[milwaukee-electric] Re: Milwaukee slums during the 1940s and afterward

[Scott Greig]

One of my friends had relatives who lived along Highland Boulevard out by Cold Spring.  He certainly wouldn't have called that area a slum...in fact he says it was very nice.
If I recall, Highland ceased being a boulevard east of about 27th Street...perhaps that area was more ratty.  The housing along the north side of the RTL certainly looked pretty tired from photos.  My understanding was that the highway commission had their eye on the Rapid Transit right of way all along...if so, it's a big reason why I think Speedrail never had a chance of success in the long run.

--- On Sat, 11/6/10, Gary Schnabl <gSchnabl at SWDetroit.com> wrote:

From: Gary Schnabl <gSchnabl at SWDetroit.com>
Subject: [milwaukee-electric] Milwaukee slums during the 1940s and afterward
To: milwaukee-electric at lists.dementia.org
Date: Saturday, November 6, 2010, 5:10 PM

1936 slum photo (from the Wikipedia files) 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Slums_in_milwaukee_1936.png>
Reading some old archival information about the earliest freeway 
commission during the middle to late 1940s, I learned that Milwaukee's 
E-W freeway was to be centered along Highland, which they considered to 
be a slum or such. However, as soon as Hibernia became available in the 
early 1950s, the commission quickly labeled that street as a slum too 
(probably to condemn its land much easier).

I only started driving around 1960, and living at 42nd and Capitol (or 
157th and Burleigh), before that time I did not frequent the Highland 
Street area much because of having few reasons to go near or through 
there. During my two years attending Marquette during 1961 to 1963, I 
would often park my car in or nearby the Hibernia area (or wherever I 
might locate an available spot...) and never considered Hibernia to be 
slummy--just older houses and such. My only concept of a real Milwaukee 
slum then was the short  rat-infested area along or near Winnebago (a 
couple blocks north of Highland), especially when I made pickups and 
deliveries there for our family business as a teenager.

I assume that the freeway commission in the 1940s chose the 
worst-housing area for their proposed E-W freeway. Was Highland really 
that bad (or Hibernia too, for that matter)? Was Wikipedia's stock photo 
representative of that area? Or was Highland chosen so that the freeway 
would take advantage of other terrain features without endangering 
nearby business, before the rapid-transit ROW became available?


Gary


-- 

Gary Schnabl
Southwest Detroit, two miles NORTH! of Canada--Windsor, that is...