Those Bicycle Building Norwegians

So, there I am last week, surfing through google's book search, looking for stuff about the old Green Bay Trail. (I'm a bit obsessed about that old road, you may have noticed). Once I'd exhausted those hits, and being of a genealogical mindset, I started searching for info on my ancestors, among them the Huseby family. My Great Great Great Uncle Arne Huseby was a bicycle manufacturer in Milwauke in the late 1890s through early 19-teens. The company was called the Huseby Cycle Company. Innovative, no? They specialized in wooden frame bicycles, but also made some more unusual bikes like the bamboo-frame bike shown at right.

Searching google books, I got a hit on one of those old vanity publications they used to do all the time - the kind where you pay a fee, and they do a glowing writeup of your company and include it in their book along with a photo of your premises. Or, you don't pay a fee, and you get half a paragraph, and no photo... or you don't get mentioned at all. This book was an overview of Milwaukee manufacturing at the turn of the century. And there was the Huseby Cycle Company! The listing was very nice. It included a pic of the main building (shown at left), and gave a location. I've seen the location of the company described before, but it never helped me locate the building. Milwaukee changed a lot of street names, and most of the street numbers sometime in the 20s or 30s. An address was almost useless unless you have a map from before the names changed - which I don't. But this time, the building was listed as being on the corner of Lake and Ferry. And thanks to "the power of the internet", I was able to find a listing of street names before and after the switch. Lake and Ferry translated to "2nd and Pittsburgh".

A quick check of google maps showed what looked to be the building! Sadly, street view is not available for the streets in that area, so I'd have to visit in person to see what the building looked like now. Happily, I'd be a few blocks away over the weekend!



View Larger Map

And sure enough, it's the same building... or at least what's left of it. There's no trace of "Huseby" on the building. The name Laskin does appear in the stonework, indicating that, while the Husebys used the building, they weren't the original owners. Despite, the bricked up windows, awful paint job, and other atrocities inflicted upon the building, it was still pretty cool. I mean there I was, standing in the same spot that relatives of mine stood over 100 years ago!



So, photographic documentation of the exterior complete (see here for the full set of photos), I checked to see if I could get inside. It was a long shot, this being 9:15 on a Sunday morning and, sure enough, no luck. One entrance featured a sign for a theatrical supply company. Closed on weekends. The other entrance seemed to connect to a series of artists' studios/galleries. Glancing over the names I saw that I recognized one! James Hempel, a highly talented portrait painter has space inside the building where my long-gone relatives made bicycles out of inappropriate materials! Now, I've never met James, but I'm familiar with his work because a good friend of mine has known him for ages... went to school with him or some such. So, once I finish typing this up, I'll have to shoot an email to my friend. Perhaps there's some Huseby Cycle memorabilia floating around the building. I'd love to get a look at it if there is!

Weekend goings on

This past weekend was action packed! Among a multitude of other events, TheWife and I caught a show (three acts) at the Pabst Theater with some tickets I won from WUWM. Lenka and Missy Higgins were excellent. Opening act Lenka had a fun and quirky pop edge, and Missy kicked ass on the singer-songwriter front. The middle act was Justin Nokuza. His vibe was best described as soulless pretty boy. Uck. An additional bonus? Missy Higgins latest CD was available for $5 (as MP3s) on amazon.com. Bonus!

The most interesting thing for me was seeing the Pabst with only a 3 or 4 hundred people in it. There was lots of empty space, and this being a pop show, looking around was encouraged. What is it about a grand old theater, half empty, that is so enjoyable?

Before the show, we tried to go to Water Buffalo for dinner. Fortunately, they were a bit backed up, and we ended up going to Rustico, an italian pizza/sandwich place a couple of doors down. The salad and pizza we ordered were excellent (a crispy/chewy crust loaded with italian sausage porcini mushrooms)and , as were the libations - New Glarus's Alt really hit the spot (packed with flavor, the malt and hops perfectly balanced)!

