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

[Ken and Tracie]

Also, there is a person who has a "Wisconsin State Highways" site who has a 
detailed history of expressway/freeway planning and construction in 
Milwaukee.

K.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Y Marti" <yance at oldmilwaukee.net>
To: <milwaukee-electric at lists.dementia.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2010 5:06 AM
Subject: [milwaukee-electric] Re: Milwaukee slums during the 1940s and 
afterward


> 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...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>