Milwaukee County's best people, places and things are:

[keith]

Here's your chance! If you live, work or play in Milwaukee County, share your knowledge of the place with the rest of us!

Tell us, if you would, who are the wisest, oldest, funniest, most eccentric or otherwise unique individuals in your County that we should come to know.

Please tell us the best place to eat, to drink, to play softball, have a picnic, camp, hunt or fish.

Any "must-see" landmarks? Points of interest? Any great collections, whether mainstream or offbeat? What's the best way to go about experiencing them?

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[Bookmark]

I am very interested in Milwaukee's current downtown condominium boom. Kilbourntower(http://kilbourntower.com) is almost completed and will look very beauitful when it's done. University Club Tower will go in right beside it and will have an even more innovative design featuring a lot of glass combined with a white supprt structure.

Finally, US Bank is going to put a second tower in right beside it's current one. It's going to be the same size but a more innovative design. It's currently planned to be a mixture of retail on the bottom floors and business, hotel and condos taking up the rest. US Bank and Quarles & Bradley will occupy the business sections primarily.

One form of structures I like to gaze at are skylines! Milwaukee is currently under a massive moderinization what with the valley project, all the downtown boom, the art museum and the miller park finished in 2001. Milwaukee is shedding it's old and gritty industrial rust-belt image very fast and I'm enjoying every second of it!

A picture of Milwaukee's current skyline, with the white tower being the current bank -
http://www.bookmarkhosting.com/wisco...waukeepic2.jpg

The article about the Signature Twin Towers -
http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee...y1.html?page=1

Innovative resendtial project -
http://www.601lofts.com/index_se.html

Milwaukee's new logo -
http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphic...aukee-logo.jpg

A Milwaukee graphic I made due to the renergizing the city -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...keeGraphic.jpg

Finally, check out preliminary stages of "Professive Development" at http://bookmarkhosting.com/wisconsin/ for information on Milwaukee's currenty development which features skyline photos, photos of the Marquette Exchange(also under a huge modernization) along with renders of kilbourn and UV Club. This site has many changes planned, one being the layout. It will be done this summer when I photograph as much WI notable architecture as I can while encaspulating it in this ongoing, "The WI experience" website.

[jonkopp]

awesome informatin...thanks bookmark!

[Bookmark]

Thanks, I find studying local progressive development fairly interesting. I'm not into it like a religion or anything, I just like hearing about big deal innovative changes and revitilizations in "boring old WI." Anything to do with modernizing our main platforms and getting away from this "empty factory capsule every 3 blocks" look some of our towns and cities has is the stuff that interests me! New, slick and modern -- I wanna hear about it!

Interesting/Strange fact..

In doing all this I've come to find it interesting in the way some WI cities are laid out when viewing detailed blown-up street-level maps. I currently have 30 maps soley related to Wisconsin. They are all Rand McNally, Universal, Hudson or Milwaukee Mapping. All are in color and have easy on the eyes color codding.

http://datadrops.com/temp/maps.jpg

Milwaukee, Madison, Fox Cities(Appleton), Green Bay, Wausau, Stevens Point/Marshfield/Wisconsin Rapids, Eau Clairie/Chippewa Falls/Menomonie, Janesville/Beloit, Oshkosh, La Crosse, Kenosha, Manitowoc/Sheboygan, Racine, Wisconsin Dells, Fond du Lac, Washington County(West Bend), Ozaukee County(Mequon/Port Washington), Waukesha, University of Wisconsin/Downtown Madison, "Milwaukee Place Map" (3d angled-down 3rd perspective with solid polygon style skyscrapers and streets/exchanges).

It is interesting to see a city blown up on a huge map:

http://bookmarkhosting.com/wisconsin/Milwaukee.jpg
http://bookmarkhosting.com/wisconsin/Madison.jpg
http://datadrops.com/temp/madtrips.jpg
http://bookmarkhosting.com/wisconsin/Appleton.jpg

The circles you see on my above maps were drawn onto the maps by hand with a circle drawing compass. The circles represent the 60dB coverage area for the particular siren at the dead center of the circle. This goes with my siren hobby - siren maps are basically null except for the biggest of municipalities, and they aren't quite this modern or up to date. Therefore I create them as I get the needed information. I do this just for fun and to have them on my wisconsinsirens.com website found in my signature which transfers about 150mb of data per day and on average gets 5,000 hits per day.

http://wisconsinsirens.com/widata/counties.png

I've taken a picture of a siren in every one of the orange counties.(over 400 photos!, 250+ towns!) :wink:

- Ben

[kgraff]

About this time in 1945 a mallard duck nested on some pilings in the river near the Wisconsin Avenue bridge. Gertie the Duck was first featured in the Milwaukee Journal and eventually became famous world-wide as Associated Press, United Press, and Stars and Stripes picked up the story. I recently assisted Pat Pollworth in adding material about Gertie to her web site. Family Day at River Splash at Pere Marquette Park on June 5 will feature Pat retelling the Gertie story.

Pat is in the second printing of Milwaukee County Street Names - Street Games - a book targeted at 3rd and 4th graders (but fun for adults too!) who want to learn more about Milwaukee's history and geography. Previous publications include Don't Stop Me Now, I'm on a Roll, her guide to Milwaukee area bakeries. Both publications feature Pat's sense of humor, so be prepared to smile while reading.

[Ray]

Although I am a FIB by blood and birth, I have spent 5-6 years in Milwaukee as a student at Marquette University, and as such, grew to love Milwaukee. I have worked as a security guy/bouncer at Potawotami Bingo casino and a gym manager at Marquette University when I went to college. Both jobs were dear to me and I met a lot of Milwaukee's people.

My favorite places to eat at:
Michael's - 2200 W. Wisconsin, Ave.
Sobelman's - 1900 W. St. Paul
El Rey - 35th and Burnham
Angelo's - 16th and Wells

Great food at low prices. I gained a lot of weight last time I took leave.

My favorite landmarks:
St. Joan of Arc Chapel at Marquette University
Gesu Parish at Marquette University
The Milwaukee Courthouse
The 16th Street Bridge (I walked this bridge many times in the freezing cold to get to the Pick N Save or to work at the casino.)

I could write more in this post but I'm getting all sentimental.

Ray

[Mutt]

A born a bred riverwester here! a few of my favorites:

Best coffee in town, if you can tolerate to smell/smoke:
Fuel Cafe - http://www.fuelcafe.com/

Best Skate Shop:
UPROC - http://www.uproc.org/

Best Breakers:
The B-Boyz from the Latino Community Center - http://www.latinocommunitycenter.com

Best Dive Bar:
The Stork (R.I.P.)

Great Bar:
Onopa - http://www.onopabrewery.com/

East Side Characters:
Larry (that's him on uproc's homepage)
The Beach Entity (R.I.P.)
Frank (The Pepperoni Guy)

That's all ihave off the top of my head... maybe i'll think of some more later. Anyone have opinions on these people and places?

[AlumniClub]

----------------------------theBubbler.com------------------------------

Refreshing this topic for all those new members in this county.
We want to hear what your county has to offer.
This is also a great way to find new places to visit for those who enjoy one to two day getaways.