any successful urban environment, regardless of its size. They apply across the board -- in Chicago, in New York, in San Francisco, and yes, in St. Louis and Milwaukee.

Build upon those things, and your city succeeds. Diminish them, work against them, allow developers to build sprawl instead of density, and your city fails.

It is not about becoming Chicago; it is about becoming an urban environment, and Chicago is the closest example one that works. Your city may never "be like Chicago" in whatever other ways you're thinking of (certainly it's unlikely to match Chicago's population), but it would do well to learn some of Chicago's lessons. They transcend any one location.

Milwaukee to Chicago and back

I travel regularly between Milwaukee and Chicago, and have taken to using the train and bus options.

The newly-instituted Megabus has made non-car transit a great deal easier. Their every-few-hours schedule synchs up nicely with Amtrak's, giving travellers a wide array of departure choices.

Price-wise, Megabus stands to give Amtrak a beating. Buy your tickets the day of travel, and it's $9.50 one way; buy a month ahead, and the price drops as low as $3 to $1. Amtrak charges $21 one way, regardless of the time of purchase. $40 for a Chicago day trip has long seemed very steep to me, though perhaps because my basis for comparison is the $24 I used to pay to travel round trip from Philadelphia to New York on regional rail. The Milwaukee area's lack of a regional rail system puts it at a big disadvantage here, and Megabus is stepping in to fill the gap. Even paying for a couple of days' worth of parking at the Milwaukee train station, I still come out way ahead with the bus.

Service-wise... I've had problems with both. Megabus is of course subject to the unpredictable fluctuations of Chicago traffic, which can leave passengers standing at the curbside at length. A bus today was unable to make a return trip, causing a half-hour delay while a replacement arrived; the replacement smelt of exhaust fumes the whole trip back.

Megabus also has an annoying inconsistency with labelling their buses; sometimes a flashing marquee announces the destination, sometimes a printed board, and sometimes... nothing. Today I boarded a bus for Milwaukee whose marquee announced it was bound for Minneapolis. We had to stop and let one guy off who was on the wrong bus.

Amtrak seems just as prone to mechanical difficulties as the bus; one of my last few trips was on a train with a malfunctioning locomotive, causing it to pull in an hour late; another arrived late enough to cause me to miss a Metra connection. Conflicts with freight trains can also cause delays.

Amtrak has the clear leg up when it comes to dignity of service, with full-service stations at each end -- even though both are unfortunate products of the 1960s. The Milwaukee station was long a rather depressing iteration of Modernism:



But it is currently undergoing a complete reconstruction:



The rebuilding will provde it with a spacious, light-filled waiting area, replacing a dim, low-ceilinged, dingy space.

Chicago still retains half of its original Union Station:


That's the western half, containing its spectular Grand Hall, one of the finest public spaces in the city:



But the concourse to the east, the more heavily-used place where one actually boarded the trains, was replaced by a one-story warren in the 1960s.



The train shed beyond is singularly unremarkable, a space with absolutely no concessions to nicety, comfort or beauty:



But, at least it keeps the rain off. And the waiting areas are comfortable, if not particularly beautiful.



Megabus, by contrast, provides absolutely nothing, picking up passengers at curbside -- up the street from the Amtrak station in Milwaukee, and in the taxi drop-off area in Chicago:



The situation, already chaotic with the comings and goings of taxis, cars, and city buses, is made worst still by the enormous Coach USA buses trying to load and unload crowds of people. Megabus service to Minneapolis, Madison, St. Louis, and elsewhere also departs from here.

Amtrak in Chicago has fired a shot in response to this hijacking of their own facilities by their competition:


On a February day with a high just barely above zero, Megabus customers don't seem inclined to listen:



Time-wise... my destination is usually in northern Chicago, which means I have to catch a Metra train and backtrack a ways. All told it tends to add up to about 2.5 - 3 hours, whereas driving it can be as little as 90 minutes.

But whether I'm taking the bus or the train, I find it infinately more enjoyable than driving. When I drive I tend to arrive frazzled, tired, and stressed. When I'm riding, I can read, nap, listen to music, and arrive feeling refreshed. It's also better for the environment.

At any rate, it's good to see Megabus doing a healthy business. I figure that a lot of people would simply drive if Amtrak was their only alternative; this way, they get introduced to the convenience of mass transit, at a price that's affordable. Anything that gets cars off the highway, and promotes the usefulness of mass transit in the eyes of Milwaukee's population, can only be a good thing.

