“Neighborhood Project”: Week Five, Ace Boxing In Lincoln Village

 
Listen:  Like most people who grew up in Milwaukee, I think I know the city pretty well. However, it seems like these two months of the Neighborhood Project have allowed me to just start learning about the city. With each new restaurant or church or kitchen table I got to know, my picture of the city became [...]

“Neighborhood Project”: Week Five, A Troublesome Corner Store in Johnsons Park

    
Listen:  Somehow, a corner store in Johnsons Park had become a destination, a magnet for suspicious business. Perhaps it was the neighborhood’s past — eight years ago, this kind of corner store would hardly be a surprise. But for a burgeoning neighborhood whose residents had invested more than just their life savings, this was not acceptable. 
Tony [...]

“Be Heard”: 4th Street Forum | MPS: Money, Control, And Kids Too

This week at the 4th Street Forum: MPS is at a crossroads. A recent report backed by Mayor Barrett and Governor Doyle warns that while the budget is currently sound, a massive budget shortfall is disturbingly close if action is not taken now. Although this might feel counterintuitive, it may have been more convenient if the [...]

“Be Heard”: Confronting ‘Ghetto’

Listen: At a neighborhood block club cleanup in Sherman Park, I had a number of interesting conversations that didn’t quite fit into the resulting Neighborhood Project piece. It happens all the time, as I frequently point out on this blog. However, there was one piece of tape that I couldn’t let it go unheard.
The term “ghetto.” [...]

“Neighborhood Project”: Week Five, Shea Park In Silver City

Listen:  Each time I spent longer than a few minutes in Silver City, somebody would beam about Shea Park, an unexpected pocket park on National Avenue. I heard that it was an emblem of how a neighborhood could work together. I heard the community made it happen. I heard it won plenty of awards. Sounds like [...]

“Neighborhood Project”: Week Five, Block Cleanup in Sherman Park

Listen: After a long Milwaukee winter, the snow and ice melts away, revealing the forgotten landscape of Spring. Grass, flowers, leaves, petrichor, and all that trash people thought they could throw in the snow for some reason.

A few weeks ago, I woke up (relatively) early on a Saturday and biked to 40th and Burleigh for a [...]

“Be Heard”: 4th Street Forum | Wisconsin’s Green Economy

This week at the 4th Street Forum: What will be the savior of our ailing economy? If you listen to political speeches an exciting and cutting edge Green Economy has been the answer, time after time. Green-collar jobs, eco-friendly business, environmentally-responsible industry. But what does the rhetoric really mean? How will funding work and who [...]

“Neighborhood Project”: Week Four, Investment In Silver City

Listen: Neighborhood investment can take many forms. There’s economic investment — renovating housing stock, building new homes, improving infrastructure, attracting business. Then, there’s time investment — cleanups, block club events, neighborhood association meetings. But, for some folks living in Milwaukee, there’s an even more basic venture that acts as a necessary requisite for those other types [...]

“Neighborhood Project”: Take A Deep Breath…

Listen:  Back at the beginning of the Neighborhood Project, what seems like ages ago, I set foot in the Old South Side Settlement Museum for the first time. I was charmed. It’s a quaint space that immediately makes you wonder — everything seems like it has a fascinating and deeply significant explanation behind it.
A light bulb [...]

“Neighborhood Project”: Week Four, Fresh Investment in Lincoln Village

Listen:  Like Mexican bakery? There’s definitely no shortage of spots in Milwaukee. Since we’ve started the Neighborhood Project, I’ve been hitting the bakeries up and down Lincoln Ave, buying a few pastries at each one (usually a churro, preferably with Bavarian cream). Many dinners have been spoiled — I usually manage to get home with an [...]