Milwaukee Murmur

The Phenakistocope was invented by Joseph Plateau in...

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:09:42 -0400

The Phenakistocope was invented by Joseph Plateau in 1841.

trippy

Forty Years Ago, Deep Throat Took Milwaukee All The Way

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 01:20:41 -0500

Forty Years Ago, Deep Throat Took Milwaukee All The Way:

In an age of anything and everything being available on-demand from the cloud on multiple portable screens, it’s impossible to even KNOW what a big deal it was to see an X-rated movie — out in public — at a seedy adult theater — in the 1970s.

Even more, it’s impossible to believe that a certain film was SO popular that a one-screen inner city neighborhood theater sold out 998 seats for seven showings a day — and still had lines stretching around the block.

And yet, 40 years ago this week, DEEP THROAT was all the rage in Milwaukee. Learn how one girl’s mission to untangle her tingle put the Parkway Theatre on the map in Matthew Prigge’s feature story for the December 30, 2012 Shepherd Express.

FUN FACT: The Parkway Theatre closed in 1986 after 65 years in operation. When the old building was razed, a pastor actually performed an exorcism ceremony to reconsecrate the scandalous soil.

Milwaukee Vice: Where the action was in 1972

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 00:54:46 -0500

Milwaukee Vice: Where the action was in 1972:

Read the Milwaukee Sentinel’s November 6, 1972 remarkable state of the red-light nation, revisited by freelance writer Matthew Prigge for the August 8, 2012 Shepherd Express.

After Blue Cross/Blue Shield redevelopment, Grand Avenue renewal, Wisconsin Center construction and Park East demolition, most of Fifth Street was neutered and erased from the downtown map. Not a single business listed here (except the Marc Plaza / Hilton) still exists today — making this feature story all the more surreal.

What was once a deliciously colorful stroll, popping with pandemonium of the pimps, pushers and prostitutes variety, is now four of the most colorless blocks in the city.

And that’s a dirty shame.

retrogasm: The Dummy Yes. You HAVE gone insane.

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 13:44:28 -0500

retrogasm:

The Dummy

Yes. You HAVE gone insane.

Photo

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 13:36:41 -0500

Our beloved Princess Theater, in tawdrier times, blissfully...

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:12:32 -0500

Our beloved Princess Theater, in tawdrier times, blissfully unaware of the hurricane of renewal soon heading its way. By 1978, our hometown version of 42nd Street was already on life support.

One of Milwaukee’s deadest corners used to be its most...

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 20:05:24 -0500

One of Milwaukee’s deadest corners used to be its most alive.

Thirty years ago, the historic Plankinton Hotel (Michigan & Plankinton) was razed for lifeless Grand Avenue parking — when it could have just as easily been restored and incorporated into the mall footprint.

More on this Lost Milwaukee landmark soon.

Lost Milwaukee: the St. Charles Hotel

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:54:31 -0500

For generations, one of the city’s leading residential hotels was the St. Charles Hotel (786 N. Water St.) Built in 1857 by Captain Uppmann, the 125-room St. Charles was among the oldest in the city when it was purchased and reconstructed by the Pabst family in 1895. The new building was an eastern anchor to a gorgeous, European-style City Hall Square that included the Blatz Hotel, the Pabst Theater, the Henry Bergh animal drinking fountain, and City Hall (for awhile, the tallest building in America.)

Soon, the Pabst Hotel register was filled with the names of distinguished German royals and politicians of every level.

By the 1920s, City Hall Square was no longer swank. In 1923, the Pabsts sold the hotel to a new owner and removed their family name from the cornice. Their timing couldn’t have been better, because the St. Charles Hotel promptly plunged into a scandalous moral decline.

On June 1, 1928, the St. Charles was the scene of a spectacular Prohibition liquor raid that blew the top off this house of ill repute. At 1:30 a.m., federal agents seized gin, whiskey, grain alcohol and two highballs that guests were about to consume, and arrested three hotel employees. Two of these employees had prior liquor convictions.