There's Still Crime in the City

(Duplicate post from my St. Louis blog.)



So now I'm doin' it my way
I took the law in my hands

USA Today: Cities see crime surge as threat to their revival

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Violent crime leaps in city

Time Magazine: The Next Crime Wave

From an interview with outgoing Milwaukee chief of police Nan Hagerty:

First of all, it’s important for people to realize that, as a police department, we end up with problems that are many times created because of society. You’re talking about a lack of jobs. Years ago, there were people who could get good, family-supporting jobs in factories with very little education, work for 25 years and retire with a retirement benefit. That is when Milwaukee was the safest city in the nation. All of those jobs have left.

With those lack of jobs has come an increase in the rate of poverty, a teen pregnancy rate in Milwaukee that’s just out of this world, and, of course, all of the other things that come with that.

Same issue, the Milwaukee Shepherd-Express's response to the Time story.

From Flickr.com user Boxchain: March Against Crime in New Orleans, with some very large and very angry crowds.

In my own life, my housemate's car was stolen, someone got mugged on the street right in front of our house, a co-worker's car was broken into, two more cars on the same lot were broken into this week, and my own car has been rifled through twice in the last few months (lost my MP3 player, the only time I've left anything valuable in the car in years. Damn!!) A lady was punched in the face by a random guy a few blocks from my girlfriend's Chicago apartment. Over in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood (analogous to West Philadelphia, or to a lesser extent, Old North St. Louis), a group has started a foot patrol to help keep some eyes on the streets during peak bar hours.

People want to flee from it, run away to the suburbs, move further and further and further out, as if running away will solve the problem.

It won't. The problem always catches up, no matter how far you run.

You look around and suddenly your 1950s suburb is going down hill, the "wrong people" are starting to move in, and oh crap, it's time to leap outwards to the next ring of the peripheral exurban rim. (And hey, guess what? Scientists have just informed us that we can't afford to keep running anymore.)

The whole system is broken, just unbelievabley broken. We've created an entire underclass of unemployed people who see no prospects, no hope, no future, who have become culturally engrained to oppose anything that might resemble progress or self-improvement. Guns get tossed around like candy and fired off like firecrackers. People are just crazy out there.

And it all spirals onwards because we allow our animalistic craving for revenge, for punishment, override our human sensibility, our rational thought processes. We're locking up more people now than ever before, and can we really say it's working? Of course not. We aren't doing jack to improve these people, to give them hope, treatment, training, a path to follow once they're released, a plan, prospects, a place to go. They get back on the street and they're right back at it. What else do we actually expect them to do??

And it's killing my cities, the places that I love, the all-too-rare man-made places in America that are truly beautiful and humanizing -- not to mention the places that are our best hope for the future, the kind of places that we all need to be re-compacting ourselves into if we're ever to curb our auto-based carbon emissions so we don't wreck the entire goddamn planet and wipe ourselves out in the process. It doesn't matter if we manage to dig up any more oil or not, because the atmosphere simply can't handle our current carbon output. Technology will. not. save us. Urban, non-auto-centric living will, but don't count on our *expletives deleted* president to tell you that. Hell, no politician is ever likely to; it's not a very popular thing to say. It would actually challenge people to change their life styles.

The cities are our future -- as a nation, as a civilized society, as a species. They must be fought for, defended, with both determination and intelligence. They must be rebuilt to accomdate all our population, not just the rich or the poor or the people inbetween. I'd really hope that we might be able to save a few old buildings in the process, because so much of what we build today just isn't very nice to look at compared to what we built a hundred years ago... but in the end that's less important than heading off a global catastrophe and maybe building some cities that are actually good places to walk, work, play, and live in... without a space-consumptive, carbon-spewing automobile.

Coffee Shop for Sale

Node, the 24-hour coffee shop on North Avenue, closed at the end of December. The space is for sale.



If a 24-hour place can't cut it on the East Side, where can it?? Kinda makes you wonder.

I only visited the place a few times myself; I liked the homey atmosphere, but there wasn't much in the way of the sweet stuff I tend to favor (cake, cider, frappuccinos, etc) so I never became a regular. My loss, I suppose.

The Sentry Foods site, nearly empty

The wreckers have just about wrapped up demolition of the old Sentry Foods site, as well as the adjoining Ben Franklin store (I think that's what it was; the place was closed before I ever came to Milwaukee.) The photos below are from a couple of weeks ago, when some of the latter building was still standing, but they get the point across: this is an enormous site.




