The Mighty Kinnickinnic

The sickening political exploitation of NOLA's demise

2005-08-31T17:30:00.000-05:00

Chicago has always been my favorite American city, but because it's basically home, I can't really count it as a legit travel destination. So, for me, it seems to have always been a tie between New York and San Francisco.

Until now, that is. The destruction of New Orleans reminds me how much more profoundly connected I feel to NOLA than to its two sneering coastal peers. Much of this affection lies in the belated realization that Southern cities share much more in common with Midwestern cities than with the narrow nanny-state culture epitomized by the Bay Area and the Eastern Seaboard. New Orleans always felt like a sloshy drunken Sunday; it's public culture is festive and loud-mouthed, but it's interior is dirty and relaxed, like a post-coital hole.

Which is excatly why the political exploitation of this mega-disaster is so chilling. The usual suspects have already surfaced. Enter stage right, the fire-breathing Christians. Enter stage left, the almost equally deranged eco-freaks.

Lest you think me a suburb-basher...

2005-08-31T11:52:00.000-05:00

I have no personal problem with city folk who stake a claim in the relative paradise of Waukesha County. These days, sending your kids to MPS should probably qualify as child abuse. Until this condition improves, I'd prefer not to see the media-academic complex lament the child-centric, upwardly-mobile, and suburban-bound proles who make-up the majority of the metropolitan population. Lileks responds to just this type of elitist boilerplate...

Jeez...7th poorest in the nation?

2005-08-31T09:25:00.000-05:00

After nearly a decade of relatively good news, things are looking devastastingly bleak again in the inner city. This summer of skyrocketing homicides has now been topped off with this bit of shocking information: 26% of Milwaukee residents now live below the poverty line, making the city the 7th poorest in the nation. Apparently, poverty has jumped universally in the US since 2000 (I hope the Left is paying attention to that), but its at the microgeographic scale where the deepening of distress is most apparent.

Milwaukee's transformation is, arguably, the most extreme case of any large city in America. In 2000, Milwaukee was the 20th poorest city in the nation. In just four years time the city has "climbed" 12 ranks positions, still behind such lovely places like Detroit (38%), but poorer than comparable cities like Cleveland (23%), St. Louis (21%), and (gasp!) eternally poor cities like New Orleans (23%).

What's more is that the metro area can now rightfully claim to be most economically polarized of any American city. The sprawling arc of comfy complacency in adjacent Waukesha County is the 3rd least poor of populous American counties, essentially making 124th street a steeper gradient than Eight Mile road. Can a Milwaukee-based Eminem be for behind?

Let's hope not. But until then, the smart choreographers of Milwaukee's new "creative class" image can at least point to this...

I've awoken from a 6 month slumber....

2005-08-29T22:29:00.000-05:00

Now that I've given my body 6 months of exercise I thought it time to reawaken the mind. Regular blogging to resume in 3 days....

Until then, comtemplate the fact that Stormfront had dispatched it's freshcut nazis to Camp Casey this past weekend. I myself love it when the nutty left hangs tough with the nutty right. Sir Hitch skewers them all in his latest post...

Watching Walker's Point disappear...into a facade of sanitized danger.

2005-02-18T23:10:00.000-06:00

The street signs still proclaim "Historic Walker's Point", but not for much longer perhaps. "Fifth Ward fever", you see, has infected both the real estate press and the official discourses of neighborhood representation on Brew Town's near south side. The apparently irresistable Fifth Ward moniker, in fact, has spread so quickly that what's left of Walker's Point is now quickly being assimilated into it's more stylish and northerly neighbor.

Does anyone else smell a classic case of how neighborhood re-naming strategies support the middle-class reclamation of the central city? I certainly did, so my buddy Google and I went for a late-night stroll (He brought someone named "Jack"). It turns out that this particular story begins innocently enough in late 2001, when developer Tom Capp purchased a former farm-implement factory in the Walker's Point neighborhood. Before sinking $12 million in what was described as the "furthest provinces of barely civilized Milwaukee", Capp needed an appropriate representational strategy to niche-market his stately, Romanesque loft-conversion project. He found exactly what he was searching for in "Fifth Ward Lofts"; implying, as this does, a soothing proximity to the uber-elegant Third Ward, as well as a critical symbolic separation from the unruly, blood-stained street corners of mostly Mexican Walker's Point.