As the hotel was shut down, the U.S. District Attorney reported, “We have absolute evidence that liquor was sold promiscuously at the hotel. We have evidence that booze was sold in at least 20 rooms. This is the heaviest padlock the government has ever asked for in Wisconsin.”

“There appears to have been no difficulty whatsoever in getting liquor here,” said Federal Judge F.A. Geiger. After all, the St. Charles Hotel was widely known as a “cutting plant” for the manufacture of illicit alcohols. It soon became popular for other reasons, as the agents reported the behavior of the “lewd chorus girls from the Gayety Theater.” One agent reported that uninvited performers came into his room, made themselves at home, and drank gin freely.

“You could have liquor parties in the St. Charles Hotel any night you wanted them, with chorus girls attending. All you had to do was call the desk and order a bottle. Gin was delivered immediately. Persons prominent in Milwaukee’s social circles had parties there.”

Cocktails often led to reckless abandon. One agent accounted, “the girls came to my room for drinks wearing only kimonos, step-ins, shoes or smiles, and often turned handstands or somersaults on the floor.” Of course, when cross-examined, the agent admitted that he had never asked the women to leave — nor stop their naked gymnastics.

The St. Charles HOtel and over $410,000 of property was padlocked and seized for one year from July 11, 1928. It was the largest hotel ever padlocked as a dry law nuisance in the United States. For perhaps the first time, Milwaukee media cast a negative light on the idea of “residential hotel living.”

When the hotel was locked, bootleggers and beggars sat around the lobby for days comparing rates, while others conceived the idea of pitching a tent in City Hall Square. After all, it had its own “private swimming pool” (the Henry Bergh watering trough) and “one second’s jump to a streetcar line.” Cabaret entertainers, speakeasy owners, gamblers and night revelers appeared to be the only residents of the St. Charles Hotel. Seventy-one permanent “guests” were ultimately thrown out of their rooms and became refugees.

One year later, the padlocks came off the St. Charles Hotel, which reopened on July 19, 1929 under the same management. Incredibly, 70 of the 71 former guests reclaimed their dust-covered rooms. But the dust never quite settled for the St. Charles.

On July 26, 1930, the hotel was again under scrutiny for allowing young girls to register without chaperones or baggage. Although the hotel was later cleared of charges, a juvenile court judge accused the hotel of leading young girls into the burlesque lifestyle. On September 16, 1931, a heavy plate glass rooftop skylight fell 75 feet and crashed into the mezzanine of the St. Charles lobby. Amazingly, nobody was injured or killed. The cause of the collapse was never determined, and a series of other unexplained phenomena followed.

After federal indictment, near-bankruptcy and a sensational divorce, manager Joseph Budar had seen and heard enough. At sunset on October 8, 1931, the St. Charles Hotel went dark again. Budar assumed management of the Royal Hotel (5th & Michigan) and took most of his staff and residents with him. A caravan procession ensued as guests dragged their trunks, luggage and furniture down Water and Michigan Streets to their new home.

Although Milwaukee County briefly considered the St. Charles Hotel as an indigent home for the unemployed, its owner stated, “The property is more valuable without a building on it, so we decided to wreck it.”

Within a year, it was torn down, destroying the integrity of the original City Hall Square. The land remained vacant for almost 40 years. In 1969, M&I Bank constructed a modern headquarters on this site that still stands there today.

Lost Milwaukee: the Cross Keys Hotel

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:01:15 -0500

By 1964, the tired old building at the corner of Water Street and St. Paul looked like just another downtown dive waiting for the wrecking ball. After all, “slum clearance” in the Lower Third Ward had already rezoned 34 acres, razed 85 buildings, and relocated 359 families. Within a decade, the close-knit, colorful lifestyle of Milwaukee’s multi-generational “Little Italy” neighborhood had been erased, leaving behind disconnected buildings with disjointed purpose.

What most people didn’t realize was that the Cross Keys was the oldest building on the oldest street in the city — and probably one of the oldest buildings in the state. Before being ravaged by fire and razed for parking, the Cross Keys had a long and colorful life, filled with disaster, violence and scandal.