It is infuriating to think that nothing but a Walgreens is going to go on this very large, very lucrative site. Even with a large store, it seems obvious that a huge parking lot is going to be filling the leftover space.




At last, those poor UWM students won't have to cross the impenetrable barrier of Locust Street to reach a Walgreens. Boy howdy, that's progress!

Now, I'm not totally opposed to the idea of a Walgreens here. What if they did something like this?





That's the 1938 Walgreens, still in business, on Canal Street in downtown New Orleans. That astonishing neon ensemble makes it a tourist attraction, and a place where I happily spent my dollars on a previous visit to the city. The scale is perfect for Oakland Avenue, and the style? It's impeccable!

Somehow, though, I have a sneaking suspicion that we aren't going to get that.


More details on the former plans at OnMilwaukee.com.


Edit: Boy, talk about a post being a day late. An evening constitutional took me past the site just now; it turns out that footings have already been poured for the new Walgreens building.

It sits on the northern half of the cleared lot, separated from the apartment building next door by about an alley width. It does indeed come out to the sidewalk -- kudos for that. This leaves the southern half of the lot as a parking lot, and while that kinda sucks, at least the design leaves enough space for something more appropriate to the site, such as a building. After all, parking lots can be easily torn out.

11-story condo teardown photos

The four houses on the site of the condo at Stowell and Webster:









All four houses show extensive signs of deferred maintenance. Most have padlocks on the doors. The corner house is impressively massive; the northernmost one has some nice architectural ornament. The two in the midde have been covered with some unfortunate asphalt shingle siding.

More photos at Flickr.com.

11 Story Condo near Downer Ave.

I'm always a little slow following these things, so it's kinda old news, but plans are in the works for an 11-story condominium tower, just west of the Starbucks/Harry Schwartz Bookstore on Downer. The building will take down 4 existing houses on N. Stowell Avenue, just north of E. Webster Place, in addition to one that was destroyed for a development proposd for the site some years ago. I will be photographing those houses the first chance I get, which unfortunately probably won't be for a couple of weeks. An aerial view of the site may be viewed at Google Maps.

Much has been written about the project, online and elsewhere; yard signs have sprouted around the East Side both for and against ("No 11 story condo" and something along the lines of "YES to developing Downer Avenue").

Three renderings of the project can be found at OnMilwaukee.com. It looks like a good building, a cut above the norm for a condo tower. Still, at that scale, I worry it will overpower the neighborhood. The area hardly has any claim to historic congruity; gabled duplexes are dotted among apartment buildings from the 1920s and 1960s in a variety of scales. But almost all of the apartment blocks are four stories or fewer. The only towers in the area are a single apartment building at the southern edge of the neighborhood, and the distant buildings of Columbia-St. Mary Hospital. Inserting a high rise into the middle of the area will definately alter its flavor.

It's easy to get alarmed about change of that nature; I could see it as analogous to a Georgetown in Washington DC, or one of Chicago's many vital neighborhoods, where historic survivors stand shoulder-to-shoulder with numerous newer buildings. Such neighborhoods can be vital, exciting places to work and live... but they can also conflict with the sleepy, pleasant aura that much of East Side exudes in its present condition.

I was a little shocked by this quote, from the UWM Post blog:

[New Land Enterprise's Tim] Gokhman sees as vital to development on the East Side. He also believes that this project could revitalize an important segment of the neighborhood.

“It’s important to infuse life back into the Downer Avenue district.”

Infuse life into one of the most successful, vital, and active commercial strips in the city? The center of a busy, healthy, well-to-do neighborhood? I've always been under the impression that many of the strip's problems come from the whimsical demands of certain landlords, rather than a lack of willing tenants.

Anyway.

New Land Enterprises has, according to their web site, been responsible for some of the best condo developments on the East Side and downtown in recent years. It's a shame we can't hook them up with the former Sentry site on Oakland Avenue!

Edit, 2/05/07: The houses may be seen in this post. It's a moot point, however, because they were all demolished in the first weeks of January. The site is now empty. No salvage appears to have occurred, an incredible waste considering the materials this sort of building is typically made of.

Future teardowns?

I found time this weekend to get out and photograph the two houses that face the threat of demolition by their new owner, the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.

2005 E. Kenwood Blvd:


2009 E. Kenwood Blvd:


Both shots link back to more photos at my Flickr account.

More has already been written about these homes than I could ever do; I will simply state that I feel that tearing them down will damage the block and the neighborhood.

