YMCA

by Vince Bushell

Neighborhood dreams centered in an old commercial building died and were buried under the weight of polluted soil dumped on the site from a nearby torn down tannery from Milwaukee’s industrial age. If you lie on the ground you can almost hear the echoes of the music from the basement nightclubs — Tiny Tim strumming his ukulele on “Tiptoe through the tulips” at Humpin Hannahs… the cash registers ringing and neighborhood gossip flowing in past co-ops. Neighbors hoping for a community that was people-centered. All dead. All gone. And what was left was a littered, wind-swept vacant lot filled with hard clay.