Bailey Stimson, described as a “mutton chops Englishman” from Cambridgeshire, established the Cross Keys here as a two-story wooden frame house in 1843. It quickly became the favorite destination of visiting Englishmen. Everything about the Cross Keys was English, featuring heirloom silver pots of tea, plum pudding, racks of beef, Cornish hens and homemade divinity. Meatpacking pioneers Frederick and John Layton lived here when they arrived in Milwaukee in 1845.

The tiny English inn was replaced with a modern four-story building in 1853. Although built of Cream City brick, the Cross Keys was painted in bold reds because Stimson found the Cream City color “sickly.” Iron work was just coming into vogue, so the building was decorated with a wrought-iron balcony and iron balustrades fashioned by the Reliance Iron Works. During construction, a limestone plate was erected above the main entrance at 400 Water Street, reading “B. Stimson July 4, 1853.”

On December 16, 1853, the hotel’s grand opening was celebrated with an old-fashioned housewarming party, including punch with raisins, baked apples with maple syrup and hot corn bread with buttermilk. It was boom times in Milwaukee: mayor George Walker was expanding the city in every direction, gas pipes were being laid, wooden buildings were being replaced by fireproof brick, and the population had just cracked 25,000. Clearing the remains of Solomon Juneau’s log shanty was considered a symbolic act of progress.

The Milwaukee River froze over on December 19, 1853 and was closed to navigation. However, hot and cold water still ran from the pipes of the Cross Keys at the twist of a faucet. Before most Milwaukee homes and businesses were outfitted with city water, the Cross Keys installed wooden conduits which piped water from a spring at the lakeshore. The hotel didn’t fail to deliver on its promise of “running water at all times.”

On September 30, 1859, an American president put the hotel’s hospitality to the test. Abraham Lincoln visited the Wisconsin Agricultural Society convention, held at 12th & Wells in the old Red Arrow Park. Although he stayed at the most fashionable Newhall House hotel 3 blocks away, Lincoln came to the Cross Keys for breakfast, gave a speech from the iron balcony, and then took a “long and leisurely” bath in a Cross Keys tub. Apparently, the Newhall House didn’t have tubs large enough to suit the 6’4” president. For decades, antique vendors sought to locate Lincoln’s bathtub, but it was never found. After the hotel closed in 1879, the tub was used as a coal bin for decades and eventually discarded.

The building was forever known as the Cross Keys, even though it operated by that name for less than 20 years. Afterwards, it was known as Stimson’s Hotel (1861), Juneau House (1863), Russell House (1867), American House (1869) and European Hotel (1875). In the 1840s, the area was filled with travelers hotels supporting the Huron (Clybourn) and Detroit (St. Paul) sea passenger docks. When the railroads came to Milwaukee, the hotels moved to where the depots were (first, 2nd & Seeboth, then East Wisconsin Avenue, and then Fourth & Michigan.) By 1879, the old Cross Keys Hotel closed its hotel operation forever and the ground floor was renovated as commercial storefronts.

The hotel was fortunate enough to survive both an 1865 fire and the Great Third Ward fire of 1892, but a vicious fourth floor fire in 1923 destroyed its original Italianate features and required the removal of the building’s top floor. The Cross Keys went from heavily decorated to sparsely streamlined almost overnight.

By 1954, the Milwaukee Journal described the Cross Keys as “simply an old building that has long lost its name and purpose.” Over 100 years’ time, Water Street had been raised three times and the old building continued to settle into the unstable marshland it had been built upon. The lobby of the old hotel had been above street level on opening day. By 1954, the same space, now a barbershop, was more than five feet below the street.

In 1969, architectural historian H. Russell Zimmerman expressed doubt that the Cross Keys would survive the expressway era. It was recognized as the oldest surviving commercial building in the city.

Depopulated by urban renewal and amputated from downtown by freeway construction, the Third Ward became somewhat of a floating museum. While relatively busy by day, the area was almost completely desolate by night. By the late 1960s, gay bars began migrating to the down-low streets of the Third and Fifth Wards.