The new Fifth Ward, perhaps expressing fidelity to its buffer locale, is now presented as the Third Ward's younger, hipper, more rebellious sibling, infused with just a slight hint of vigor-enhancing danger which underpins the aesthetic vocabularly of its primary sites of consumption.

There is a burried irony in all of this. Just 50 years ago, ward-based neighborhood identities like these were avoided like the plauge. Who in their right mind would willingly associate with the "Bloody Third" (the drunken Irish, ya know), or the "Dirty Fifth" (East Euro factory slobs)? I suspect that pampered, protected Yuppies and creative-types, as well as their enablers in the development industry, take some sort of eroticized pleasure in these facades of sanitized danger.

Another icon of the counterculture to be assimilated...

2005-02-16T21:33:00.000-06:00

Mrs. Gould is reporting that Milwaukee's infamous Sidney Hih building is now slated for conversion to high-end condos and retail. Before the Park East freeway was demolished, the Sidney Hih building sat like a bulwark of humanism, effectively resisting the forces the modernization that surrounded it and hungered for its demise. As home to Betty's Bead Bank, the Unicorn Bar, and the Milwaukee Eagle, the psychadelically-colored Sidney Hih complex attracted a motley crew of hippies, punks, anarchists, and gay male SM enthusiasts over the course of its post 60s lifespan (Full disclosure, I saw the Violent Femmes there when I was seriously underage).
That the Sidney Hih will now be converted to condos is, of course, no big surprise. My only hope is that the developers restore that computerized, mid-70s typeface to its original retro-glory. Well, then again...maybe not.

Thursday evening timewarp: #2

2005-02-16T16:49:00.000-06:00

The Beerline in 1976.

The Beerline in 2005. Unlike Brady Street, much more than the color palette has changed in the Beerline since the middle 1970s. Indeed, in no Milwaukee neighborhood has the transition from the Old Milwaukee to the New Milwaukee been more pronounced or successful. Just imagine how much effort it took to shape this landscape transformation. It almost makes one want to bow down before the God of creative destruction. Still, I can't help but romanticizing those oil-slicked railway tracks, and even that creepy-70s green paint job on the Holton street viaduct.

"it may be that more 911s are necessary" - Ward Churchill, 2004

2005-02-16T08:35:00.000-06:00

I made a point today of checking in on local right-wing talk radio. As I suspected, the controversy over Ward Churchill's visit to UW-Whitewater had conservatives of all stripes in a blood-curdling rage. At one particularly ridiculous moment, a caller referred to Churchill as "Osama bin Churchill". In disgust -- and, embarassment I guess -- I switched back to the soothing banalities of NPR and, as I expected, felt much, much better about myself.

Later though, I realized that the caller might be on to something. The similarities between Churchill and bin Laden are, upon closer interrogation, quite striking. For starters, both men certainly share the same fashion sense (love the camo/gun combo, Professor Churchill...wish I could pull that off!). Both men are also abundantly charismatic provacatuers captured by the hypnotic sway of a particular thread of romanticism. Indeed, it must by now be fairly apparent that these men imagine themselves to be locked in an endless battle with the omnipotent monstronsity we call capitalism. For bin Laden, the nerve centers of capitalism were stuck in the hope that it might die, thus returing the Islamic caliphate to its rightful center on the global stage. Churchill's geopolitics, no matter how you spin it, have the same fundamental orientation. In a 2004 interview, for example, he stated that,

"I want the state gone: transform the situation to U.S. out of North America. U.S. off the planet. Out of existence altogether."

Alrighty then! Duly noted. From experience, I know that academics can say some really stupid things. But I have to assume that Churchill really meant what he really said. And, for me at least, this observation leads quite naturally to the most important way in which bin Laden and Churchill share the same political bed: at their cores, they are totalitarians, willing to support in words or deed the death of innocents so that the meta-project can be realized. Ironic, isn't it, that Churchill got himself into hot water by refering to those that died in the WTC as "Little Eichmanns". The Eichmanns of the world are NOT the bland accountants. Rather, like bin Laden and McVeigh, they are the ones in camo screaming loudly from the edges.

