AUDIOPOST: Re-invention of Rust Belt Cities

Re-invention of Rust Belt Cities

Thank you for listening to my rant.

Audio Post? Podcast?

Or just a file in MP3 format? Give it a listen. Or not.

This is an experimental audio file

Milwaukee Explorer now in Audioblog format. Maybe.

The Future We Create for Milwaukee

It's a nice day outside. Go out and explore Milwaukee on your own.

As for me and this blog...things might slow down. Midterms are sort of over, but projects continue to be piled on me for school.

Instead I'm going to just rant a bit.

I busted up on my generation a bit back about not having enough civic pride. I'll still stand by it though, civic pride is lost.

But there's some of us (myself included) who would like to stay in this city through thick and thin. Right now obviously we're kinda thin, but I don't think I'd call us skinny.

We're "trim." Milwaukee's in a sweet spot right now. Not for publicly funded projects (as we found out that our nationally known housing program is in trouble) but we've got a few local corporations doing good.

Local corporations are something that Milwaukee has depended upon while we are in our downs. Look around town, look at all those things called "corporate sponsorships." They've been around for a while in our city. It's nothing new to Milwaukee.

But I've already gone off track.

I think that the generation before us (I'd call them yuppies...those professionals who live in their rich condos downtown and along the lake...while I'm driving my $200 car around them and taking pictures) won't stay. They know what they want and they won't stay in a city if it doesn't offer it. City residents vote with their feet, they'll move if they want to.

However (and maybe I'm just full of bright-eyed college urban planning/geography/studies optimism) I think we'll be the generation to fix the cities. We've seen the wrong way to fix a city and we've got new ideas. Ideas that will fix the city.

I don't want to see anyone do this in the next few years to my city on a blog:

We've seen the wrong way to fix a city...

Rant two:

Right now we can pretty much call public transit in Milwaukee dead. Scotty Walker and his men continue to cut away at our bus service, but don't do much else to help it. Okay, so they did propose more freeway lanes...

Mayor Barrett has proposed his idea which I actually like the best right now. I'd like to see the current bus system stay (and update the buses) with something like Mayor Barrett's idea. People would use this system because it actually goes some place. Take people to they're jobs and where they want to go? What a novel idea.

Pluses I see with COMET at a first glance
-Somebody actually bothered to see where development is happening, where it has happened, and where it can happen because of transit. Transit that spurs development is something that Milwaukee needs.
-It goes somewhere. It doesn't just loop around downtown and make people drive to park to get on a trolley to walk 4 to 7 blocks (which isn't that hard, 4 to 7 urban blocks isn't much. The commute in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Milwaukee involved the factory worker walking a half an hour to an hour from home to work and back again after a 12ish hour day) it actually connects parts of the city to other parts of the city
-It doesn't require retrofitting (or re-retrofitting) our streets for rail-based transit.

I'm liking it right now, but this debate over transit isn't going to be over anytime soon and isn't going to be liked by everybody.

I'd rather take the bus then drive my $200 car around town.

Old Coast Guard Station III

Obviously, the Coast Guard Station is a fairly simple building, but sometimes it's all in the little details.









It's been a long time since speed boats rushed out of these docks, but I'm sure they had quite the system.









If the county gave up ownership a few weeks back, does that mean they can actually tell me not to trespass? And why is "No Trespassing" in lower case letters? Is it only a suggestion?



The Old Coast Guard Station is slowly committing suicide and throwing itself into the Lake. What will Milwaukee do?



For now, all other plans have fallen through and are dead in the water.

Old Coast Guard Station II

Here's some more pictures from my "adventure" to the Old Milwaukee Coast Guard Station.


I'm going to have to take a gamble here and say I don't think those doors are of much use anymore...


That's quite a wonderful little bridge there, although I don't think I'd trust it anymore. This is facing out over the lake, by the way. The rescue boats would sit underneath this bridge.


It's pretty much a dead building...








Can you picture it with a full garden and the planters all planted up? It's been over 30 years...


But time has taken its toll and the signs of neglect are obvious.

Old Coast Guard Station in Sexy Sepia

I'm not an artist and I don't claim to be one. I'm a Technical Writing major running around the city with a digital camera. I document.

I've never used Sepia tone before, but this is a sad situation. The Old Coast Guard Station that I wrote about a few weeks back is in danger of being torn down. Sepia tone just set the mood I guess.

Have you hugged a doomed building lately?













(Do you folks want captions? I can talk about my pictures too, but I think these speak for themselves. The building is in disrepair and falling into the lake that it used to protect...)

The Contents of My Wallet are Pure Milwaukee

My wallet currently contains
-8 sheets of George Webb coupons from the placemats
-2 coupons for FREE BOWLING at any AMF lane
-8 singles and a 20, change from George Webbs and Bowling
-My Milwaukee County Library Card (Used and abused and missing my signature)
-My Johnny 7s Diner frequent burger eater club card


There's some credit cards and some IDs, but those don't specifically speak Milwaukee. I'd say though about half of my wallet has things only a Milwaukeean would have.

The Bus Was Cool in 1984

News Stories as of 3/8/07

Some stories of interest from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

I used to hate Whitney Gould, The Journal Sentinel's architecture critic. I used to think she was some sort of snob. Since she's broken her hip or whatnot though, she's gotten better in her writing. She talks about projects we actually all care about and that are in Milwaukee.