The River Queen, one of the more popular, opened in the Cross Keys sometime in 1969. Originally owned by Al Berry (proprietor of the Rooster Bar at 181 S 2nd St., now known as Just Art’s Saloon), the River Queen was rumored to be financed by organized crime. It is well-remembered today for its ornate decor, including a crystal chandelier. The River Queen was also famous for celebrity sightings: LIberace, Milton Berle, Paul Lynde and others could be seen here after local performances.

Of course, the bar was forever being slapped with trumped-up charges of disorderly conduct, serving after hours, underage loitering, prostitution, and fire code violations. Its liquor license was in constant jeopardy for most of its existence.

In January 1976, the River Queen was the scene of a massive scandal involving Milwaukee Police corruption. To avoid police harassment, the former owner had given cash payoffs in excess of $1,000, expensive gifts (including 25 electric razors,) cases of liquor, and daily free drinks to over 50 police offers and their wives between 1973 and 1974. He claimed that officers would stay in the bar after closing until 7am, while vice officers were serviced by prostitutes (female and male) at the bar.

An intense investigation ensued, and the findings were bizarre. After hearing how a drunken officer showed off his new gun by firing bullets into the bar’s ceilings, detectives removed wood paneling and found two bullets wedged in the walls. One officer reported seeing a colleague staggering drunk down Wisconsin Avenue at 6:30 a.m. after having 8-10 after-hours drinks at the bar. Two police officers were accused of homosexual conduct with a minor in a nearby apartment. Investigators traveled to Minneapolis and Chicago to obtain shadowy testimonials from former bartenders and patrons. ”Detectives say that homosexuals, like prostitutes, are often valuable sources of information about criminal activity,” reported the Milwaukee Journal.

Although the investigation did not result in any charges, mainly due to a lack of cooperation and hard evidence, the controversy caused the end of the River Queen. When it closed, its patrons took every souvenir they could get out of the bar, and some people still own barstools to this day.

In early 1977, a new owner tried to overcome the scandal by opening a “sophisticated” jazz club. Due to continued licensing problems and high rent ($1,000 a month in 1977), Sharon’s didn’t last long. Side Door and Jocks opened and closed here within the next two years, and by fall 1979, the building’s only occupant was the Waterfront Cafe.

On Wednesday, November 28, 1979, a three-alarm fire broke out at the Cross Keys at 4:15 a.m. It was fought by over 100 firefighters. The fire started on the first floor, but the State Fire Marshal never found its cause. The loss was cited as only $200,000.

After 127 years at the corner of St. Paul and Water, the Cross Keys was finally razed in May 1980 for a parking lot. The land stayed vacant until 2005 when the Milwaukee Public Market was built on the exact footprint of the old Cross Keys Hotel.

Lost Milwaukee: the German American Bank Building

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 16:08:18 -0500

It’s hard to imagine the northeast corner of 2nd & National looking like this.

The German American Bank Building was the cornerstone of the intersection for almost 100 years before an arsonist burnt it down on September 10, 1986. Although the bank didn’t survive the Great Depression, the building continued to house Fifth Ward businesses and tenants. By the 1970s, its only tenant was a notoriously seedy rooming house that was eventually condemned and closed in 1980.

An earlier fire on June 13, 1980 had caused moderate damage and injured a homeless man squatting on the property. This time around, the building was unoccupied and vacant, aside from ancient telephone equipment and wiring that melted in the fire. It took 125 firefighters, 15 fire engines and six ladder companies all night to bring the five-alarm blaze under control.

The German American Bank Building went out in high style, with flame jets shooting 20-30 feet into the sky and a smoke cloud that could be seen for miles. And it’s been a parking lot ever since.

Lost Milwaukee: Convent Hill

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:25:00 -0500

What did the Park East corridor look like before the freeway?

Would you believe a European-style convent sat on Milwaukee and Ogden Streets, where novices gathered around goldfish-filled fountains in elaborate storybook gardens and stone grottos?

In 1851, Mother Caroline arrived in Milwaukee with funding from King Louis of Bavaria to establish the first Motherhouse of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in the United States.

