Third Ward a Window on Milwaukee’s Past and Future

×

Expand

Photo: Historic Third Ward - historicthirdward.org

Third Ward Riverwalk

Historic Third Ward Riverwalk

The district just south of Milwaukee’s Downtown has come to be known as the Historic Third Ward due to its colorful and lively history. It represents a unique socio-cultural link to old Milwaukee and a model for other communities in terms of development philosophy and strategy. The 44-acre plot of land, originally a swamp, was listed in the National Historic Registry in 1984.

After the swamp was drained, the first houses were built on the west side and factories and warehouses were built on the east side. An early and disturbing story of vigilante justice took place in the Third Ward in 1861 when a white mob overtook the police and broke into the jail, dragging a Black man from his cell and lynching him. In the decades that followed when the ward was dubbed the “bloody” Third Ward because of the excessive fistfights and general violence occurring there.

Irish immigrants were the first settlers and during their time in the area the Irish suffered two enormous and significant tragedies. The first was in September 1860 when the Lady Elgin steamship sank in Lake Michigan and over 400 members of the Irish community were lost. It is still the second greatest loss of life on the Great Lakes.

The other event was a defining moment not just for the Irish population in Milwaukee, but for the city at large. At approximately 5:40 pm on Friday, Oct. 28, 1892, a fire started spontaneously at Union Oil and Paint Co. on Water Street, and 50 mph winds spread it to the rest of the Third Ward. Five people were killed, more than 440 buildings, mostly wooden homes, were destroyed. Some 2500 people, mostly Irish, were left homeless.

The massive blaze lit up the sky and it could be seen as far away as Waukegan and Sheboygan. After the fire most residents did not rebuild, many relocating to the Tory Hill neighborhood. Local architects designed many of the commercial structures that were re-built and this continued for a period of 36 years, which created a unique architectural consistency.

The Italians Arrive

It was during this time that Italian and Sicilian immigrants moved into the ward and largely replaced the Irish. Italians were prolific in the warehousing business and they established Commission Row, a row of grocery commission houses, which has now been completely remodeled. 

By 1915 there were 29 Italian saloons, 45 groceries, a bank and two spaghetti factories in the ward. Groceries, dry goods and liquor flourished and money flowed like water into the hands of some of the shrewdest and most well-placed operators. And along with the Italians and Sicilians comes a fascinating and rather mysterious Mafia history. There was a fundamental historic-cultural split between Italians and Sicilians going back centuries in the Old World, and the same thing applied in America, in many cases, where there were immigrants from both places settling among each other. In the Third Ward there was evidently both a Little Italy and a Little Sicily, but, of course, there was also plenty of crossover, and to what extent it really mattered in terms of anything beyond local relationships and politics is unknown.

In the case of Milwaukee it was the Sicilian gangsters who had the inside track and who took control of the Third Ward and the city. The earliest known Milwaukee Mafia boss was Vito Guardalabene, who was born in Santa Flavia, Sicily in 1845. In 1903 he landed on Detroit Street with his sons Angelo and Giovanni, who were already here, and his supremacy in the Sicilian underworld was solidified by 1915, as noted in the memoirs of gangster Nick Gentile.

He never ran for political office, but during his time Guardalabene was considered the political ruler of the Third Ward. It is important to mention that members of the Mafia-linked Balistrieri family were present in the Third Ward a decade before Guardalabene’s arrival, since they would eventually become the most prominent underworld family in Milwaukee and the kingpins of Mafia activity in the city. (An interesting side note is the odd fact that the other early prominent 20th century Milwaukee Mafia family, the Amato family, or D’Amato, founded a funeral service with the Guardalabene family.)

Milwaukee was a kind of cultural proving ground with so many immigrants vying for work and living space, and a good example of why so many Italian and Sicilian families were involved in the underworld to some degree and engaged in so much criminal activity.

Unlike the Irish, the Italians did not speak the language and it put them at a serious disadvantage. It also made them easy targets. The anti-Italian prejudice and hatred was profound. Even the Irish discriminated against the Italians. When it is not possible to find a job outside the area where you live due to the overwhelming prejudice against you and your kind, options are extremely limited. The prejudice against the Italians delivered countless men in a place like the Third Ward into the hands of the crime bosses to run the streets and do the dirty work.

Power Struggle

After the death of Vito Guardalabene in 1921 his son, Giovanni, succeeded him briefly and it appears power was shared between Giovanni and a distant relative called “Big Joe” Amato, also Sicilian born. According to the FBI all power was turned over to Amato in 1924. After Amato died of natural causes in 1927, Joe Vallone, also Sicilian born, became the next Mafia boss in the Third Ward. He held power until 1949 when he was succeeded by Salvatore “Sam” Ferrara, also Sicilian born.

After a power struggle the Chicago leaders installed John Alioto in 1952, also Sicilian born, to the seat of power in Milwaukee. The city was a thriving industrial and manufacturing center and the Third Ward was a teeming urban hub, but it was still isolated enough that it maintained a lot of its native character for decades and it has been viewed by many in the Italian community over the years with a certain quaint nostalgia as a kind of idyllic place of family and cultural purity. The reality was, like any place, a complex mix of elements.

