THE OFFICIAL WEBPAGE
OF ROBERT D. WEST
The City of Milwaukee, located where the Milwaukee River flows into Lake Michigan, traces its history back to area settlements of the Potawatomi tribe. The name Milwaukee is believed to be derived from the Potawatomi word for “council grounds.” The first white settlers came to the area in the 1830s, and in 1837 Milwaukee officially became a village, adopting a city charter in 1846.
Most people know Milwaukee as the home of the Miller Brewing Company. Major League Baseball fans know Milwaukee as the home of the Brewers and Miller Park. College sports fans may know Milwaukee is home to Marquette University, and motorcycle enthusiasts will know that Milwaukee is the home of Harley-Davidson.
But there is more to Milwaukee than beer, baseball and motorcycles. This page will take a look at some of the notable locations on the East Side of Downtown Milwaukee. The map below shows the area and actual locations of the places included on this page
1. City Hall
200 East Wells Street
The cornerstone of City Hall was laid
on February 24, 1894, and the building was dedicated on December 23,
1895. The cost of the building, including fixtures and furnishings, was
over one million dollars. The architecture of City Hall is considered
Flemish Renaissance, designed by the architecture firm Henry C. Koch &
Company. The basement and first two floors are granite; the rest of the
building is brick. The building contains 107,270 square feet of office
space. The balcony of the clock tower is 320 feet high and the flagpole
reaches to 393 feet. The flagpole itself is 40 feet tall, is a foot in
diameter at its base, and the ball at the top is 3 feet in diameter. The clock, installed in 1896, is 18 feet in diameter, and was the third
largest clock in the world at the time. The bell, named after city
founder Solomon Juneau, first chimed on New Years Eve of 1896.
2. Statue of Solomon Juneau in Juneau Park
801 North Lincoln Memorial Drive
Laurent Solomon Juneau was born on August 9, 1792 near Montreal, Canada. He was a fur trader and the first white settler in Milwaukee in 1821, building a house and store of tamarack poles. He was Milwaukee’s first postmaster & first mayor, & with Morgan L. Martin built Wisconsin's first courthouse. Juneau died on November 14, 1856 in Shawano, Wisconsin; his remains were later moved to Milwaukee. The statue was given to the city of Milwaukee by the Bradley and Met-calf firm in 1887.
3. Milwaukee Art Museum Quadracci Pavilion
700 North Art Museum Drive
This $100 million addition to the
Milwaukee
Art Museum, shown here under construction in 2000, was completed in
2001. It was designed by famous architect Santiago Calatrava.
4. War Memorial Center
750 North Lincoln Memorial Drive
Opened in 1957, the
War Memorial
Center was
designed by Finnish architect Eera Saarinen, who also designed the
Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. Not visible from this
position, the building is actually cantilevered over the lakefront. The mosaic on the facade was added after the Pavilion opened. It
was designed by Wisconsin artist Edwin Lewandowski and is made up of
1,440,000 pieces of glass and stone on five panels. The Roman
numerals depict the years of World War II and the Korean War.
5. Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Veterans Park
1010 North Lincoln Memorial Drive
Veterans Park is consists of over 90 acres of
parkland on Milwaukee's Lakefront. From here one can get a good
view of Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee Skyline. The Vietnam
Veterans Memorial is the first veterans memorial in the park,
dedicated
on October 20, 1991. The memorial is paved with bricks, many
of which are engraved with the names of veterans or others who supported
the memorial. A plaque at the memorial explains the symbolism
of the memorial.
VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL
Dedicated 20 October 1991
To recognize the contributions of all veterans who served
-
The three main columns symbolize the veterans
Those killed in action - Those who returned - Those who remain MIA/POW
-
The five benches represent the branches of the military
Army - Navy - Marines - Air Force - Coast Guard
-
The eleven outer posts signify the recognized years of the war in Vietnam
1964-1975
6. Cathedral Square
Cathedral Square is a park in downtown Milwaukee that
takes up one city block. Cathedral Square was once known as
Courthouse Square for a courthouse that once stood on this spot.