Under her leadership, the convent at 1324 N. Milwaukee St grew from “a little pioneer home hidden under mighty trees” to the “house with four chimneys” to a massive red brick complex that dominated the lower East Side skyline. Its chapel contained more than 5,000 authenticated relics of saints, and its infirmary was marked with a mammoth stone crucifix that stood for 100 years. For decades, it was one of the largest buildings in the city, and a well-known landmark for navigators.

The Notre Dame Convent was not just a place of worship and study, but a finishing school for girls from Milwaukee’s most elite families, including the daughters of Solomon Juneau. It was described as a “city unto itself,” housing not only students, but over 150 nuns (active, retired and infirm.) The sisters were totally self-sufficient, serving as their own chefs, gardeners, bakers, cobblers, seamstresses, barbers, printers, and musicians.

On June 17, 1873, a “supernatural miracle” was reported here when a 19-year-old girl in the final stages of consumption was totally healed by the appearance of the Virgin Mary.

When the Sisters built the $6 million Notre Dame of the Lake in 1957 — now the home of Concordia University in Mequon — their 106-year-old convent was left behind. Incredibly, this majestic old building became a symbol of “blight” and a target for modernization. Workmen surveying the building in 1958 were struck by the pristine condition of the convent interiors, which were decorated in European hardwoods, elaborate marbles and ancient stained glass. Still, everything you see here in this 1939 photo, including the fountain and all of the wrought ironwork, was destroyed and sold for scrap.

By 1960, a senior living center named “Convent Hill” rose in the castle’s place. However, all that remains of the original convent is a simple bell tower in the parking lot — and a history display in the lobby.

From the collection of the Milwaukee Public Library.

Lost Milwaukee: the Triangle Building

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:02:24 -0500

Take a trip to the German Athens in this turn-of-the-century street scene from the triangle of Plankinton, Second and Wells, then a booming West Side commercial district. From this perspective, Milwaukee’s original Triangle Bar is a perfect companion to the brand-new Germania Building.

Wouldn’t you like to raise a stein here today?

Unfortunately, the Triangle Building vanished sometime before 1929, and the space became just another one of the city’s many streetcar transfer triangles. When streetcar lines were removed and one-way streets implemented on all three sides, the triangle became a bleak and treacherous traffic obstacle.

In 1989, the City of Milwaukee revitalized the space with park-like features and dedicated the Letter Carrier’s Monument. The statue commemorates the centennial of the National Association of Letter Carriers, which organized in a nearby tavern in support of worker’s rights.

Over 20 years later, the statue is relatively invisible and unknown.

“It stands on the small crowded triangle with annoying awkwardness,” remarked a local sculpture critic — words that nobody would have ever said about the original Triangle Building.

Lost Milwaukee: the Railroad Hotels of Union Square

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:39:00 -0500

Back in the torrid days of rail travel, thousands of people arrived in Milwaukee every day at the Union Depot at 4th & Everett. Some were residents returning home from Chicago or St. Paul. Many were renegades riding the rails to find a better life anywhere that would have them.

Fortunately for those characters, Union Square (now Zeidler Park) was surrounded by single-room occupancy “railroad hotels” that offered the high life at a low cost. Unlike the more refined hotels near the Chicago Northwestern station on Wisconsin Avenue, these low-end hotels often walked a thin line between rooming house and flophouse. One of them, the Royal Hotel, was a notorious gay hotspot dating back to the mid-1930s, known more for hosting a collection of “circus people” than respectable travelers.

By the early 1970s, rail service had been relocated to the “New Depot” on St. Paul Avenue, the historic Milwaukee Road depot had been burnt and razed, and these ancient hotels were now considered seedier, shadier and more vice-ridden than ever.

So, when Blue Cross Blue Shield announced plans to build a modern “office park” with twin 200,000-square-foot skyscrapers between 4th, 6th, Clybourn and Michigan, reformers couldn’t wait to see these “filthy little roach traps” torn down. In this 1976 photo, you can see the 10-story Royal Hotel has already been gutted.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield complex opened in 1977, replacing all of this sordid street-level activity with stark fortress-style architecture. The 5th Street building was eventually acquired by Time Insurance, now known as Assurant Health.

