Brady Street is probably Milwaukee's most dynamic and storied neighborhood. At it's roots it was a predominantly Polish neighborhood with a mix of Germans and Irish. During this time period the street stretched from the extremely valued lakeshore where the wealthy Germans built their mansions to the hellish living conditions around the brewery stockyards and tanneries along the Milwaukee River.
After the initial wave of Polish immigrants moved South to the Lincoln Village area, the Italian immigrants became the pulse of the neighborhood. Many of their establishments remain today.
After a long tenure of Socialist mayors added parks, cleaned up the streets, and added labor laws ensuring that all workers were clean, healthy, and treated with respect, the hippies moved in. During the 1060s Brady Street was a massive Hippie power complete with drug use, flower-children, peace movements, and peace flowing from the "bubblers."
This gave way to condo development in the 70s and 80s when a number of mansions along the lake were torn down to put up high-rise apartments and condos. The influx of wealthy people pushed the Hippies into the Riverwest and Bay View neighborhoods. This was the beginning of the boutique era. A number of sophisticated clothiers and beauty salons were added to the mix of shops along Brady St.
The late 90s into today, we've seen a large influx of college students move into the neighborhoods as UW-Milwaukee has started expanding south into the neighborhood, pushing many of the boutiques into the trendy Third Ward. A new dormitory and art studios for the UWM Peck School of the Arts has brought stores like Urban Outfitters and American Apparel into the area.
All of this change throughout the neighborhood's history has created quite a unique streetscape littered with various architectural styles and fostering all demographics. During the Summer months there are festivals celebrating all walks of life from Brady Street Flower Power celebrating Hippie Culture to Buskerfest celebrating street performers to Bluebird Day celebrating the struggle a 2'8" plaster bluebird had to endure in suburban Greendale before finding acceptance from the people of Brady St.
It's hard to grasp the dynamic of the neighborhood through photos alone, but here's my best attempt at a comprehensive look.
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2. This is the Starbucks I work at. It's the cutest little store.
3. One of the remaining smaller mansions. (they get much larger as you move up the lakeshore)
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5. The Brady Street Bridge is the neighborhood's access point to the lakefront
6. It also connects to the Oak Leaf Trail, Milwaukee's bicycle freeway.
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8. This massive 24hr Walgreens caused me to give into a few cravings at 4 in the morning. It expanded after the porn store in the corner went out of business, now it's the largest one I've ever been in.
9. These signs are where the locals can post whatever they want. Impromptu neighborhood festivals are FAR from uncommon.
10. Glorioso's is an Italian grocer that carries THE BEST pasta in town.
11. Wired Ventures is the Real Estate development firm in this building
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14. Art Smart's Dart Mart and Juggling Emporium is one of the hippie holdouts
15. Johnson Schmaling Architects do their studio work out of this building
16. Typical Milwaukee houses. I live in one of these large city-houses. They are MASSIVE. Most of them were built as duplexes and remain as such.
17. Here's an original Polis Flat. Notice the full doorway and full windows in the basement. This was very common for Polish houses. Most of the basements have been filled in or covered with decks.
18. Here's another way to do it. Again, notice the door in the basement
19. Typical Brady Street...Emo-kid on a bike with wheat coming out of his backpack
20. How to do infill
21. How not to do infill
22. This is over toward the river where the tanneries used to be. These are now condos
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25. This is Pulaski St. The map at the top shows it just above the star. It's odd angle gives the houses really strange sites. Some of the houses in the center of the traingle are inaccessible by roads.
26. Don't know what happened here. I think it's a cult-like church gone house
27. Rehab gone crazy
28. Here's a cool corner spot. Trocadero is a fun bar/restaurant to get French food at. While it's very fine French cuisine, it's far from the best in town. They also have a Tobacconist inside.
29. This park is under the Holton Street viaduct over the Milwaukee River. A smaller bike and pedestrian bridge hangs under the viaduct to connect Brady St to the new high-end condos of the Beerline B district. It's called the Marsupial Bridge because of the way it hangs.
30. If you read it closely you'll find that this park is actually a large and beautiful gravestone.
31. More gravestone
32. Quirks abound here. I have no clue what this is
33. These guys go all out in their decorations for EVERY holiday. Their bill must be massive.
34. Bus shelter
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36. That's right...the Red Bull car.