Today is named for the nearby
Cathedral of
St. John the Evangelist.
In the winter,
Cathedral Square is extensively decorated with light
displays. Cathedral Square provides good views of not only the
cathedral, but also the U.S. Bank Tower and the Gas Light Building.
7. Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist
802 North Jackson Street
Built in 1847 as St. John's Roman Catholic Church, and designed by Victor Schulte, the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist is one of the oldest churches in Milwaukee. It originally had a different, shorter tower; the present tower was built in 1892, designed by Ferry and Clas. Much of the church was destroyed in a fire in 1935.
8. U.S. Bank Tower
777 East Wisconsin Avenue
At 42 stories and 601 feet tall, the U.S. Bank Tower is the tallest building in Wisconsin. It was originally completed in 1973 as First Wisconsin Center. It was later known as FirStar Center, and still referred to as such by many Milwaukeeans. The building has 1.4 million square feet of floor space, 5000 windows and contains seven million pounds of travertine marble.
9. Gas Company Building
626 East Wisconsin Avenue
Built in 1930 as the home of the Milwaukee Gas Light Company, this Art Deco building by Eschweiler & Eschweiler is topped by a lighted "Weather Flame" that indicates the local weather forecast by its color.
Gold: Cold
Red: Warm Weather Ahead
Blue: No Change In View
A flashing flame indicates precipitation in the forecast.
10. Marcus Center for the Performing Arts
929 North Water Street
Originally built in 1969 as the
Performing Arts Center, the original skin for the
Marcus Center for
the Performing Arts deteriorated
prematurely and had to be replaced with new limestone in the 1980s. There is also a nice fountain out front. This building is also
significant to me as it is where I graduated from the
Milwaukee School
of Engineering on May 22, 2004, in what I believe was the last MSOE
commencement to be held there.
11. Water Street Brewery
1101 North Water Street
This building was built in 1893. Since
1987 it has been home to
Water Street Brewery, a local restaurant and
microbrewery with an excellent selection of both meals and beer.
12. Water Street Building
1245 North Water Street
Built in 1890 as a double-storefront, this Victorian brick building at has been home to a variety of businesses over the years, including a "hotel" of questionable repute during the Mayor Rose “Anything Goes” era of the early 20th century, a brush factory and a restaurant. From 1958 to 1969, the building served as the headquarters for the Wm. K. Walthers manufacturer and distributor of model railroading products. Walthers makes a model of this building as it appeared at this time. In 1969, it was sold to Milwaukee's Yellow Cab Company and rented to an experimental theater company sponsored by the the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee called "Theatre X." It has since been remodeled, with a new penthouse on the roof. The ground floor now houses a bar. At the time of this photo, in 2000, the bar was the London Bridge Pub, which closed shortly thereafter. Currently, the bar is called The Corner.
13. Blatz Apartments
1101 North Broadway
Built in 1891 as part of the Blatz brewery complex, this large building has been converted into The Blatz Condominiums.
14. Trenkamp Flats
1303-1307 North Milwaukee Street
There is nothing particularly
interesting about this apartment building, except that I lived here for
two years. Also, it is an old building, built in 1894. Presumably it
was a high-class building when it was new, with balconies, tall
ceilings, lots of woodwork and even a skylight in the stairway. It has
seen better days however, most likely due to it mainly being a temporary
home to college students from the nearby Milwaukee School of
Engineering, and also due to the fact that the owners simply don’t seem
to care about maintaining it.
15. German-English Academy Building
1020 North Broadway
This historic building was built in
1891 as a school for German immigrants. The
Milwaukee School of
Engineering purchased the building in 1932, but by the 1970s, it was no
longer in use. MSOE wanted to acquire the vacant land on the northeast
corner of Milwaukee and State Streets that was owned by the city in
exchange for this building, which the city had declared a landmark in
1973. The city was balking at the exchange however, so MSOE hired a
demolition company to swing a wrecking ball near the building (though
MSOE had no intention of actually tearing it down). The activity
naturally attracted the local media, and set city officials scrambling
to make a deal with MSOE. The bluff worked; the city agreed to the
exchange to “save” the historic building, and MSOE got the vacant land,
which is today the MSOE athletic field. The building ended up on the
National Register of Historic Places and was renovated into office
space. In August 2002, Eckhart G. Grohmann purchased the building to
serve as a home for his extensive Man At Work art collection, which he
donated to MSOE. Presumably, (and ironically) the building is to be
donated to the school as well.