On the flip side, I can sympathize with MJF. It's nearly impossible to find an empty lot for construction on the East Side. But surely there are better candidates for demolition than these two.

Holy Family Catholic Church, in Whitefish Bay.

Built in 1969, it's a delightful collection of funky ideas and common Mid-Century design elements, assembled with a sure and steady hand. Its time period can be identified, but it's not dated.



The stained glass is very restrained in its color pallette, mostly in muted tones of yellows, browns, and purples. The effect is decorative but not overwhelming.

But the centerpiece element is a curved wall punctured by a couple dozen porthole windows, filled with stained glass:



It's a creative interpretation of the massive stained glass windows that often appear behind the church alter. And as the sun travels across it, the curves and shadows change and play across each other to delightful effect. Love it!

Auto theft

My housemate's car was stolen off the street in front of our house, presumably by some asshole. It's a white Honda Civic hatchback, 1991, with a trailer hitch, a bunch of plastic toys on the dashboard, and a Russ Feingold sticker on the back. If by chance you've seen it, drop me a line.

Car theft and vandalism is one of the great banes of modern urban living. Cars are incredibly vunerable; it only takes a split second and a heavy rock to inflict several hundred dollars worth of damage -- usually in pursuit of a car stereo that will fetch only a fraction of that when sold.

I personally have become somewhat detached from my car emotionally; I view it as a necessity, but not a source of great personal pride or investment. I can afford to do this, as it's generally more of a convenience than a necessity (though reaching a Target in the winter would be a bitch without it.) My suburban friends are utterly baffled by my relative non-reaction to the times my car has been violated; I can only assume they regard their vehicles as sacrosanct, sacred.

I guess I would too if I had no other way to bring home the groceries.

East side updates

ITEM: The wreckers have started hitting the old Sentry Foods on Oakland. They're maybe 1/4th of the way through it as of this evening.

And in a brazen affront to the neighborhood, Walgreens will not be constructing a full apartment building, just their own store. The obvious conclusion is that the apartments were always a myth, a lure to get the powers-that-be to go along with tearing down the Sentry.

With the competition of Sentry's removed, Walgreens will be much closer to a lockup on neighborhood grocery foot traffic. Without a full multi-use building going up, it is far more likely that the new Walgreens will be a chain-standard, single-use, single-story building with a large parking lot, degrading the public realm of the Oakland Avenue commercial district. The chain has taken away our neighborhood grocery store, and in return they will give us a worse environment than we had before.



ITEM: I'm pleased to report construction activity at three of the tear-down sites I wrote about earlier. Foundation walls have been poured at the N. Warren site (north of Brady) and the Cambridge & Irving site (also north of Brady, near the North Ave. Dam.) Excavation has begun at the N. Cramer & Greenwich site, near the East Side Library.



ITEM: Signs have appeared around UWM's campus, wanting to "Save 2005 and 2009 Kenwood", referring to a pair of handsome, sturdy-looking single-family homes at Kenwood and Prospect that are in danger of demolition. Their new owner, the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, wants to tear them down to construct a new Hillel Center.

The Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commission has conducted a review of the two buildings, which are part of a lineup of similarly-styled houses all built by the same builder.

The report details the architectural and historic significance of the houses at length, but even disregarding that, their demolition should be opposed on grounds of urban design and planning. The brutal, inhuman segment of UWM's campus that faces the houses is somewhat mitigated by the intimate scale of the residential buildings on the south side of Kenwood, which can also provide badly needed East Side housing. Their integrity should not be degraded.

Chicago Subterranian Warren Station

Unlike New York City, which demolished its spectacular Penn Station in the early 1960s and replaced it with a forgettable rat's maze of dimly lit underground passages, Chicago still retains a grand central rail terminal:



My question, then, is: why aren't they using it?

I mean, okay, maybe I don't pass through during peak hours, and maybe it's jammed then. But the times I have been through -- early evening, generally -- are still pretty busy times, but there ain't a soul hanging out in this place. Instead, passengers must wait in the uninspiring confines of a network of bland hallways that doesn't have much on the awful Penn Station that replaced the original.

Maybe it's the complete and utter lack of seating? Why aren't there benches and boarding signage, so you can wait in a place that's digified? Why wasn't the station configured to use this magnificent space as the main entrance and exit, instead of a side door that only a few people come across by chance?

(The answer, of course, is that the original concourse -- a spacious, airy, light-filled place -- was demolished in 1969 so some awful office towers could be built on its site. This was sold to the public as "modernizing" the station.)