Booze Rumors

Rumor is that Milwaukee's own Great Lake's Distillery (producer of Rehorst Gin and Vodkas) will be coming out with a new product in March - absinthe! Of course, it'll be Milwaukee Absinthe, so the Green Fairy might be wearing a cheesehead, and have a golden 'g' painted on each cheek.... and maybe there'll be a hint of grilled bratwurst in the mix? Can't wait to find out. I hope the experience of GLD's absinthe is as interesting as the stuff I tried before! This one is definitely on the shopping list!

PS: GLD is doing tours!

It's Alright, Ma, It's Only Music

Why don't I listen to this show every week? It's Bob Reitman's show on UWM, and it's what radio should be. Bob plays what he likes every week - which means lots of Bob Dylan, and an eclectic range of other stuff, from the old familiar friends(Lou Reed, TheByrds, Joni Mitchell) to the more obscure (Gloria Mann, Robert Johnson) to the unknown (Defiance Ohio). The last band was played by his son, Bobby who seems to love music as much as Bob does, and has a segment on the show. I highly recommend tuning in. And I highly recommend clicking the link for Defiance, Ohio to check them out, and download some free tunes (I highly recommend Oh, Susquehanna!)

"It's Alright Ma, It's Only Music" airs on 89.7FM WUWM at 7pm on Thursdays, and rebroadcasts at 9pm on Sunday. Live streaming is available at the WUWM website.

Did I just hear the white newswoman on a local radio station say something along the lines of:

"I don't have thin lips, I have big puffy lips... like Angelina Jolie... or...
Aunt Jem- uh, Mick Jagger."

Heh. Aunt Jemima? How the hell did that come out of her? Heck, I never really thought of the Aunt Jemima character as having particularly large lips. Which just makes it all the more racial stereotype-y. Should be interesting to see if anyone gets their ass kicked over this one.

MillerCoors

Molson Coors Brewing Co. and SABMiller PLC plan to combine their U.S. and Puerto Rican operations, creating a beer powerhouse with annual revenue of about $6.6 billion. The venture will be called MillerCoors. The two companies will share control of the venture, but because of the economic value of their respective units SABMiller will have a 58% economic interest to Molson Coors’s 42% interest.

More about the story here. Apparently, Coors has a much more modern plant than Miller does in Milwaukee. Oh, damn. Not looking good for Wisconsin's last remaining mega-brewer. On the plus side, this article says the deal might hurt Bud.

UPDATE!: According to an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

None of Miller's six breweries, or the two breweries operated by Coors, will be closed as the result of the merger, said Pete Marino, Miller spokesman.

Good news for Milwaukee, and especially good news for all of those who work at the brewery. Here's hoping that Mr. Marino speaks the truth!

Milwaukee City Hall Restoration

From the ground, it looks the same as it has over the past year or so. Scaffolding and nets shroud the buidling. Only hints and peeks of the building are visible. But look into the crates surrounding the base of Milwaukee's City Hall, and you can see concrete evidence that the restoration is progressing... or rather, terra cotta evidence.

The many architectural details on the building were cast or sculpted from terra cotta. over a century of weather has blunted, or even destroyed the features of many of these pieces. Earlier in the restoration, new molds were built based on the remains of these blocks. Now, the old details are being torn out, and crisp replacements are taking their places. The top two photos are of the old, battered terra cotta pieces which have been torn out. A crate of new pieces for a different location is shown in the third pic.

One thing I noticed strolling around the building was crates of slate shingles. I have to admit, they made me a bit nervous. I envisioned winter ice cracking the slates, sending them over the edge of the roof. Even if they didn't 'thwock' axe-like into the top of someone's head, the shrapnel generated when they hit the pavement could do some severe damage. But it looks like Iwas needlessly worried. Looking more closely at some pictures of the building, it seems that low walls ring the slate roof. Look tiles would be caught here, protecting the unwary pedestrians, below.

Summerfest!

Had a great time at Summerfest on Tuesday! Saw a bunch of great bands, ate a lot of deep fried things (mmm... mozzarella sticks), drank a lot of fermented things, and marveled at what the young women are wearing these days.