Within a generation, all of Milwaukee’s historic single-room occupancy hotels vanished from the landscape. The Antlers and Plankinton Hotels were leveled for Grand Avenue parking, the Towne was flattened for Federal Plaza development, and the Randolph and Maryland Hotels were cleared in a failed land speculation that has left an entire city block vacant at 4th & Wisconsin for 30 years. The Belmont Hotel was razed for Wisconsin Center construction in 1996, and even the Hotel Wisconsin converted from low-rent to luxury apartments.

Less than 30 years after they were credited with “reinventing Westown,” Blue Cross Blue Shield moved to West Allis in 2006.

Where taverns, hotels and stores once teemed with local color, all that remains today is a dead office building on a colorless block.

Glimpses of the German Athens: Schloss Kalvelage

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 10:54:28 -0400

Glimpses of the German Athens: Schloss Kalvelage :

The historic Kalvelage Mansion, 2432 W. Kilbourn Ave., will be open to the public for tours from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 18 and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 19.

Completed in 1896, Kalvelage Schloss (Castle) was designed for Joseph B. Kalvelage by architect Otto Strack. Inspired by German and French Renaissance, this structure is an architectural gem of Baroque character.

Thanks for the follow. I was born in Milwaukee, so this is very interesting.

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:27:52 -0400

No, thank you! LOTS more to come from this haunted city. Stay tuned.

Lost Milwaukee: The Princess Theater If you’re under 40,...

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 12:44:00 -0500

Lost Milwaukee: The Princess Theater

If you’re under 40, chances are you’ve never even heard of the Princess Theater. And it’s probably impossible to believe there was a thriving “red light” district at Third and Wisconsin as late as the 1980s. But there was. There really was.

In 1897, the Pabst Brewery bought land at 738 N. 3rd St to build a branded saloon. The beer business opened in 1903, but somehow failed within a year. It was replaced in 1904 by The Grand, a 10 cent, four-shows-a-day “family vaudeville” theater that dabbled in motion pictures.

The Grand tried hard to stay afloat, shifting quickly from vaudeville to moving pictures to talking pictures (with actors behind the screen, narrating the imagery.) The business eventually failed, and the operation was leased to emerging theater kings Thomas and John Saxe. However, the land was retained by Clara Heyl, scandal-ridden Pabst Brewery heiress, whose son Helmuth would hold the title — as an on-again, off-again absentee landlord — well into the 1970s.

On December 16, 1909, the Saxes introduced a reinvented Princess Theater to great local fanfare. The house now featured over 1,000 “elegantly cushioned” seats, an improved balcony with four box seats, elegant lobby fountains, mosaic tile floors, elegantly painted movie posters, stained glass windows, mirrored walls, and one of the first electric ventilation systems in the city. There was now a five-piece orchestra pit, with a $20,000 Barton pipe organ with 27 stops — one of the first in Milwaukee. This was no longer a “poor man’s vaudeville house,” claimed papers, but a gathering place for a “better class of people.” Mayor David Rose even dedicated the opening night affair.

Once the new 1,500 bulb marquee ignited that night, movies — of progressively declining quality — would be shown here continuously for over seven decades.

In 1925, the now-wealthy Saxes invested over $50,000 to make the Princess Theater “the model picture house of Milwaukee.” The theatre’s famous terra cotta facade was revealed for the first time, elaborately decorated with neoclassical features and artificial windows. These accommodations were supposedly modeled after the recently-opened Wisconsin Theater (530 W. Wisconsin Ave.), the largest movie palace ever built in Milwaukee and then the flagship of a 28-house chain.

If the Princess Theater was ever that elegant, the luster faded very, very quickly. The Saxes sold their theater chain in 1927, briefly regained control of the Princess and a handful of their former movie houses in 1933, and then sold them off again. By 1943, the theater was showing “eighth run” films at a fraction of its neighbors’ ticket prices.

In 1957, the elaborate facade was “art-bricked” in a cheap and hideous attempt to modernize the neoclassical building. The sidewalk box office was covered. A new ticket counter was built indoors — and eventually, encased in glass. The orchestra pit was covered. The grand pipe organ disappeared. All traces of the “model picture house” disintegrated — the fountains, the mirrors, even the draperies. The Princess was stripped down to her bare essentials.