Bike Lane surprise

When I bike, I ride fast. I cruise at 15-20mph, and downhill or with the wind behind me, I can sometimes hit 25-30mph. On many city streets, that's comparable to the speed of traffic.

It also means that if something goes wrong, it can potentially go very, very wrong.

Something nearly went wrong Tuesday night as I biked home from work, northbound on Prospect. As I passed the construction site of the Park Lafayette condo tower, the handy bike lane suddenly gave way to a number of rough, irregular black asphalt patches. This being the season of early sunsets, it was dark, of course; I had no idea what I was about to hit. With a wall of cars moving alongside me, going around wasn't an option. I slammed on the brakes ahd held on tight. My U-lock came flying off its mounts on one of the bumps but otherwise I survived.

I hope they'll fix these patches soon -- they're dangerous!

test

UWM Dorm opposition

The sign shown below cropped up in front of a couple of East Side houses some time in the last few days:



It's a potent symbol of an unfortunate trend on the East Side: general opposition to the presence of UWM students.

Columbia-St. Mary's is moving out of the multi-building hospital complex that stands across the street from UWM's landlocked and desparately overcrowded campus. The conclusion is logical: UWM should take it over and use it for dorms and classroom space. But homeowners in the area seem prepared to take up arms against it.

Opposing the deal is a bad, bad idea.

The first thing that one has to remember is: the University was here first. Its original incarnation was here before the neighborhood itself, and its current form was here long before most of the East Side's residents. To move to the East Side and then fight against the presence of students is counterintuitive, to say the least.

Second, UWM students drive a huge portion of the neighborhood's economy. They provide steady and reliable rent to local landlords. They support the stores, theaters, bars, clubs and restaurants which provide the area with its urbanity; their presence is the backbone of the neighborhood's street life. If the East Side is a good thing, then more students will only make it better.

Local homeowners seem to have two basic concerns: parking, and noise. Ironically, putting dorms in the old hospital will help relieve both those problems.

On cars: Students who live in dorms don't need them. Their social life is right on campus; they don't have to travel to classes or to eat. This is especially important since dorm space on campus is already so limited; a bulk of students only live in the dorms for their first year, if at all. After that, they're either living in the neighborhood or commuting in from elsewhere -- both of which tend to bring more cars into the neighborhood. UWM is already a commuter-heavy campus; anything which can reduce that is good for streets of the East Side which are already crowded with parked cars.

On noise: Putting students on campus provides them with some geographic isolation from the neighborhood. I have students partying in the alley behind my house every September, and it's not the end of the world; however, their numbers might be reduced if more of them were living on campus. Keeping students off campus is likely to increase noise in the neighorhoods; more on-campus dorms -- as well as open and reasoned dialogue between residents, students, and the university -- will reduce it.

Capping enrollment at UWM ties the hands of the instution and harms the city as a whole. It will not solve any of the existing problems between UWM and its neighborhood, and by curtailing the density of the neighborhood, it will limit the East Side's ability to reach its full potential as an urban environment. Turning the hospital campus over to the university for dorms and classrooms is the best and highest use of the land and buildings.

Tear-downs coming to the East Side?

In the last month, I've noticed three vacant lots that, though I never actually photographed or took particular notice of what was on them, definately had houses on them; in each case, I got that strange feeling that something had changed, even though I couldn't recall exactly what; I suspected they were probably just typical wood-sided gable-fronted Milwaukee houses. A careful purusal of Google Maps' satellite views of the city confirms it.

Tear-down #1 in this list was a lot north of Brady Street, on N. Warren Avenue; it came down last summer and has remained vacant since. The satellite view isn't quite clear enough to say for sure but it looks like a small house. Could be a garage, though. A parking lot stood along side it.


Tear-down #2 is on N. Cramer Street, diagonally across from the East Side library's parking lot. Again the satellite is a little unclear but the best guess is a gabled house.


Tear-down #3 was a gabled house on N. Cambridge Avenue, where it twists and turns to meet E. Irving Place. Ceasar's Park and the North Avenue Dam are right around the corner.


Tear-down #4 was also a gabled house; it stood on Humbolt, just north of the laundromat on Brady Street.



Is this enough to constitute a trend? Combined with at least one other demolition on Brady Street last year, I'd say... probably. Should East Siders start worrying about the character of their blocks, of their neighborhood? Tear-downs are the next logical step once all the vacant land is filled up, and often before it's filled up.

I'm not opposed to new construction, and I'm all for increased density, but I can't help twitching when hundred-year-old houses get knocked down.