Strolling down the streets of old Milwaukee

Wow! It's been a really long time since I've blogged. It's been pretty cold and uneventful, so I haven't had too much to share. But after a recent trip to The Milwaukee Public Museum, I have something very cool to share. We've had an exhibit at this museum since the 1960s called The Streets of Old Milwaukee. It was something new for its time when it was created and it's always been a favorite part of the museum for me.

The Streets of Old Milwaukee shows what it was like in the city more or less a century ago. It's super cool if you're familiar with local history and the buildings around here. But even if you were new to town, I think you'd enjoy this. The streets have been recently updated and I was really excited to see the new changes. The first big change is that you enter the exhibit through an old streetcar.

As you stand in the car, images zip past the windows and you watch as the same street goes back in time. The cars change style, as do the people's clothes. It also goes from day to night, which makes sense because in the exhibit it is night. There was a conductor in full uniform at the back of the streetcar and this guy was perfect. His facial hair, his uniform, his manner. Everything.

So you step off the streetcar and into the old streets. Some new changes were the silhouettes moving in the windows and some advertisements from businesses that existed back in the day and still exist now. The ads looked old and I thought it was a clever way to help fund the exhibit.

The silhouettes of the men in the Falk building were moving and you can see a bit of the conductor in the streetcar.

Something I have been doing over the past few months is reading local history. For several reasons it became important for me know about some of Milwaukee's buildings, streets, and people. The time of history I'd been focusing on was around the turn of the century so that was a perfect fit for what's going on in this exhibit. I'll link to some of the books and web sites I've been reading at the end of the post for those who are interested. I don't think for the most part those who read my blog are from my state, but you never know. I'll also share a site that could apply to anyone's local history.

See the full moon glowing? If you look to the upper left, you'll see part of an old kite stuck in the phone wires.

Anyway, I brought up my recent reading material because it was definitely on my mind during this exhibit. See, a lot of what I've been reading has not been pleasant. So I was thinking about some old crimes and the dangerous climate of this part of Milwaukee in the late 1800s to early 1900s as I toured the exhibit. Especially, with this being a nighttime setting. 

There are some little nooks and crannies behind buildings and I carefully peeked around them as if some drunken, deranged man from a century ago would be ready to jump out. After doing my recent research, I knew that these exact streets were places I would have gone nowhere near 100 years ago. And at night? Pfft!

The Pfister Hotel still exists and is still fancy.

A favorite part of this exhibit for me has always been the old granny who rocks on her chair on the front porch. She was spooky to me as a kid, but now I think she's really cool. OK, I still think she's a little spooky.

To my surprise, I saw that the rocking granny has her own twitter account. I read a little about her when I got home and learned she's been through a lot over the years. She got a little makeover in the 1980s after someone turned her head around and majorly messed up her hair. What's scarier than a realistic mannequin rocking in a chair in the dark? One with her head turned around.

Note the Sendik's grocery bag behind her

The silver lining here is that Granny needed a makeover. The original was a little too scary in my opinion. 

I love the signs that show clearly what the business was. This as you might guess, was an optometrist's office. No matter what language you spoke, and chances were good it might not have been English around here at the time, you could tell what that meant.

Above the office is I think where there's a little nod to the famous Madam we had in Milwaukee. Here name was Miss Kittie Williams. Some say her name inspired Miss Kitty's on Gunsmoke, but I don't know about that. Miss Kittie was a big deal and allowed to operate fairly openly for a while, probably because her clientele were the rich, bigwigs around town. So I heard there was a red room that's decked out in the way one of her girls' rooms would have been. My opinion is this is it. Although, what's throwing me off is that there's supposed to be a painting of a nude woman in the room. I was sure I got a photo of it, but it was pretty dark in there. When I got home, I closed in on the painting and saw...

A dog? What do you guys see? It looks like one of those dogs in people clothes, like one of those dogs playing poker.

*Update* I revisited this window in March and tried again to find the painting. I did find another painting, but again, I have no idea what I'm looking at. Thoughts?

I think I'm seeing a lady's arms and maybe a black boa hanging across her body. I definitely see the man's hat that people talk about. It's down in the lower right side of the window.

There were many old businesses to peek in, like this bar. Again, not a place I would have gone at night in this neighborhood 100 years ago.

And a neat old glowing beer advertisement next to a Houdini poster.

There was the apothecary with the large, lovely glass containers full of what you imagine to be some mystery remedy. I guess it was probably dye and water.

And the pharmacist hard at work:

There was a general store with probably everything a person could want back then. I loved that glowing stove. There was an old phone you could pick up the receiver of and listen in to a conversation. I wish I'd gotten a photo of that now! The conversation wasn't all that juicy, just a guy with a strong German accent booking a hotel room.

Outside the old store, I could hear a cat yowling and yowling. It turns out there's some sort of motion sensor that turns on the cat noises. I never saw the cat, but I did see a pic of it online:

Cat projection

It was probably up above me in a tree or something. Maybe it's just as well that I didn't see it! What's funny is there was a lady with a baby carriage near the cat noises and I thought it was the baby at first.

