Memories of Old Downtown Milwaukee

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Photo by Larry Widen

Blackie downtown

Blackie (left) downtown, 1978

The guy in the park with a pint of Thunderbird, the residents of a hotel on the verge of demolition, and the hash-slinger who served a million eggs in 10,955 days. All of them gone now … but are they? Many people who encountered them in this world say their souls inhabit the places they loved.

Mike Karnel was a wise-cracking fry cook right out of a 1940s film noir. He operated a bare-bones diner at Third and State for more years than any of us care to count. The place with three booths, and 10 counter stools was opened by his father, Art, in what was Otto Thiele’s drug store in 1874.

Mike bought the building from his dad in 1975 and never missed a day at the griddle. He loved to tell jokes and stories while cracking three eggs with one hand. His grease-spotted cardboard sign read, “The Meal You Can’t Get at Home. $2.25”. The Meal was an oversized omelet loaded with ham, cheese, mushrooms, and onions with an order of toast. 

Mike’s regulars included former mayor Frank Zeidler, Milwaukee Journal and Sentinel employees, musicians, local celebrities like Hank Aaron, and everyday people who stopped in to see what all the fuss was about. 

Mike passed away at age 84 on December 3, 2023. Old-timers still recall themilkshakes made with real malt powder, that ancient pay phone in the back, and a men’s room so small even the mice were hunchbacked.

The Belmont Hotel

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Karl Bandow Collection

Belmont Hotel

The Belmont Hotel

The Belmont Hotel at 4th and Wells opened in 1926, touting 150 fireproof rooms reasonably priced at $18 per week. Guest accommodations for guest included a bar, coffee shop, barber shop and a parking garage. Spencer Tracy, Dorothy Lamour, Danny Kaye, and Basil Rathbone dropped in whenever they were in town. Musicians from Benny Goodman’s band hit the bar after a show at the Riverside. That 24-hour coffee shop was a godsend for people who worked at night. After World War II, the hotel transitioned into a hangout for gamblers, streetwalkers and strippers from the nightclubs a block away.

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Belmont Coffee Shop ad, April 1952

Belmont Coffee Shop ad, April 1952

Spurned lover Marion Keene showed up with a loaded revolver to shoot manager Frank Businger. A judge remanded Marion to the care of an alienist (now a psychiatrist) for treatment. Pornographer Hyman Shumacher and gamblers Dave Collier and Roger Arenson were assaulted outside the bar. Anton Sterner, the “Burgermeister of State Street,” and Dan Smith got into a knife fight over who was the more patriotic of the two.

In 1960, Izzy Pogrob, owner of the Brass Rail strip club on 3rd Street, left the coffee shop and was found hours later with nine bullet holes in his head and neck. Evidence pointed to a gangland slaying, but the murder remains a cold case 64 years later. In August 1975, hotel barber Steve Mattano was executed in his shop by two bullets in his head. Like Pogrob, the crime was never solved. Mattano operated the barbershop for more than 40 years.

By 1980 the Belmont had become an affordable flophouse for low-income residents. For years urban planners threatened to level the hotel, but another project always got in the way. Robert “Peanuts” Tostrue lived there so long that some thought the hotel was built around him. With no income, he supported himself by doing odd jobs around the premises. For half a buck he’d run to George Webb’s for a sack of hamburgers or Woolworth’s for inexpensive toiletries. Peanuts spent his money at the bar sipping brandy and colas. When he got hungry, there was always a church program with meals. 

Flo worked in the Schroeder hotel’s kitchen as a teenager and stayed for 39 years. Even the 250,000 cigarettes she’d smoked couldn’t dim those striking green eyes. She got up on her hind legs when 20 new residents showed up one day. Evicted from the Antlers Hotel when it was demolished for the Grand Avenue mall, they got two months free rent upon arrival. More newbies moved in when the Randolph Hotel on Wisconsin Avenue was torn down. Flo never stopped bitching about getting her free rent. In 1996, the Belmont was finally razed. The 90 occupants were given $225 cash and 30 days to vacate their rooms. Eventually they scattered to the four winds, some going to rooming houses or disappearing into history as forgotten ghosts of the Belmont.

The Rescue Mission

Blackie’s rheumy eyes and craggy face spoke volumes about the life he’d led. He was a chronic abuser of alcohol who stayed at the old Rescue Mission on 5th Street near State Street. Some days he could be found sitting on a bench in Marquette Park, bumming smokes from strangers. If someone gave him a buck, he’d have a pint of MD 20/20 wine in his coat pocket. Morgan Davis, he always called it.

When his brain wasn’t clouded, Blackie talked about his childhood ln Detroit. Tiny sparks ignited in his watery eyes for a second, and then disappeared. “We lived in Little Jerusalem near Willis Avenue. Nobody had any money”, he said. “Us kids ran errands for the neighborhood gangsters. Hell, it was a job.” 

Those gangsters were known as the Purple Gang, an organization of Jewish criminals formed during the Depression. They were petty thieves and small-time extortionists that became armed robbers, truck hijackers and bootleggers. The Purple Gang members were feared because they showed no mercy to their enemies. “When I got older, the top guys saw I could handle jobs. I did I was told to do,” Blackie said. “I killed guys because that was orders. He said gunmen often used a .22 pistol at close range. “I got caught and went to prison,” he said. I got sent to Alcatraz.” 

Blackie’s time on the island in San Francisco Bay overlapped with the notorious Al Capone, who was incarcerated for income tax fraud. “I was only there with Capone for maybe two months.  I don’t exactly remember,” he said. “I never met him, never talked to him.” Blackie said word was passed around the cellblock that Capone had a bad case of syphilis but didn’t want the cure. “They said Al was yellow,” Blackie said with a phlegmy laugh. “They said he was afraid of the needle”.

With that, Blackie got off his bench and shuffled west. “Gotta get back,” he said, nodding toward the mission building. “If you don’t go to church service, you don’t get a meal”.