16. MSOE Student Life & Campus Center
1025 North Broadway
This International-style building was
built in 1946. It was originally the bottlehouse of the Blatz Brewing
Company. After the brewery closed, the
Milwaukee School of Engineering
acquired in and remodeled it into the Student Life and Campus Center,
featuring offices, classrooms, conference rooms and the student center.
The building is built out of a light-colored glazed brick common to
Milwaukee called Cream City brick.
17. MSOE Alumni Partnership Center
1120 North Broadway
This beautiful building was built by Emil and Valentine Blatz in 1890 as the offices for the Blatz Brewing Company. It was later used as the Beer Baron restaurant. It was acquired by MSOE in 1989 and became the Alumni Partnership Center. This building is on the National Register of Historic Places. The building features stained glass windows, murals and hand-carved hardwood trim.
18. MSOE Science Building
What is known on the MSOE Campus simply as the Science Building is actually two buildings, though they are so intertwined they are generally thought of as one. These two buildings are the Allen-Bradley Hall of Science and the Fred F. Loock Engineering Center.
Allen-Bradley Hall of Science
432 East Kilbourn Avenue
A former parking garage for a
Cadillac
dealership, this building was acquired by MSOE in 1958, and renovated
with an aluminum and glass exterior. Dedicated in 1960, this building
contains classrooms, laboratories and the Fluid Power Institute.
Fred F. Loock Engineering Center
912 North Milwaukee Street
This brick building, designed by
Fitzhugh Scott and finished in 1967, wraps around two sides of the
Allen-Bradley Hall of Science to form what is now simply the Science
Building. This building contains classrooms, laboratories (including
the Johnson Controls Laboratory, visible from street level) and the
Rapid Prototyping Center.
Fred F. Loock was once the President of the Allen-Bradley Corporation and the Chairman of the MSOE Board of Regents.
NOTE: The floors in the two buildings are not at the same elevations, resulting in an interesting internal system of ramps and staircases. In addition, the freight elevator makes a total of six stops (labeled B, G, 1, 2R, 2F and 3) in what is supposedly a three story structure.
19. MSOE Walter Schroeder Library
500 East Kilbourn Avenue
The Walter Schroeder Library was
dedicated by former U. S. President
Gerald Ford in 1980. The first two
floors house the library; the third floor contains classrooms and
offices. The library building is connected to the Hall of Science via a
skywalk.
Walter Schroeder was a Milwaukee hotelier and philanthropist. He founded the Walter Schroeder Foundation in 1963 to fund charitable, religious, scientific, public safety, literary or educational causes.
20. MSOE C-Building
1025 North Milwaukee Street
The C-Building, once known as the the
Milwaukee Street Building or the Administration Building, was originally
built as a high school for the German-English Academy, and was later
used as a Jewish Cultural Center. It was purchased by MSOE in
1948. It housed many MSOE facilities over the years, including
classrooms, the library, an auditorium, a computer center and offices
for administration, faculty, student services and even the college
president. The building also had an old swimming pool in the
basement that was never used by MSOE (though the Society of Model
Engineers had a model railroad built in that area from 1985 to 1991). The C-Building became surplus after the opening of the Student Life &
Campus Center in 1991, and after 1993 the building stood vacant. The building's ultimate fate would be sealed in 1998, when the piping
for the building's steam heating system began breaking. The
building's heating system was shut off, and condensed steam froze during
the winter, causing structural damage. In 1999, a contractor was
hired to demolish the building, but backed out of the contract after
realizing the building was larger than originally thought. In the
following years, many rumors developed as to why the building remained
standing, including that it was an historical landmark or that it was
full of hazardous materials like asbestos and lead. These were not
true (or at least were not the reason it remained standing). More
recently, the building was likely left standing to occupy otherwise
vacant land during negotiations to acquire land for the new Kern Health
& Wellness Center.