To recreate my day, fry yourself some cheese curds, get yourself a few Cattail Ales, and a few Leinies, log into myspace and surf the pages (this recreates being immersed in a crowd of mindless high-schoolers, college kids, and dropouts), while visiting these websites and listening to some tunes:

• Julie Moffitt
• Roster McCabe
• Pat McCurdy

I saw some other bands, too. But I'll be damned if I can remember their names. They were mostlyof the stop a listen to a song, then move on variety, anyway. The three above were the key shows I checked out. I already had Julie and Pat on CD, and I picked up the Roster McCabe CD at the show. V. Good! All the crowds had their share of, um, interesting people, but the Julie Moffitt crowd was especially interesting, since it was composed of (in ascending proportion):

1. passers-by
2. Julie Moffit fans
3. AFI fans (who looked goth to me, but then I'm an old man, so what the hell do I know?)

Apparently, AFI was the final show of the day, and the crowd wanted to be sure they had good seats. It was pretty weird seeing all these kids in black T-shirts, long black coats, striped stockings and pierced everything, kicking back and listening to Julie. Although I'm sure the fact the Julie was smokin' hot (and amazing vocally, and had a great set list) for the show made the whole experience a bit easier for the hetero male portion of the crowd.

Oh, and it rained a bit. But when has that ever stopped Summerfest from festing?

Milwaukee Mass portrait

Get down to Menomenee Valley Community Park (Milwaukee's Canal St below the 35th st viaduct) by 10 am tommorrow morning if you want to be a part of the Milwaukee Mass Portrait. They'll be taking a picture of the crowd that shows up and distributing it as a free postcard. If you sign up a crew of people to be there, they'll make sure your crew gets postcards. The website has all of the details.

I was thinking I'd try to make it, but then I realized that I have to get TheGirl to a birthday party by 12:30. I'm guessing the traffic will be deadly, and things will run behind schedule. making a 12:30 b-day party might be a bit optimistic. But let me know if you go! (or if you manage to score a postcard)

Oh, and after the photo is done, why not hang around Milwaukee until the evening for COVENIGMA? Yes, COVEN as in Coven, that low-budget horror movie famously produced by Mark Borchardt in the fabulous documentary American Movie. Covenigma runs 5-midnight on Saturday, at the Times Cinema. Be there or be square.

88Nine

Ok, I guess I'm a little slow (yeah, yeah), but somehow I've completely missed out on Radio Milwaukee until last week. It's a new (well, since February) non-profit radio station out of Milwaukee. They're playing an interesting mix of stuff. I'd name some bands, but I've never heard of most of them before, so my fragile memory won't grab them. Suffice to say there's indie rock, R&B, classic rock, reggae, hip-hop and more. Nothing too experimental. Nothing too harsh. I'm digging it. It sounds like an MP3 player set on random, but an MP3 player owned by that cool kid who knows all the really good music. check it out. (And if you can do streaming, listen online!)

Wisconsin History

I've been searching through an online database of scanned documents at the Wisconsin Historical Society, and I'm finding all manner of interesting information.


For instance, did you know that there was a tribe of indians in Wisconsin known as the Mascouten? At least there was until sometime around 1800. Most sources guess that they were absorbed at that time by the Kickapoo, but nobody knows where they went for sure. How are we not taught this in grade school? A mysterious disappearing indian tribe! That oughta get the kids interested in state history. Moreso than interminable talk about lead mining, anyway

And another f'rinstance: Miller brewing was founded around 1855. But by 1880, they were still a small concern, as witnessed by this scan (click for readable version):

They're only brewing about 8.5% of what the top guy (Phillip Best) is brewing, and rank fifth in production among Milwaukee brewers with almost 31,000 barrels a year. That's still around 5 times what Lakefront brewed in 2006, but a drop in the bucket compared to Miller's current production. And among the breweries listed in the scan, only Miller remains. Maybe being number one isn't all it's cracked up to be.

