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Old Posted Sep 2, 2009, 3:48 AM
Nowhereman1280 Nowhereman1280 is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Pungent Onion, Illinois
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This is going to be a long post, but hopefully it will have lots of info for you guys:

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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
4. newish condo development on the opposite side of the river in walker’s point. I really like this one.

Believe it or not, that building is actually a huge rehab and expansion of what was once an 8 story heavy warehouse. That building was built like a rock and had huge concrete columns and thick concrete floors. They added four floors to the top and converted it to condos.


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8. a swing bridge that is left in the open position because it’s so low to the water.

Can you believe that all of the bridges in downtown Chicago used to be of this design? They caused mad rushes because they were constantly opening and closing due to their low height and the high river traffic. These bridges in Milwaukee were built around the same time as the old ones in Chicago were though Chicago long ago tore them down and built the beautiful bascule bridges we are so familiar with today.


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20. here’s a shot of a fantastically gigantic and ornate church somewhere on milwaukee’s southside.
That's the Basillica of St. Josaphat, just one of Milwaukee's excessive collection of excellent churches. Milwaukee is known for its collection of religious buildings, if you are ever coming into the city from the south, look around you as you cross the I94 high rise bridge and you'll see countless spires.

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35. US bank tower, milwaukee’s tallest. Great building; awful signage.
I'm sure you already know this Steely, but same engineering genius that designed the Hancock and Sears (Willis) towers; Fazlur Khan. Just another one of the similarities (albeit miniaturized) between Milwaukee and Chicago.



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37. with all those flags flying, Milwaukee is clearly a “genuine American city”.
One of the mayors in the 80's or 90's decided to start a program encouraging every building in Milwaukee to install a flagpole and fly not only the American flag, but also a "building flag" to represent the building. Each building you see with a flag pole participated and they all had their own unique flag.


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43. back into the river estuary, there’s that massive building with the huge clock tower again. It’s gotta be one of the largest buildings in Milwaukee.
Another random Milwaukee fact: The Allan Bradley clocktower is the world's largest octagonal clock.



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57. Milwaukee center, milwaukee’s 3rd tallest.
Fortunately, this is no longer true with University Club tower eclipsing this building by about 18ft to claim the title of 3rd tallest.


[QUOTE]74. a neat circular plan tower rising high on the east bank.[/QUOTE

There are about ten similarly designed towers around Milwaukee. They are all red with a white crown and bear a striking resemblance to beer cans. People in Milwaukee actually call them "beer cans". They were the Milwaukee Housing Authority's interpretation of the idea of "projects". Needless to say they have been far more successful in achieving their purpose than the concentrated towers in a park schemes of other cities. Most are still used for public or subsidized housing and really have little adverse effect on the neighborhood around them.

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82. the tower of milwaukee’s magnificent city hall.
The US Bank Center is only the second "tallest building in Milwaukee" (other than puny 7 or 8 story buildings and churches) to ever exist, the previous holder was City Hall which, at the time of its construction, was the tallest building in the world (not including uninhabitable structures like the Washington Monument). Milwaukee is one of only three American cities to hold this distinction (1895-1899 I believe). They just finished a renovation so the copper is now brown and it now looks as it must have looked in 1895.

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105. the new Harley Davidson museum.

The Harley Davidson Museum and Milwaukee Public Market were both designed by the same small architecture firm that is actually based out of the small town I grew up in. I know the founder of the firm and am curious as to what you guys think of these structures. The firm is Kubala Washatko Architects based out of Cedarburg Wisconsin (I will recommend Cedarburg to you later in this post)



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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
i was paddling upstream at the time, you know, against the current. the milwaukee river was pretty lazy for the most part, but once i got north of the old damn, the current was running very fast and i knew there was no way i was gonna get up over those rapids. i could have portaged around, but i think that portion of the milwaukee river is best paddled as a one-way downriver trip, so maybe another time in the future i'll figure out a way to get myself up to a put-in in milwaukee's northern burbs and paddle down into the city from there.
That was a wise choice Steely. The Milwaukee river is not really made to be paddled up, it drops very steeply for about 30 miles (as the crow flies) or 40 miles of river length due to the huge ridge that runs north along Lake Michigan from Milwaukee. Because of this steep drop, there are many many damns (and broken damns like the one at north ave) that would impede your progess. Also, the river becomes very rough this time of year because the water level is usually too low to obscure the many rapids formed by the river's rapid ascent towards Milwaukee.

If you want to kayak from the north suburbs, I would actually start in the various small towns north of Milwaukee that lie along the headwaters of the Milwaukee river. I would recommend either starting in Cedar Creek in Cedarburg (there are a lot of dams here unfortunately, but its worth checking out the "frozen in time" architecture of Cedarburg) or Theinsville which lies about 5 miles downstream from where Cedar Creek and the Milwaukee river merge. There are also lots of dams in Theinsville, but they are a little easier to portage the further south you get. Also, make sure you try this trip in the spring because the water is much higher then and allows for a more leisurely paddle. If you decide to make the trip and you ever go golfing, make sure you bring a large ziplock bag or bucket because you path through one of Milwaukee's premier golf courses and the river is wide and shallow and littered with golf balls there, collect as many as you please.

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Originally Posted by Chicago Shawn View Post
Does Megabus go to Madison?
Yes it does, but it runs a little more expensive than the Milwaukee route and quite a bit less frequently.

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Originally Posted by dfane View Post
Almost as nice as the Chicago one even though Milwaulkee looks cleaner and more natural.
I don't know if you are referring to the rivers or not, but the rivers in Milwaukee are just as polluted as those in Chicago if not more so. I once tried to cross the Menomonee river about 15 miles north of downtown and sank into mud up to my knees. I should have known better than to cross there since it was just downstream from a damn consisting of a couple model T's and a whole head of trash stuck up behind them. It wasn't so bad getting muddy as it was having my legs burn and itch for weeks afterwards from the toxic pollutants that they were exposed to from that sediment.

Wow that was long, hope it wasn't too boring and contributed some interesting tidbits to this thread, thanks for the excellent tour steely.
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