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

[Y Marti]

Gary,

First off, the photo is not wikipedia's. It is a huge collection that  
the Library of Congress has. Photographer Carl Mydans took quite a few  
in Milwaukee during that time as can be seen here:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=mydans%20milwaukee

At that time there were many slums around downtown. One of the worst  
was around Walnut and 6th street which was the reason for the push  
towards the Hillside Terrace projects. Another slum was the third ward  
area from Michigan to St. Paul which was eventually cleared in the  
late 1950s. In the early 1940s the courthouse area was cleared because  
the City didn't want that slum in the shadow of the courthouse. The  
same was done around city Hall around the same time.

One of the earliest and most dangerous slums was downtown area, west  
of the river and north of Wisconsin Ave. In the late 1800s and early  
1900s this area was filled with gambling dens, opium dens, and  
flophouses. The most dangerous "tenderloin district" was on the near  
south side around 2nd & Greenfield. Police on beat had to travel in  
pairs and even then they rarely patrolled the area.

The freeway location changed as time progressed and the project became  
larger. Initial plans were of wide boulevards. Sixth street and  
Kilbourn were the first streets widened as "expressways".

Yance
www.oldmilwaukee.net

In Milwaukee, adjacQuoting Gary Schnabl <gSchnabl at SWDetroit.com>:

> 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...
>
>
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