There's some pretty cool stuff in this database, check it out!

UPDATE!

Just found this image in the database. Kind of confusing. Perhaps Budweiser was being used to mean Pilsener?

Fish Fry Wedding

UPDATE!: The fishfrysale people have just listed a vintage gnipgnop! The one I picked up has been a big hit with TheGirl. There's just something about a game driven by rubberbands... Get your bids in, people! I've got mine in on a copy of Second Hand Lions on DVD. It's a nice family movie: fun plot, great cast, highly recommended as a rental. Or even go ahead and buy it, just don't bid against me (I'm warning you... grrrrr).

..................................

Just stumbled across this bit of local color on ebay today. I have a standing ebay search for "Billy the Brownie" items. To judge by the tales I heard in my Milwaukee area childhood, Billy was Santa's local snitch, the one who fed the old man the data used to calculate the Naughty-Nice ratio. These espionage activities were apparently underwritten by Schuster's, a Milwaukee area department store (correct me if you've got better info than I do, folks). I've been watching for something that actually mentions the name "billy the brownie" for a couple of years now. As of today, still no luck. The listing for a Vintage Billy the Brownie Elf Christmas Ornament that my search turned up was yet another anonymous Christmas Elf. But the listing had an interesting twist:

Fish Fry Sale
My girlfriend and I are planning on getting married in a simple ceremony at a Friday Night Fish Fry. Simple ceremonies are inexpensive, but not free. So, to help pay for the cost of a wedding, we're selling everything we don't need from our lives before we were together. Thank you for looking and for helping us start our lives together.
Fish Fry Sale Total: $43.56

A Fish Fry Wedding... You know without looking that the listing is coming out of Milwaukee, aina? I've checked the couple's items for sale, and there's nothing I'm interested in yet. I'll keep looking, though. Maybe I can find something I want. I think it'd be kinda neat to be a part of something that so purposefully blends the old and the new.

Storyville.com

Storyville.com has mailorder coffee for which the major selling point seems to be that it's fresh. The cost for this? roughly $19 a pound, plus S&H. Give me a break. Go to your local roaster and pick up a pound. It'll be even fresher than Storyville, and should cost you less than half as much. If you're in Milwaukee, I recommend stopping by Alterra's east side store. The Kenya AA (IMHO, the finest coffee there is) is only $12 a pound. They roast it right there. Stop by during the week, and you'll be able to drink a cup while watching the roasting process. Lovely.

Overheard in Milwaukee

In Beans and Barley, from a young woman dressed in an arabic-looking head scarf, while examining Jesus-themed band-aids, with pure joyful amazement in her voice:

"That's sacreligious and awesome at the same time!"

God, I miss the east side of Milwaukee.

Milwaukee Chocolate

This morning's theme was Milwaukee Chocolate. In addition to sampling some of Milwaukee's (and Ghana's) own Omanhene chocolate (very tasty, if you like the dark stuff, as I do), I stopped off at Milwaukee's own version of the Soup Nazi, at Northern Chocolate. The guy is rather... particular about how his customers behave. It's his store, fair enough. Fortunately, I was prepared for his unusual behavior after reading a Milwaukee Journal article about his place.

After dropping TheGirl at her class, I headed up the road to Northern Chocolate. It's on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, about five or six blocks south of North Avenue. I was careful not to step in the snow bank as I got out of my car, and carefully knocked the snow from my shoes when I reached the sidewalk. I reached the front door to find the proprietor unlocking the gate that controls access to his front door. It went something like this:

"Hi! Are you open?"

"Do you know what you want?"

"I thought I'd look to see what you have."

"All right. Are your shoes dry?"

I lifted each shoe to show it was free of snow and ice. Nodding grimly, he stepped inside, and I followed. As I shopped, the proprietor informed me that he was opening late because of the recent development of certain health issues which I won't go into here, as according to TheGirl, discussing them provides "to much information". I selected a box of assorted chocolates (cherry walnut clusters, mint meltaways, pecan-caramel logs, toasted coconut drops and solid chocolate cresent moons - excuse me while I get another pecan caramel log. Yum!) He began to ring up my total, but then stopped.

