Photo via Visit Milwaukee
Visitors on lakefront pedestrian bridge
Visitors walk along a pedestrian bridge on Milwaukee's lakefront
A good way to explore Milwaukee is on foot, neighborhood by neighborhood. You can reach out and touch the buildings, walk on the beaches, shop in the shops, eat in local restaurants, and walk in the parks. The list of potential walks is endless and Milwaukee’s colorful history, filled with wave after wave of hardworking immigrants, remains visible today in our neighborhoods. The early settlers are long gone, but they left many traces behind, for example their Polish flats in the Riverwest neighborhood.
Riverwest
Riverwest might be the most diverse neighborhood in Milwaukee. It is also a neighborhood where many ethnic settlers came to work, planted roots and stayed for generations. The Germans came first in the early 1800s, followed by Polish settlers in the 1880s. Those frugal Poles built their homes to accommodate two families, and these homes became known as Polish flats. You will recognize them by their steep exterior staircases that lead to a second-floor residence stacked on top of a ground level residence.
As you walk around Riverwest, you will see many “flats” and cottages as well as some more elegant homes on Humboldt Boulevard. A good place to start is the Uptowner Bar at the corner of Center Street and Humboldt Boulevard. Nearby you will see Our Lady of Divine Providence Church on Clarke Street. Also nearby is the Riverwest Co-Op, a natural foods store and café located in a former Schlitz tied house.
When you come to Locust Street, look for Black Husky Brewery and if you wish, bring your dog. If you want something to eat with your brew, you are welcome to bring it yourself. Just west on Locust Street, Woodland Pattern Bookstore promotes poetry and books from independent publishers.
If you head north on Bremen Street, you will pass many Polish flats as well as cottages and duplexes and just before Burleigh Street, you will come to Snail Crossing Park named for a quilt pattern that represents the blend of ethnic groups in Riverwest. There is a lot more to explore nearby--check out the shops, restaurants and bars where anything goes, the people are friendly, and the vibe is cool.
Brewer’s Hill
Brewer’s Hill, located south of Riverwest, is filled with majestic homes built by wealthy brewers and North Avenue merchants. There are also an equal number of small cottages formerly owned by the brewery workers and the men who worked the tanneries and the sawmills adjacent to the river. As businesses left the area, many of these homes were demolished or left to crumble. A renewal, led by the Historic Brewer’s Hill Association, has reclaimed and renovated many of these Victorian homes and small cottages, and today Brewer’s Hill is an integrated neighborhood with a mix of incomes, lifestyles, and homes.
A leisurely stroll is the best way to appreciate this collection of restored homes. You could start this walk at the Kinship Café at 2153 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, a community hub located in the former Gimbel’s department store. When you leave the café, cross MLK and head east on Lloyd Street where you will enter Brewer’s Hill. When you get to Palmer Street, walk down the hill to 1823 Palmer to see the Sanger House Gardens, a spectacular display of more than 400 varieties of trees, shrubs, perennials, and annuals.
If you want to see more after you have traversed the streets of Brewer’s Hill, walk east on North Avenue and cross Holton Street. Soon you will come to Kilbourn Reservoir Park. There are several routes to the top of the hill where a reservoir operated until 2004. After it was removed, 88,000 cubic yards of soil were trucked in to replace the former reservoir and the addition of grass, trees, and shrubs, turned it into a park where you will find what many consider the best view of the city in Milwaukee.
East Side
When you look south from the park, you can see St. Hedwig’s steeple, a Brady Street landmark that rises 160 feet above the sidewalk. It was a center for the early Polish who came to the Brady neighborhood to work in the industries along the river.
Before you start to walk on Brady Street, take a long view and you will see a jumble of architectural styles and a tapestry of bars, shops and restaurants. If you want to take in all the commercial activity on the street, start at the west end at Sticky Rice, a small Thai restaurant, and head east. You will pass Casablanca with its Mediterranean cuisine and the Diplomat where chef Dane Baldwin is a James Beard Award winner. Then you will come to Glorioso’s Italian Market, St. Hedwig’s Church, Peter Sciortino Bakery, and finally Art’s Smart Dart Mart at Humboldt and Brady.
East of Humboldt, multiple bars and restaurants dominate the street including Sweet Joy Café, Twisted Plants, a vegetarian restaurant, La Masa where they serve baked empanadas, and two franchises, Qdoba and Jimmy John’s. Just beyond Walgreens, look for the vacant triangle-shaped lot on Farwell Avenue where there will soon be an 11-story, 130-room hotel.
There is more to see in the neighborhood when you leave Brady including Pitch’s known for BBQ ribs, Wolski’s Tavern, many Polish flats, vintage Cream City brick homes, and Caesar’s Park on Boylston Street.
At the park, concrete steps lead to the river and a path that will take you along the river to the Urban Ecology Center and beyond. This is also the site of the former North Avenue Dam and a fine place to linger far from the hubbub of Brady Street.