There was a close-knit community of Italian or Sicilian families who made a home despite the odds and obvious obstacles, who supported each other in every way, with a strong sense of identity that resulted from the shared values and experiences, and the cottage industries that sustained so many. There was also the darker reality of the most extreme urban poverty and broken families, with hungry children roaming the streets and an ugly foster care system with little or no oversight of any kind where many children were deposited like so much detritus.

There was also the excessive drinking and personal feuds and the gangster politics that often result in acts of extreme violence in such close social confines. The Third Ward developed a further reputation as a violent and dangerous place that should be avoided in general. It was a bit of a pressure cooker given the number of people and amount of sometimes untamed human activity in such a confined space, but likely no more so than many other places culturally similar to it. Unfortunately, so much history has been lost to us because there was so little documentation anywhere, and a lot of what we know is anecdotal and comes from family histories.

Evidently, the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel largely ignored the Third Ward. And the ward itself being as insular as it was, and rather tight-lipped with authorities, does not seem to have been very forthcoming with information. Even the historical societies and the archives at the Milwaukee Public Library possess very little in the way of documentation of any kind from the Third Ward between the turn of the century and the 1970s.

The most notable (and infamous) story is the bombing of the Milwaukee Police Department on the corner of Oneida and Broadway on November 24, 1917, when nine police officers and a civilian were killed. The perpetrators were never found, but it is suspected it was an anarchist cell operating in the Midwest and stationed in the Third Ward. The target was actually a church in the Third Ward and the bomb killed the officers and the civilian when it was taken to the police station by a concerned citizen.

Freeways and ‘Urban Renewal’

By the early 1960s, when Milwaukee-born Frank Balistrieri assumed power as Mafia leader, the freeway development project began to invade the Third Ward and scatter the Italian and Sicilian communities that had been there for six decades. In 1967, in the name of urban renewal, the historic Our Lady of Pompeii Church in the Third Ward was demolished. Built in 1904, it was painted pink and thereafter lovingly referred to as “the little pink church” by people all over the city.

The Italians would hold religious processions that began and ended at the church, and its destruction marked a hugely significant turning point for the Italians and the city. It was the closing of an important door to the past, but it was also a step toward proper historic preservation. According to the Milwaukee County Historical Society’s Kevin Abing, “The razing of the Our Lady of Pompeii Church was a trigger for the Italians and it started the process of preservation.” There was no going back at that point and the city swallowed up a lot of what had been isolated communities with their own cultural identities.

Something Worth Preserving

The Italian community and others began to realize there was something worth preserving in the Third Ward. In 1978 the Italians hosted the first Festa Italiana at the Summerfest grounds, and it has become a world class festival, an inspiration for others in the city to host their own cultural festivals. In the 1970s a red light district was proposed and that was the impetus for the founding of the Historic Third Ward Association, according to Jim Plaisted, Executive Director of the Association.

The red light district was successfully opposed, and in the 1980s the Third Ward was recognized by the National Registry of Historic Places, with 70 buildings over 10 square blocks included. The Buffalo Street Bridge was removed, which did further isolate the area somewhat, but it has also helped it to maintain some of its native character. Plaisted points out that renovation “was an exercise of the ‘80s and ‘90s and the warehouses closing down.” Gentrification began and the warehouses and factories were eventually converted to shops, offices and condos. All urban communities were undergoing urban renewal and Milwaukee’s Third Ward was no exception.

Bobby Tanzilo of OnMilwaukee.com, someone who knows Milwaukee’s Italian history, notes that “construction of 794 and commercial development was viewed as more important than a neighborhood that was seen by many as blighted—a view surely colored by preconceived notions, stereotypes and ethnic prejudice.” He goes on to say, “I think those same attitudes also played into why there was no attempt to preserve or really document the neighborhood. It is one of the less glorious legacies of the Zeidler era.”

The ‘90s brought the $3.4 million Street Scape Project. Completed in 1992, it included the construction of Catalano Square, 285 pedestrian light poles and the two identifying arches, among other items. Gallery Night drew crowds into the district and in 2005 the Milwaukee Public Market opened.

Much of the Third Ward has been remodeled and re-purposed and it is now one of the city’s artistic and creative centers. Performance venues include the Broadway Theater Center and Festival Park also holds concerts and events. Old warehouses have become fabulous office spaces and homes. Upscale restaurants and boutiques are part of the new Third Ward, but there are also cheese and fish vendors. There are approximately 450 first floor retail businesses with offices above, and there are 1,800 housing units with around 3,000 residents.

Says Plaisted, “Economic development energy continues and is as strong as ever despite the pandemic,” and he points out the strong appeal because of “the great neighborhood it has become and its proximity to downtown.”

In 1990 the Italian Community Center opened and has become a repository for many surviving historic artifacts and documents. The Third Ward stands as an historic-cultural pillar in Milwaukee and offers us a distant but enlightening view of our past, and an enriching and edifying part of the human experience. It is also a living, breathing example of how the past can meet and mesh with the future. It has certainly earned its history and reputation and it deserves to be remembered and preserved. Our history matters. Those people matter. What they built and what they left us matters.  

For more on the Third Ward and Milwaukee’s Italian community consult the work of the late Mario Carini, who wrote extensively for The Italian Times and published two books on the subject.

The National Register of Historic Places district is located between the Milwaukee River, I-94 and the warehouse parking lots to the east. Among the buildings included are: Milwaukee Fire Department Engine Company #10, National Distilling Company, Ludington Estate Commission Houses, Baumbach Building and American Candy Co.