New Condo Tower Brings Height You Won't Hate

This is the article that sort of lead to my rant about the whole Milwaukee vs Chicago and civic pride thing. Milwaukee's skyline from the lake isn't much. Our downtown was founded along the Milwaukee river, and the skyline views from other directions are more stunning. But those condo towers that rise along the bluff as of late (Late meaning after oh say 1980 whatnot) are really making things look good. Especially good are our two towers rising next to each other that this article talks about. Not only that, but Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM) are big BIG names in the architecture business. Having two of their towers in our city is wonderful.

Turning to some sad news now...
Historic Station May Be Razed

Thats right folks. Once again the old Coast Guard Station is in peril. It's had an interesting history since it's been abandoned. Taken over by the Indian School the same summer Alcatraz was taken over and other such things. It's a cute little building, sort of our own little piece of the Mediterranean. I was hoping that it could be saved after they built the Bay Street Pedestrian bridge and make it into a little park or park pavilion. A jazz club. Something.

But tearing her down. Well, she's been the victim of arson and vandalism (the rape and murder of buildings) especially in the past year. I guess it's time to say good bye.

Building a replica like they discuss, I don't know if I can buy that. I think they should push for the extra million to do it. Replicas are just that, replicas. The authenticity is lost and it seems cheesy.

And now she's in nobody's hands. The bulldozers and wreaking ball could come any day now. (Note to self, picture opportunity number one).

Well, thats the news. I'm going to read up on Barrett's transit plan, especially for downtown. I used to think that Barrett was kind of a do nothing mayor, especially filling the shoes of Norquist, but now he's showing his true colors. Don't let the county shut you down Barret. Scott Walker is a phony. He won't save the county at all.

Saint Josaphat's Shout Out

Before we get to the news, let me share a little story. Today for my History of Milwaukee class, we went to The Basilica of Saint Josaphat, the prominent feature of the Polish (now Hispanic) Southside.

I brought along my camera, but as usual, I chickened out. (The pictures on the website don't do justice to the glorious beauty that's inside). I totally had permission to take as many pictures as I wanted, but I didn't. I have this thing where I can't take pictures of the inside of a church. I feel guilty. I don't attend the church, but I feel that I'm stealing something from the people that do attend the church. It's weird, I know.

Hopefully though I'll get over that fear. Everybody should go check that out, it's a $3 tour. Tour as in self-guided. Well, a tour guide who tells you about things.

Totally worth it.

The Bus Talks

If the Milwaukee County Transit System actually got talking buses, ridership might actually go up.



There. Better.

Milwaukee = The City It's Cool to Hate

Since when did that become the cool opinion, especially around town. You live here for goodness sakes. Civic pride anyone? It seems to be dead in Milwaukee, especially among young people.

Now yes, I am a young person, a college aged kid, but I've got civic pride. Is it lost on our generation? It seems that way sometimes.

What's the big thing to do as of late? Take the Greyhound down to Chicago. Admire Chicago. Wish Milwaukee was Chicago.

Milwaukee isn't Chicago. Milwaukee will never be Chicago.

And that's fine with me. I really think it should be fine with everybody.

The problem is, it isn't. Young people vote with their feet meaning if they don't like where they live, they will leave. Why do you think Portland, Oregon is yuppiefied now? There wasn't much in Portland, except it attracted the younger crowd with good urban planning policies and other urban issues the younger generation cares about. They might not realize it, but they do care about urban issues?

Now what has Milwaukee been doing wrong? I'm not sure. Every time we try to be ahead of the curve, we either fail at being ahead of the curve somehow, or it gets shot down by the powers that be.

What makes Milwaukee projects fail? We have them, we have lots of them. We do them by the book.

I think the problem is that Milwaukee only does things by the book, things that can be found in other cities. So why choose Milwaukee for that thing? When Milwaukee does want to do something new and beautiful and ahead of the curve...it gets shot down by the powers that be.

I still love this city though. I have pride in my city. I love where I live. I want to make things better. It's hard though.

Milwaukee is shedding it's rust belt industrial past, but apparently not fast enough for some people.

It's not cool to hate on Milwaukee.

Why I'm Doing What I'm Doing

So here I am with my grand entrance onto the Blogger Scene. I'm a LiveJournal guy which might make some difference. I don't know. I could be getting into dangerous waters here.

Anyways, I do still have an almost exact copy of this blog over at LiveJournal. (You should be able to find a link to it along the side there, if not now...soon).

I'm doing this because I see Blogger as being a more public tool. People (outside of the little LiveJournal world at least...and maybe even them too) see Blogger as a sort of serious blogging tool. It's commonly known, thanks especially to Google.

I want this to evolve into a photo blog eventually. I find that Blogger works better for a photo blog. I'm keeping it on LiveJournal for the sake of my personal friends that dwell there, but I'm putting it out into the blogosphere with Blogger, for all of you out here.

As always, this is a work in progress. I've hired a web designer (read: "I asked my nerdy girlfriend if she would show me some HTML") to make this prettier. That may or may not get done.

This is also a work in progress because it is for a college class with real college credit. The class uses Blogger heavily, and I guess I should start using it too.

It's an experiment. I'm open minded with blogging options, but if I don't like it, I won't use it.

Make sense? Good.