The Downer Avenue and Newberry Boulevard walk is less a neighborhood walk and more of a saunter up and down two streets plus a foray into Lake Park. Downer, from Webster Place to Newberry, is pure East Side where sidewalk seating and people watching are popular warm weather activities. This is a fine walking street where the ghosts of Ma Jolie and the Coffee Trader have been replaced by Belgian beer at Café Hollander, escargot at Pizza Man, baguettes and boules at Breadsmith, and a Vanilla Latte at Starbuck’s. You can pick up a scone at Stone Creek Coffee, toilet paper at CVS Pharmacy, buy a screwdriver at Downer True Value Hardware, purchase groceries at Sendik’s, or sink into a comfy chair at Boswell Book Company.
At the north end of this commercial strip, turn right on Newberry where you enter a parade of homes on an elegant boulevard known for its mature maple trees and grassy median. To fully appreciate the beauty and architectural diversity of the homes on Newberry, walk the entire 12 blocks from Lake Drive to Oakland Avenue. This is the promenade that Frederick Law Olmsted envisioned that would link Riverside Park and Lake Park. At the corner of Lake and Newberry, you will see one of Milwaukee’s largest homes surrounded by a magnificent wrought iron fence. At 2727 E. Newberry, note the gables and turrets that adorn this home with 17 rooms, seven bathrooms, and eight fireplaces. In summer, take a moment to admire the garden surrounding the home on the northwest corner of Newberry and Stowell Avenue.
You can extend this neighborhood saunter by crossing Lake Drive at the east end of Newberry and continuing into Lake Park, also designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.
North Point
The North Point neighborhood, south of Lake Park, is a showcase of early Milwaukeean’s prosperity as evidenced by the homes they built in the early 1900s. The neighborhood, now the North Point Historic District, sits on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan.
A good place to start this walk is the top of McKinley Hill where the view of the harbor sheltering dozens of sailboats and yachts, as well as a clear view of Downtown, encourages a respite on one of the benches. From here you can head north on Terrace Avenue, and you will come to Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum. Keep heading north to see the Water Tower with its Gothic exterior covering an iron pipe four feet in diameter.
Many of the most interesting homes in this neighborhood are located on Terrace and Wahl Avenues. As you walk, note the gables, turrets, steep roof lines, helmet-shaped towers, sculptured terra cotta, and gargoyles.
When Jefferson Glidden and John Lockwood purchased 100 acres of empty land on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in 1854, they could not have imagined that their property would someday be the site of some of Milwaukee’s most opulent homes and become known as Milwaukee’s Gold Coast.
Third Ward
While Brewer’s Hill set an example of urban renewal in the 1970s, the same can be said about the Third Ward after a devastating fire in 1892 destroyed many of the homes built by the Irish, the ward’s early settlers. In 1976, when the Historic Third Ward Association was established, the city began to value the vintage buildings and warehouses left in the ward after the fire and one by one they were rehabbed and repurposed. Gradually the ward took on its current metropolitan personality and today it is filled with condos, shops and restaurants, instead of modest frame houses, warehouses and small manufacturers.
It is a fascinating area where you can spend an hour or a day wandering the streets and stopping to investigate shops and galleries. A good place to begin is the Public Market at the corner of St. Paul Avenue and Water Street where you could start with a cup of coffee from Anodyne and a cinnamon roll from C. Adams Bakery. When you leave the market, look for the Marshall Building, a former warehouse built in the early 1900s that now houses small businesses and artists who want to combine contemporary amenities with vintage charm. It is also the home of the Shepherd Express.
Also on Water, look for District Row, an upscale woman’s clothing boutique, and around the corner at Menomonee Street, Blick Art Materials. Walk east on Erie Street to see Catalano Square and across the street the Broadway Theater Center. Further north on Broadway, Broadway Paper is a longtime resident and a source of cards, gift wrap, and arts and crafts supplies. At 211 Broadway, Mod Gen, a contemporary general store stocks a multitude of gift ideas and across the street, Retique sells carefully curated used fashions.
If all this shopping left your head spinning, head east on Erie Street toward the Hoan Bridge and around the bend you will come to Lakeshore State Park, which borders the Henry Maier Festival Grounds and Discovery World. Follow the paved trail, a lovely walk any time of the year and an appropriate way to conclude a whirlwind visit to Milwaukee’s Third Ward.
Bay View
Unlike the North Point neighborhood, Bay View had a modest beginning. It first developed as an industrial suburb when Elmer Brock Ward established the Milwaukee Iron Company in 1868. Farmer’s fields were converted to neighborhoods and cottages were built to accommodate the workers at what became known as the Bay View Rolling Mill.
A good place to start is at the corner of Russell Avenue and Kinnickinnic Avenue at the Church of the Immaculate Conception. Travel east on Russell and look for Puddler’s Hall on St. Clair Street; Three Brothers restaurant on Conway Street; and on Superior Street, the Beulah Brinton Community House. Close to Superior on Russell, there’s G. Groppi Food Market with its upscale groceries, imported cheeses, and extensive wine selection.
A stroll down Superior from Russell to Oklahoma Avenue will take you through the heart of residential Bay View and give you a tour of the diverse homes in the village. At Pryor Avenue, you will find Milwaukee’s last public artesian well where you can fill a jug with iron-rich water. If you end at Oklahoma, you can continue walking south as far as you wish on the bike trail that follows the Lake Michigan shoreline.
The next time you are looking for something to do, lace up your shoes, choose a neighborhood, and get to know Milwaukee, one step at a time.