Gen X and the new geographical imagination

2005-02-15T14:40:00.000-06:00

The latest volume of Info* mag, Brew City's GenX bible of hipdom, is now available in trendy spots across the arc of coolness that stretches from the near south side to the UWM campus. Its ironized template of groovy ads and semi-serious interviews with local DJs, artists, bartenders, baristas and other creative-types remains true to form. But, to my elation and even surprise, the mini-mag debuts a fascinating new subtitle; downtown - east side - riverwest - third ward - walker's point. Rendered in oh-so-with-it lower-case typeface, the new subtitle perfectly captures the geographical imagination of the Gen X sensibility. Indeed, these days a micro-knowledge of urban neighborhoods is nearly a prerequisite for gaining legitimacy among the cultural gate-keepers of the creative class. I'm glad my neighborhood made the cut, but I hope my boomer friends in the more established enclaves like Shorewood and Washington Heights aren't feeling a bit, well, old at the moment...

Well, at the least the sign will be saved....

2005-02-14T10:09:00.000-06:00

Newly announced plans for the Pabst City redevelopment call for much more demolition of the historic complex that was originally anticipated. In fact, everything you see in the above image -- including the famous "Pabst skybridge", which once allowed happy beer-soaked workers to cross between the two main buildings without crossing a busy street! -- is now slated for demolition. That's too bad, because the only thing aesthetically interesting about the West Side of downtown Milwaukee was the looming, gothic presense of the Pabst complex. The developers say they will save the sign. Great.

Healing the racial divide...with Starbucks!

2005-02-10T23:21:00.000-06:00

It's no big secret that the geography of cultural whiteness and the geography of Starbucks franchises correspond nearly perfectly. Don't believe me? Check out the Starbucks locator for YOUR town. It's also no big secret that it's principally college-educated persons-of-non-color who take the time to bemoan, and even degrade, this wonderful, life-giving, corporation. A physical and mental fixation on Starbucks, it seems to me, is a "white thang", fer sure.

Now it turns out that Magic Johnson, and a particularly ambitious Chicago politician, have begun to change all of this. Arguing that, you're not a neighborhood until you get a Starbucks, 5th Ward Chicago alder Leslie Hariston has brought a Starbucks to the otherwise desolate corner of 75th and Stony Island in the heart of Chicago's South Side ghetto. Nevermind the politically problematic discourse of "real neighborhood" articulated by Mrs. Hariston. Her honesty got me thinking: What if, after forty-years of failed urban policy and pie-in-the-sky academic multiculturalism, the real solution to the racial divide is the cross-cultural tie of addiction to the same corporate-sponsored drug? Well, probably not, but the sight of the familiar green awnings on ghetto street corners would certainly put alot of creative class anxieties at ease.

Hostile Inc.?

2005-02-10T22:09:00.000-06:00

The only businesses to open in my neighborhood in the last year are two bars. There's the creatively-named "Out-n-About", which is a mostly lesbian bar caught somehow in the aesthetic dregs of 1989 (It even smells like 1989). There's also "The Milwaukee Bottle", which seems to draw a toughish hipster crowd to it's retro stylings. And, now there's this:

I don't know what they plan on selling in there, but I have a feeling I won't be able to get a capuccino.

New feature: the thursday evening timewarp: #1

2005-02-10T21:34:00.000-06:00

The above image is brady street in 1975

Here is roughly the exact same shot in the dead of winter, 2005. What difference does 30 years make to the physical texture of a neighborhood never subjected to the forces of urban renewal, ghettoization, or residential abandonment? Not much, it seems, save for the fact that the new urban color palette is much lighter, brighter, and lead-free. Following the late-60s STD burnout, Brady Street slid for a time into only marginal decay. And, by the late 70s, the instruments of historic preservation were carefully applied, making the area especially ripe for subtle, Milwaukee-style, gentrification in the 90s. Today, particularly during the warmer months, Brady street offers up Milwaukee's most vibrant collection of coffee shops, bars, thrift stores, civilized multi-modal strolling and youthful bender-gender cruising. Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same; except, of course, the asking price for that chick's white bell-bottoms at a Brady Street vintage store today is well over $150.

East Village loft space, view of satelite dish, $10.5 million

2005-02-09T18:56:00.000-06:00

Check out these two images:

The above image shows Milwaukee's East Village from the crest of Brewer's Hill in 1978.

