Saturday, May 09, 2015

Milwaukee, Wisconsin - May 1953

For today's "Anything Goes Saturday" we're going to travel all the way to Milwaukee, aka "Brew Town" (or "Beer City", which I don't like as much - why not "Sudsville"?)! It's the biggest city in Wisconsin, and Mr. Wikipedia tells us that it is the 31st most-populated city in the U.S. I have relatives in Wisconsin (in the lovely town of Oconomowoc, which I love to say), so I have had the pleasure of spending some time in Milwaukee. 

I love this first photo, showing a parade marching down an unknown street; I looked and looked to see if I could do a "then and now" comparison, but no cigar. Knowing the GDB readers, they will have that nut cracked in minutes. I thought that the distant church spire (?) would help, but it didn't really. Anyway, being May, this might be a Memorial Day parade. I love the old-fashioned cops, the giant Schlitz billiard, and the roomy Avenue Bar. The kid in the yellow cap is around 70 years old now.


This photo affords us a nice elevated vantage point, looking toward Milwaukee's ornate City Hall. In 1895 it was the tallest habitable structure in the United States! The bell tower is 353 feet tall. I am happy to say that this building has recently been renovated, and is still standing proud today. It has so much history and character! I love all the old cars and trucks along the streets, and even the humble Huebsch Cleaners sign.


There's another bar, and another Schlitz sign! 



10 comments:

D Ticket said...

The Avenue Bar and Grill
611 W Wisconsin Ave
Milwaukee, WI

It's in a Doubletree now, but you can still see the church spire when you look down Wisconsin Ave, as well as the white 2 storey building closer to us.

Cheers!

TokyoMagic! said...

I've never been to Milwaukee, but I love the old architecture in these pics....especially that City Hall!

The Schlitz beer signs make me think of "Shotz" beer and the fictitious brewery where Laverne & Shirley worked.

Nanook said...

Major-

D Ticket beat me to it. However, the address of Mike's Bar & Schrinsky's Food Store (was) 541 Van Buren St. at State Street.

Thanks, Major. It's time for a Schlitz. (Well - maybe not).

K. Martinez said...

You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to catch the action here.


Where's Shotz Brewery?

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight
shlemiel, schlemazel, hasenpfeffer incorporated
We're gonna do it"

Irene said...

The kid in the yellow cap is more in the range of 66, like me. I was 5 years old when this photo was taken and he looks to be around 4 or 5 also. Love these old city photos.

Anonymous said...

I like that last picture where there is a "Stop" sign mounted above the traffic signal. I recall them being yellow in color before they switched to the red color we all know now. I was only 3-4 at the time of that memory.

KS

Sunday Night said...

If I was going to build a model train, and if I was going to model Milwaukee, I'd model a bar after the one in the photo - it looks so much like a scale model already.

Major Pepperidge said...

D Ticket, well, I feel dumb now! I honestly looked on Google for a while, but I guess my skills aren’t so great. Thanks for figuring it out!

TokyoMagic!, yeah, that’s one of the things that is cool about some of those cities in the midwest. Of course, just like any other city, many of the nice old buildings are long gone today. I wondered if anybody would make a “Laverne and Shirley” reference!

Nanook, “Schrinsky’s”, isn’t that an awesome name? “Run over to Schrnisky’s and get some sauerkraut, will ya?”. You can’t have Schlitz in the morning unless you use it to make a breakfast smoothie.

K. Martinez, I think I watched about 2 episodes of Laverne and Shirley in my life, but I somehow saw the opening credits quite a few times. I was more of a “Joanie Loves Chachi” man! ;-)

KS, I have a photo on my blog showing Washington DC from the 1940’s, and there is a yellow stop sign visible there as well.

Sunday Night, I can’t tell you how much I wanted to build a model railroad when I was a kid! My mom always said that we didn’t have room for one - plus I think she believed that I would get a good start and then lose interest.

Melissa said...

I bet Huebson Cleaners is where Laverne and Shirley used to take their ball gowns to be cleaned before returning them to Squiggy's uncle's wax museum.

When I was a kid, I used to read the "Betsy and Tacy" books by Lucy Maud Montgomery about little girls growing up near the Twin Cities at the turn of the century, and they always used to talk about Milwaukee as a sort of distant exotic metropolis like London or Paris. I think one of them had a calendar or postcard picture of that city hall building. Betsy wrote a poem about going to Milwaukee; I wish I could remember it.

Anonymous said...

just cool stuff. Love the world that was...

Thanks Major.

JG