Turning transformer boxes into public art – Biopak building proposals – Gentrification Position Paper debated and approved – RNA affiliates with Citizens Allied for Sane Highways (CASH) – Annual Spring Cleanup plans – RNA bylaws approved
2003
Full RNA Gentrification Position Paper
(This is an evolving document with this version approved in principal at the Development Committee meeting on January 11, 2003.) The natural environment, plus the diversity of its people, businesses and buildings makes Riverwest unique in Milwaukee. Our neighborhood has been discovered in recent years by a new group of investors and people with a […]
The Largest “Vacant Lot” in Riverwest
by Peter Schmidtke
The wind gusts stronger along Bremen Street, past the Riverwest Tavern on Auer Avenue. That’s because it knows it has three acres to gather steam. It’s not a UFO landing field, but it might as well be. A chain-linked fence with prickly barbed wire rings the perimeter, and a dozen or more padlocked monitoring wells protrude from stubbly yellow grass like rusty periscopes from stalled submarines.
Racial Change at St. Elizabeth’s
by Tom Tolan – Part 3 of 6 in a series
In the early 1960s, St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church — now St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church, at 128 W. Burleigh — was a relatively thriving parish, with a school attended by more than 1,000 children. Most parishioners were of German ancestry — many descended from “St. E’s” founders — or Polish families who had migrated from the east side of Holton. African-Americans were a definite presence, but they were less numerous in the parish than in the neighborhood. Fewer than 10 percent of the 1,056 pupils at St. Elizabeth’s in 1963 were black, and most of their families could be classified as middle-class.
Dominos!
by Jeff Johnson – en espanol
On almost any evening at Club Caribe, or Club 99, or the Barceloneta Lounge, groups of four quiet men hunker over tables dedicated to dominoes. This ancient game of Chinese origin has a passionate following among the Hispanic residents of Riverwest. And not unlike the bowling leagues that grew up at the Polish Falcon from Polish interest in ten pins, a domino league meets on Sundays to play the “bones.” Twenty taverns, ten from the Milwaukee area and ten from the Chicago area, send teams with as many as 150 people participating.

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