Here is roughly the same view 26 years later (use St. Hedwig's church, or the Gallun tower as your reference). Note that in the more recent image the grime that once covered the cream city brick of the Gallun leather tannery complex has been (mostly) scrubbed clean. Note also the removal of the water towers. That's too bad, because I really like those water towers. In fact, I'd even pay for a view of one. I wonder if someday, let's say in 2031, people like me would be willing to pay through the nose for a view of a satelite dish?

When the world ends, I want to be in Cincinnati...

2005-02-08T19:35:00.000-06:00

Mark Twain's famous quip closed with "because everything there happens ten years later". Poor Cincinnati. For such a quaint, pleasant and well-preserved burgh, Cincinnati has long been the butt of jokes, despite that (in my view at least) it is clearly the most interesting of the Ohio cities. Cleveland's textural similarity to Milwaukee notwithstanding, I've always thought that the Brew City and the Queen City were urban cousins somehow. Their metropolitan populations are roughly equivalent. Both cities are surrounded by a dominating iron-ring of the most unwavering Republican suburbs to be found anywhere in the United States. And, both cities share a distinctly Germanic vibe (really clean streets that are quiet even when they're crowded, the stone-faced responses to queries about the "race problem").

Now it turns out that, like Milwaukee, Cincinnati is following Richard Florida's advise and embracing what I've called the "creative class redevelopment strategy". Cincinnati's efforts, like Milwaukee's, also implicitly acknowledge the place will never be able to punch above it's weight in attracting the culturally avant-garde. The journal Next American City argues that,

"Cincinnatians differ from residents of large cities along the coasts. They are less interested in the progressive agendas of Florida and his followers than in basic quality-of-life issues and traditional Middle American values. While Cincinnatians enjoy the arts and theater, they also love old-fashioned attractions like sports, beer, barbecues, and outdoor festivals—Oktoberfest, the Black Family Reunion, and Jammin’ on Main, to name a few. Given these priorities, the city has not focused on attracting people with diverse or gay and lesbian lifestyles".

Jeez, that last line reminded me of everything that is wrong with Florida's theory of the "creative class". Why is it that "Middle American values" (presumably sports, beer and BBQs) are presented as contradictory to and excluded from "diverse or gay and lesbian lifestyles". In my admittedly short 36 years on this earth, I've met plenty of lesbians who couldn't get enough sports and beer! Oh well, it's certainly an improvement over banning Mapplethorpe.

UPDATE: But wait, it now looks as though the crafty minds working at the Milwaukee Visitor's Bureau may have resolved the apparent cultural contradiction...

The "creative class" vs. creeping Nerdistan: Battle #1

2005-02-07T17:18:00.000-06:00

See that rusting hulk of metal in the middle of the Milwaukee River? The fate of that industrial-age specimen will, at least partly, decide which cultural group determines the future aesthetic of Milwaukee's rapidly gentrifying Third and Fifth Ward neighborhoods. Mrs. Gould has reported that many of the recent buyers of the psuedo "loft" condominiums fronting the river find the now-defunct railway bridge a blatant "eyesore", and want it removed. Other buyers see a totemic and historic icon that actually strengthens the area's sense of place and texture of urbanism. These in-movers want the bridge protected as a "historic building".

Ah, what we have here is the classic cultural schism threatening to divide the highly-educated demographic: the engineers vs. the artists, the sciences vs. the humanities, or in R. Florida's conceptualization, the "nerds" vs. the "creatives". The "creatives" desire "authenticity" from their city. They are just the type of people who are drawn to neighborhoods framed by the detritus of the industrial age. The nerds, on the other hand, are more practical and typically-American in their orientation and personality. They rarely appreciate irony and paradox, and, they certainly don't get "industrial chic". Nerds are typically found in large concentrations in their natural habitat; the so-called "nerdistans"-- properous, but exceedingly dull, places like the Silicon Valley and the Research Triangle in North Carolina. The battle over the fate of the bridge will pit these two priviliged groups against each other. And, because both groups have been socialized to believe they're special, expect a very surreal "condo" cat fight in the coming months.

A very grim day for Milwaukee...