"Promise me that you brush and floss," he demanded.

Breathing a sigh of relief that TheGirl had recently pressured me into following dentist's orders for the first time in my life, I assented. The total was around $18. After I paid, we chatted for a few moments about the sad state of pop culture, and our respective careers. The proprietor then moved to the door and opened it for me. Taking this as my cue, I departed, a box of excellent chocolates in my hand.

My personal faves are the dried cherry walnut clusters. Simply delicious! The chocolate at Northern Chocolate is on the brittle end of the spectrum (as opposed to, say, the creamy end of the spectrum occupied by your typical swiss chocolatier), but undeniably good. If you're on the north side of milwaukee (or downtown, river west, or the east side, for that matter) some Saturday afternoon, be sure to dry your shoes and stop in at Northern Chocolate for some excellent treats.

PS: I was informed that the Easter chocolates would be coming out shortly. Molded chocolates are a major selling point of the store. In addition to the clusters and logs, the shelves are lined with an amazing variety of beautiful molded chocolates. I'm picking some up in the next few weeks if I get a chance. I'll post pics here if I pull it off.

Incidentally, prices are about typical for high-end hand made chocolates, and he only takes cash.

The Girl's New Class

The Girl started a new class last week, and I love it! It's a drama class that's offered through First Stage. This installment is something about asian myths. She's gone to two so far, and is definitely digging the class. She got to be one of the Tigers as they worked on the story about how the tiger got it's stripes. The Girl informs me, based on a related unit at school that it is a 'Just So' story. Huh. I thought those were fables. Go figure.

But from my point of view, the class and her enjoyment of it are only a small part of the fun. Why? Because, the class meets int he Milwaukee Education Center's building on the border of the Schiltz Park and Haymarket Square neighborhoods. Which means it's just across the river from the Brady Street area! So, while she learns more about drama (and she's already filled with drama, if you ask me), I get to hang out in my post-college neighborhood again! An hour at Rochambo here, an hour shooting Photos in Schlitz Park there, maybe throw in lunches with The Girl at my favorite little hole-in-the-wall restaurants (Abu's, for instance!), and you've got yourself a happy Fishmonger!

Explosion at Falk on Canal street

Anyone know anything?
(pic at left from the WISN weather camera)

UPDATE: Just got word from Daver the RADO is unharmed. Whew!I've been biting my nails. Now I can relax a bit.

Happy St. Nicholas Day

Happy Saint Nicholas’ Day!
Well, old St. Nick visited the Fishmongers’ Place last night. Earlier in the week, stockings had been hung by the firsplace with care, and the old boy pulled through as usual. The Girl’s Stocking had a Disney Fairies book, a Tinkerbell ornament, and assorted treats (nerds rope, reese’s snowman, cookie dipping sticks, and some nasty sweetart goop in a tube). All quite well received. The Boy, being much younger, received pacifiers in lieu of candy, but he also received a Christmas ornament, and a book – tho’ his was a board book. Sounds like TG really like the contents of her stocking this year. Sadly, I was already in my car on the way to work when she got out of bed, so I didn’t get to see it. Still, she called me on my cell and gave me the blow-by-blow, which was almost as good. Kinda sucks to have to work for a living.

PS: Don’t know what I’m talking about?In the US, it seems to be a phenomenon centered around Milwaukee, WI, although it extends throughout Wisconsin, and even through the Chicago area. I see it as Santa doing a warm-up for the Christmas deliveries, but only to certain selected houses, mostly in Wisconsin. He delivers candy, and maybe a small gift or two (a book, a CD, an ornament, something like that) in the early morning hours of December 6th. I know for a fact that he arrived at our house after 2:30 am, because when I was feeding TB at that time (yawn), I realized the stockings were still empty. So, he arrived sometime between then and 5am when my alarm clock went off . Did I mention ‘yawn’?