With the Kern Center's opening in October 2004, the C-Building could finally come down
and was demolished by early 2005 to make room for a needed student
parking lot with experimental pavement.
21. MSOE Roy W. Johnson Hall
1121 North Milwaukee Street
Completed in 1965, the 12-story Roy W.
Johnson Hall, or RWJ as it is known on campus, is MSOE’s first
dormitory. It is named in honor of former MSOE Regent and chairman of
the board of the Controls Company of America. Originally, RWJ was
intended to be 24 stories tall, and would have been one of the tallest
buildings in Milwaukee. During construction, it was discovered that the
building was beginning to lean, so the building was cut down to a
13-story building (12 floors plus ground…and a basement). To stabilize
the building, one of the three elevator shafts was partially filled with
concrete. Today, there are still three sets of elevator doors on every
floor in RWJ, though only two of the shafts have elevators in them.
22. MSOE Regents Hall
Regents Hall was designed by Kahler Slater Architects and built in 1990. This 5-story dormitory has 4 floors of dormitory suites: 4 rooms with a common living area and bathroom. The ground floor contains a game room and campus restaurant. Regents is only accessible from RWJ. Regents was originally intended to be a floor taller, however only hard construction costs were put in the budget, and there was no money of other costs such as permitting, so to bring it back under budget, one floor was left out.
23. MSOE Margaret Loock Hall
324 East Juneau Avenue
Built in 1967 to make up for the 12
floors left off RWJ, Margaret Loock Hall, or MLH, also includes a study
lounge on the top floor offering. Margaret Loock was the wife of Fred
F. Loock, for whom MSOE named the Loock Engineering Center mentioned
above.
24. MSOE Rosenberg Hall
1235 North Milwaukee Street
This building was built in 1964 as a
school of mortuary science. Since then, it has had a variety of
owners. MSOE purchased the building through the generosity of Alumnus
Ken Rosenberg, a 1950 graduate who went on to become President and
chairman of the board of Northwestern Elevator and a member of the MSOE
Corporation Board. After extensive renovation, the building opened in
the Fall of 1999 as the home of MSOE’s Rader School of Business. Ken
Rosenberg died July 26, 2002 at the age of 73. On September 26, 2003,
the building was dedicated as Rosenberg Hall in his honor.
25. Amtrak station (now Milwaukee Intermodal Station)
433 West Saint Paul Avenue
Though not actually on the East Side, this
was my
preferred place to enter or leave Milwaukee. This railroad
station was built in 1965 by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific
Railroad (AKA The Milwaukee Road) to replace the existing Milwaukee Road
and Chicago & Northwestern stations, which
were demolished in 1965 and
1968 respectively. The station was later owned by the Soo Line
Railroad, a part of the
Canadian Pacific system.
It is served by
Amtrak's Empire Builder between Chicago and Seattle and Portland, and Hiawatha service between Chicago and Milwaukee. Artwork
in the station showed its heritage, including the Milwaukee Road's
original 1935 Hiawatha train at the original Milwaukee Road
station.
A major renovation was completed in 2007 that completely changed the look of the building from what is shown in the above pictures. Now owner by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, it is now called the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, as in addition to Amtrak it now also serves Milwaukee County Transit, Greyhound and other motorcoach operators.
Milwaukee Links
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts
Milwaukee School of Engineering
Also See:
PLACES - Illinois Railway Museum, Union, Illinois
PLACES - San Francisco, California
PLACES - Kelso-Longview, Washington
All website content, including graphics and pictures are © Robert D. West unless otherwise noted. Content is not to be used out of the context of this webpage without expressed permission. Any opinions expressed herein are mine and are not necessarily shared by the Milwaukee School of Engineering, or anyone else.
Questions? Comments? Critiques? Corrections? Concerns? Email me at westr@msoe.edu.