2005-02-07T14:31:00.000-06:00

So, I'm reading Mrs. Gould's column today about the future of Layton Boulevard, the South Side's most elegant and fragile thoroughfare, and I discover that there are "redevelopment" plans calling for the demolition of a whole stretch of decayed storefonts housing a Southeast Asian grocer, Competition Cycle, and -- please alert Art Kumbalek -- the National Liquor Bar!

Do you know what they want to build to "improve" the neighborhood? A frickin' Walgreens. Nothing like destroying the funky, eclectic, and gritty character of Milwaukee's Near South Side in the name of a drive-though pharmacy! I'm frustrated by this news, but then again, I don't have to live on 26th and National. Mrs. Gould reports that the design of the Walgreens will follow New Urbanist principles and be sensitive to the street. Whatever. The National Liquor Bar is an institution. It's a Landmark. It's a "only in Milwaukee" iconic pillar to the city's identity. Yes, there are alot of crazy drunks, hookers and addicts who prowl the netherworld of National Avenue. Yes, the storefronts along this stretch have seen better days. But will anyone take friends from out-of-town to see our brand new Walgreens? Case closed.

Speaking of boulevards...

2005-02-07T11:19:00.000-06:00

here's a shot from last summer of the new McKinley Boulevard that was built out of the ruble of the Park East Freeway. Now, if they could just get the developers to bite...

Public Market taking shape in Third Ward

2005-02-06T23:37:00.000-06:00

Foodies, urbanists, and the denizens of the Third Ward can rejoice in the quick progress being made to the Milwaukee Public Market taking shape at the corner of Saint Paul and Water Street. Let's hope the final product isn't too specialized or too yuppie, because its the residents of Walker's Point, who currently have to drive at least a mile and a half to either East Town or Clarke Square to hit a decent-sized grocery store, who stand to benefit the most from this addition to the city's shifting foodscape.

Amtrak: one step closer to extinction...

2005-02-06T23:28:00.000-06:00

As a life-long train festishist, I've got my own agenda, but this is really going to anger a broad segment of the urbanist Left.

Metra in Milwaukee by...2009

2005-02-06T21:21:00.000-06:00

Both Racine and Kenosha (and by association, UW-Parkside) continue to suffer in some measurable way because freeway planners in the 1950s decided take the path of least resistance between Milwaukee and Chicago. In so doing, I-94 ended up by-passing by some considerable distance (5-10 miles) the heart both cities. The problems that resulted from this decision are manifold. Certainly, both cities (especially Kenosha) sprawl quite "unnaturally" away from their respective urban cores as they attempt to connect to the economic life-line that is the 1-94 corridor. Conversely, both cities have a distinct lack of "imageability" because outlet malls and industrial parks do not a city make.

That could all change if the Metra line is finally extended from downtown Kenosha to downtown Milwaukee, with stops in Somers (UW-Parkside), downtown Racine, Caledonia, South Milwaukee, Cudahy (mmm, ham) and finally, the sad little Amtrak station in downtown Milwaukee. Government boondoogle, you say? Think again. Nearly everywhere Metra goes (except Waukegan and Gary, perhaps) it brings it's economic and cultural magic. Downtown Racine especially -- with it's nearly perfect urbanist template -- could stand to benefit by a deeper connectivity to the regional dynamos. Smart people in Racine (and at UW-Parkside) should understand the potential Metra link as the best way to raise their cultural profile. And, in an increasingly image-based economy, their economic success as well.

Men, model trains, and the mid-century aesthetic

2005-02-04T18:14:00.000-06:00

I've always been fascinated by those black and white photos from the 1950s depicting technocratic, middle-class men standing proudly over their scaled-down models of the "big urban plans" of the day, typically freeway interchanges, large-scale public housing or office complexes, airports, and malls. The men -- no matter how old, how dull, or how suburban -- always looked like boys gathered around their model train sets; the concentrated stares, the alpha directing everyone's attention to some arcane detail, their imagined sense of power and control over both time and space. What a perfect metaphor, I now suspect, for the modernist framing of the city.