*Update* I went back to the museum in March and spotted the cat! A couple were standing near the smallest of spaces (I think it was supposed to represent an alley) and they were looking at an app that told them where the cat was. So they were nice enough to point above our heads. I still couldn't see anything in that dark little space so I pointed my camera up and saw:

Actually, this is what I saw after using a flash. The first few pics I took were without a flash and all I saw were the green eyes glowing at me! It's pretty spooky to look up and see something like this.

There happened to be a man standing behind me as I took my first pic and he asked me to take another one so he could see the cat on my camera screen. He said he'd been wandering around that area looking for a cat and wondering if he was going crazy imagining those sounds! So it was a nice community moment with those people sharing their app and then me sharing my photo. I can't imagine how shocked I would have been had I discovered this cat on my own with no one around. I probably would have shrieked.

I got the chance to try a Penny-farthing bike, although I wasn't going anywhere. The bike was stationary and very difficult to pedal. It was like biking through water the way it was set! It was really high too. I had to take quite the stretch to get on it. This pic is a bit blurry in part because I was pedaling away to the best of my ability.

There was an old movie theater that's a replica of one of the many beautiful theaters that are now gone. I wish so many hadn't been torn down. The museum now plays a loop of old early 1900s silent movies inside the theater. There were some funny movies being played as well as some old Harry Houdini footage.

There was an older part of The Streets of Old Milwaukee that was left pretty much untouched. This part exists in the daylight, and is supposed to exist in Europe. "The European Village" is attached to The Streets of Old Milwaukee, but is like a different world. You can get a small glimpse into what the living situation looked like for different ethnic groups long ago. I just checked the museum's web site and they say these would be homes from 1875-1925. I took some photos inside a few of the houses and noticed afterwards that I'd photographed the homes that fit with my ethnicity.

Polish

German - That face in the window kind of spooked me, but I think there was a place for people to walk on the other side of this structure.

Irish

Isn't she realistic? Part of me wouldn't be surprised if these figures turned and looked at me. I would be freaking out, however!

I've heard a few other museums around the country have something similar to The Streets of Old Milwaukee. I'd like to hear about it if you've been to any of those exhibits, and if you have some photos, even better!

Here are those links I mentioned earlier:

Milwaukee Mayhem by Matthew J. Prigge

Prigge writes articles about Milwaukee history for our local paper so I was somewhat familiar with his obscure and interesting finds before reading this. In fact, the link I put up to Miss Kittie Williams was directed to one of his articles. This book was along the lines of Wisconsin Death Trip for me, only without the disturbing photos. Milwaukee Mayhem is split into different sections, like unsolved mysteries and murders. My favorite part of the book was the vice section. Some chapters are depressing, some are intriguing, and some make you go "Wow! Life was like this in Milwaukee?" The book spans about a hundred years from 1840-1940. It's interesting for someone who is familiar with the city, but anyone interested in true crime would be into this.

The Milwaukee Mafia by Gavin Schmitt 

The first half of this book was very interesting for someone like me who went to school and lived right in the heart of where the local mafia was centered in the 1800s through early to mid 1900s. For people into mob history, there are some stories worth reading. I didn't see some things I expected to see in this book, but those who don't live here won't care about that. I got a definite sense of how crime worked in one part of town from this book.

This is Milwaukee by Robert W. Wells 

I am midway through this book now and I'm loving it! This is Milwaukee was published in 1970 but the perspective still fits with modern day Milwaukee. This is written in such a funny way and I've been learning a lot of history as I laugh along. I'm not sure how interesting this would be to those outside the state, because some of the humor is pretty specific to here. But if anyone from around the Milwaukee area happens to be reading this, I'm recommending this book to you!

I learned from all three of these books that the Milwaukee I saw in The Streets of Old Milwaukee was something that would have been different for me socially. I get the sense that it was rougher than most modern people could handle. Walking through this exhibit was a way to experience that world safely and take in the beauty of the old buildings and lights.

The last source I wanted to share is something that would be useful to anyone, not just those in Milwaukee. If you're into history or genealogy, you will be very into the old newspaper archives. You probably know already that you can search google news, but you might not know that you can search way back in time, to newspapers that were in your area in the 1800s! I don't know how to link to this aside from showing an actual search, so I chose an interesting local one:

Bit of old Milwaukee will rise inside new museum

This article is from 1962, and you'll see why I chose it. 

If you want to try searching through the archives, just type something else in the search box up there and the name of the city nearest you. Just a search for a random year in your area can turn up something interesting. I even found a quote from my great uncle when searching for one of the names in my family tree! Just be sure to click "search archive" instead of "search the web". If you're like me, you'll also enjoy the old advertisements. You'll find yourself saying things like "You could buy something like that for only 25¢?"