37. More strange infill.
38. This is by far the strangest building in the area. It's a Pharmacy/Diner/Corner Store/Vaudeville Theare/Brady St History Museum/refuge of the fabled Bluebird. The guy who owns this place is very strange.
39. Most of the businesses are in old houses
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44. The top of that building has the date 1997 and the architect listed
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47. Uhh oh, the skyscrapers are creeping back in. We must be getting closer to the lake again.
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52. Farwell Ave is where 70s Modernism reached it's height in Milwaukee.
53. This is The London House, which currently has advertising on nearly every bus shelter in the city along with little circles on the sidewalks all over saying "You are XX miles from The London House." They go as far out as 5 miles.
54. This one's called The Jetson
55. Walking over to Prospect Ave, we find a few old mansions and a lot of high-rises.
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58. The building at the far right of this photo is where Oprah's mom lives. The building caught fire a couple of weeks ago.
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60. And the view I see every day when I walk to work.
Now I have to end this with a short news article about the famous Bluebird. This thing got international press when it was up in Greendale. It was pretty ridiculous. But now it's become a symbol of the character within Brady St residents:
Bird of passage: Shooed from his Greendale roost 2 years ago, fowl finds a new place to rest his feathers: Brady Street Pharmacy.
Byline: Vikki Ortiz
Aug. 21--He landed on Brady St. a couple of weeks ago, but you can't blame the Bluebird for trying to be quiet about his arrival.
The last time he landed on a rooftop, in Greendale two summers ago, he got more attention than a 32-inch plastic foam and plaster bird would ever need.
Neighbors pointed, stared and called him names, including "inappropriate" and "eyesore." Some even circulated a petition arguing that the Bluebird didn't belong on Bluebird Court. He just didn't fit in with the historical homes of the neighborhood, they argued.
Never mind that the idea for him came from an 11-year-old child. She suggested the sculpture to her artist grandpa, Al Emmons, who installed it onto the roof of a home he owned.
Never mind that some people in the village liked him there. Eventually, the Greendale Village Board ordered the Bluebird to come down.
And so for the past two years, the Bluebird, with his crooked wings, cartoon eyes and a beak slightly agape, has lived on the lawn of the Bluebird Court home.
Things could have been worse. At least he didn't get thrown away.
Neighbors who took pity on him dressed him up for Halloween and Christmas. He made an appearance at a parade. His creator, Emmons, even sponsored a "Where's the Bluebird" contest -- complete with ice cream gift certificate prizes.
Yet despite all the kind gestures, the Bluebird longed for more. He wanted his bird's-eye view of the world.
Then, a few weeks ago, Jim Searles, a longtime friend of Emmons, had an idea.
Searles offered to let the Bluebird take up residence on the marquee over his business, Brady Street Pharmacy, an east side institution known for edgy creative endeavors, including a vaudeville theater.
In Searles' eyes, it is just this type of character that keeps neighborhoods alive. So he had the oversize, nearly 100-pound Bluebird installed without any advance warning to neighbors.
Unlike the suburbs, no one complained. People in this neighborhood -- where neighbors allegedly were disappointed when a gargoyle was removed from a home a few years ago -- seem to understand what it feels like to be different.
"I went through that going through high school. I stood out quite a bit," says Steven Feih, a 30-year-old bartender from the Roman Coin bar across the street.
"I think (the Bluebird) should do what he wants. It kind of makes this neighborhood unique," says Dan Petry, co-owner of the Anomaly Design Shop on Brady St.
Neighbors are so eager to welcome their new resident, they're organizing a celebration in his honor. On Sept. 8, there will be a daylong photo contest involving the Bluebird. A fairy -- in a homemade costume from Kim's Costume Shop in West Allis -- will pose with the bird all day. People behind the contest are constructing a 4-by-4-foot mushroom for the Bluebird's backdrop.
The person with the best Bluebird photo will win $1,000. Other prizes include $200 gift certificates to Brady St. restaurants.
And while the Bluebird might fly off somewhere else after it's all done -- he's had some invitations -- people in the Brady St. neighborhood are happy to be helping the Bluebird get back to what he was created for: to make people smile.
"Maybe there's a lesson here for the kids," Searles says. "Try again."
To see more of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.jsonline.com.
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