Such scenes seem hopelessly out-of-date in the early 21st century, of course. Digital technology has made model-building nearly obsolete. The "big plans" have fallen out of favor. And these days, with the possible exception of the DOT, both men and women work together on planning for the city. Sometimes, I wonder if mid-century planning failed so miserably precisely because it excluded -- not unlike the boys gathered around the model train set -- the female perseptive. Maybe. Maybe not. Questions like these are at least partly explored at a new photographic exhibit at Chicago's Roosevelt University. Take a look, and while you're there, the new millennium park should not be missed.

Mrs. Gould is back for her monthly chat!

2005-02-03T15:46:00.000-06:00

Whitney Gould's monthly chat with the architecturally-concerned citizens of Milwaukee is up. This month's topics include the deteriorating War Memorial, the sad little Amtrak station, the modernist brutality of MacAurthur Square, the status of Pabst City, and, Whitney's new haircut. Meanwhile, bridge enthusiasts will enjoy Whitney's take on both the Holton Street Marsupial bridge and the Knapp Street bridge. As might be expected, some Riverwesterner finds just the right angle to moan about the Beerline.

Progress on the Park East Corridor?

2005-02-03T13:47:00.000-06:00

The Milwaukee County Board voted 15-4 today to override County Executive Scott Walker's (R) veto of the proposed wage and hiring standards for development of County-owned vacant land in the desolate Park East Corridor. The Park East, which stretches for about 3/4 of a mile along the northern border of downtown Milwaukee, was former Mayor Norquist's pet demonstation project for how New Urbanist principles might sustain central Milwaukee's ongoing, but still rather subtle, economic renaissance.

The County Board's latest vote means that about 60% of the land made developable by the removal of the Park East Freeway will now be subject to much stricter governmental regulation, potentially scaring away the developers who've been waiting for months now to see which direction the County would go.

Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) like this are noble and well-intentioned, but they need to be better tailored to the local economic and real estate topography. Of course, CBAs work very nicely in hot markets, but no matter how much gloss you apply, Milwaukee is still a declining Rust Belt town with a comparatively small re-investment core area. Haven't these people done their research? Just this summer major developers started bitching about the impending saturation of the downtown housing market. I'm not suggesting that the public sector bend over suggestively for developers, no matter how big the promised bang. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if the central core of the Park East Corridor remains rubble-strewn and wind-swept for the forseeable future...

2005: the new 1985, but in reverse!

2005-02-02T20:08:00.000-06:00

Recently, my good friend Tim and I were drinking on a quiet Monday night in a "hole in the wall" bar in New York's East Village. We commented on the bartender's T-shirt: it was emblazoned with an Old Milwaukee Beer logo like the ones my Grandpa would have given to the Salvation Army after decades of hard use. Our bartender, of course, proudly wore his with a clever nod to irony. Meanwhile, we enjoyed the relentless visual barrage of cheeky mid-80s music videos, including Gary Nueman's Cars, still my personal favorite. After taking it all in, Mr. Old Milwaukee leaned into to us and flatly stated the seemingly obvious: "2005: It's the new 1985".

Profound, we thought, as the alcohol subdued our critical faculties. But now, with some distance, I think Mr. Old Milwaukee might have been on to something. But something much more penetrating than surface epiphenomena like T-shirts and digital images. 2005 is the new 1985, but only in reverse! Contemplate the following: Homicides in Milwaukee (as elsewhere in urban America) are now the lowest they've been since 1989, when the crack blizzard first began to wrap its deadly tentacles around the inner city. Meanwhile, AIDS deaths in San Francisco dropped to an astonishingly low 245, the smallest number reported since 1983, and down from a peak of over 2,000 per year in the late 80s and early 90s. Could it be that the two most horrific plagues to effect the fabric of urban America are receeding in exactly parallel paths?

Probably not, but the import of this to me is both physchological and cultural. I was a senior in high school in 1986, just when the world looked like it was collapsing all around us. No wonder our generation wore so much black leather, listened to the Smiths, and stood on street corners with surly scowls on our pock-marked faces. Young people in 2005 have never known such a pessimistic landscape. What on earth do they need Paxil for? When I stare into their lobotomized faces, I now wonder if their post-plague experiences at least partly explain this.

Did the local Left just regain its bearings?

2005-02-02T15:01:00.000-06:00

For too long now Milwaukee's largest left-leaning alternative daily couldn't seem to rise above shrill posturing and junvenile anti-Bush screeds. They deserve a pat on the back for their feature this week, which instead of whining about the brutality of life under distant Republican rule, redirects our attention to just how ridiculous the cultural right-wing really is. Certainly by now everyone has heard of the kamikaze attack on the loveable SpongeBob, who apparently by some stretch of the imagination is actually the sinister architect for the global gay conspiracy. That this sentence was even written is, if nothing else, a testament to how much the Right has become a living, breathing -- and highly amusing -- parody of itself.

"Genuine American" no longer...

2005-02-02T11:18:00.000-06:00

It's official. The Greater Milwaukee Visitors and Convention Bureau has dropped the Genuine American logo from its website and replaced it with the new "Milwaukee mark". I'm somewhat underwhelmed. The new mark is visually pleasing. Its symbolic vocabulary -- art, cutting-edge design, lakefront property -- certainly conveys a creative class sensibility. Yet, something about Genuine American was just so quirky and appealing. Like all really good ad copy, it captured an unspoken but essential truth. In this case it's about the city's actual sense of place, cultural style and bricks-and-mortar personality. The new mark culturally eroticizes the Calatrava; so much so that what actually makes Milwaukee interesting -- the rambling brick warehouses, the austere skyline of grain elevators and church steeples, and the nutty self-deprecating sensibility -- has been all but scrubbed clean. Oh, well, Bilbao here we come...

Planning Nirvana on Milwaukee's Left Bank?

2005-02-02T00:38:00.000-06:00

The lofty reservoir between Milwaukee's Riverwest and Beerline neighborhoods will be demolished and replaced with a large park with a commanding view Milwaukee's East side urban spine. It's definitely a win-win situation in a part of town known for it's deranged political activism over questions of land use change. The Riverwest Deaniacs have already enthusiastically endorsed the addition of further greenspace. Meanwhile, visible symbols of the area's grittier edges (like the reservoir's current landscape of barbed-wire fencing, basketball courts and broken glass) are to be discplined around the pedestrian-friendly totems of the new urban civility. No doubt, the cappuccino carriers in the beerline have already unleashed a collective sign of relief.

Kinnickinnic chic? Part two

2005-02-01T23:27:00.000-06:00

The Avalon is for sale...again.

Mrs. Gould: Diva of Brew Town Urbanism?

2005-02-01T22:59:00.000-06:00

The only reason to actually purchase the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is to read Whitney Gould's "spaces" column. This week, she absolutely skewers the timid plans for the remake of the depressing and strangely remote downtown Amtrak station. What should (and could) be a dramatic gateway to Wisconsin's largest city is currently a hidden concrete bunker surrounded by parking lots and drawfed by the towering ramps of the crumbling Marquette interchange. God help the poor soul whose first impressions of Milwaukee are formed by the surreal and lonely experience of walking from the current station to any downtown destination. No amount of clever urban PR will rescrew the city's image after such an experience. Whitney raises the bar once again...

Kinnickinnic Chic?

2005-02-01T22:14:00.000-06:00

For over two years now, official promoters in Milwaukee have been pointing to the rising arc of hipness along Bay View's Kinnickinnic strip. Yet, I still can't get sushi without crossing into the dreaded south side suburbia, or making the trek to the established "hipdom" of the east side. Hint, hint, Scott "midas" Johnson.

Bhangra on my brain

2005-02-01T21:26:00.000-06:00

The best part about teaching college students is the moment when one unforeseen interaction changes the course of your mood for an entire day. A student of mine from Pakistani Punjab was recently enamored of me because I had used Bhangra remixes as an illustration of "cultural hybridity" in my large Intro to Human Geography course. The next day, she chatted enthusiastically with me after class and then lent me three of her own Bhangra CDs, which I have listened to nearly-continuously for the last 36 hours. Need a mood-lifter? Bhangra will send your blues down the memory hole. Really, it's like being trapped inside a Bollywood movie; a kitschy audioscape of bright colors and rythmic, yet somehow innocent, sexuality. And, for some reason, I kept picturing Ganeesh (oops, wrong culture). Anyway, doing my daily Tuesday grind (dishes, paying bills) was actually a thrill with the pleasant sounds of Punjab filling my Walker's Point flat. One thing is for certain: I will never do my chores to Scandinavian Death Metal again!