With the glamour gone, the Saxes gone, and the downtown movie audience increasingly gone, the Princess was at a low point in her life at middle age. And then, she found herself in a “friends with benefits” relationship with a sketchy neighbor, The Brass Rail club. The Brass Rail started as a downtown tavern, but became a hugely successful strip club in 1959. Eight months later, 320-lb. owner Izzy Pogrob disappeared with $1,500 in a white Cadillac — and turned up blindfolded and shot dead in a Mequon field with 93 cents in his pocket. Rumors whispered that Pogrob had been rubbed out in a mobster hit. The rumors continued when Milwaukee’s infamous Balistreri family took over the bar.

For a generation, the Brass Rail was *the* most notorious downtown “stag” bar — a strictly male space where wives weren’t welcome, and men could be men with neither courtesy or apology. Its racy burlesque posters beckoned to workingmen passing by, as well as young boys whose imaginations must have ran wild wondering what went on indoors.

But by 1959, nobody really cared anymore what was going on inside the Princess — and it was certainly no longer a “gathering place for a better class of people.” There were other, better downtown theaters, and the one-story, dime-a-dozen Princess was pretty much played out. Within a few blocks, you could visit the Alhambra, Esquire, Riverside, Towne, Warner, Wisconsin, Strand and Palace Theaters - all in arguably better shape than the Princess, and showing better movies. (OK, maybe not the Alhambra.) A Milwaukee Journal critic reported, “The Wisconsin Hotel, still one of the town’s best, defies the wrath of time…but we’re not too sure about the Princess Theater, which continues to throw reels and reels of tired celluloid at patrons for fifty cents a turn.”

How soon the Princess would make her comeback! On January 14, 1960, the theater was showing Sophia Loren’s 1959 film “That Kind of Woman” — but on the next day, the Princess became known as “that kind of woman” with an adults-only program. The ads for “Room 43” screamed, “DARING! FRANK! SENSATIONAL! A film for those who think they have seen everything!” Meanwhile, “Adventures in Sadie” was hawked as “the eyebrow-raising story of three men and a girl stranded on a desert island!”

The Princess had found a speciality: topless movies. And what a big deal THAT was, during the Kennedy era. Milwaukee personality Art Kumbalek says it best: “I don’t believe the young people today could begin to understand what a triumph that was—to see a naked boob in a motion picture theater.” Sneaking into the theater became a rite of passage for teenage boys — something to brag about to your less brave, but no less curious friends. The Princess was now a girl with a “reputation.”

With Helmuth Heyl barely noticing, the theater was passed from one out-of-town operator to another, and the films quickly went from mature to adult to X to XXX. The theater’s movie listings in local newspapers certainly captured both attention and imagination, but not everyone was ready to “out” themselves as a moral deviant by walking in the theater’s front doors. So the Brass Rail’s owners quietly installed a secret door connecting their club with the theater lobby. Anyone could now see a dirty movie - without anyone on the street knowing you had done so. While the Brass Rail was originally the raciest option on the block, it had become one of the more morally acceptable. With the arrival of the lurid Central Danish World adult bookstore at Third and Wells, the block became Milwaukee’s red light district. By the 1970s, there were 4 adult theaters and 15 adult bookstores in downtown Milwaukee — leading city officials to propose zoning regulations that would relocate these booming businesses to the Third Ward, where redevelopment efforts had erased a thriving Little Italy 20 years prior. The proposal to create a Third Ward “combat zone” ultimately failed.

The Princess didn’t get the Milwaukee premiere of DEEP THROAT, which went to the Parkway Theater (3417 W. Lisbon) in December 1972. But Marilyn Chambers, Russ Meyer and other famous adult film celebrities signed autographs here throughout the 1970s. This publicity didn’t escape the attention of local police or state investigators. In 1976, the theater paid $2,000 for two counts of obscenity, In 1977, the Milwaukee Police Department seized 77 films, of which the state only found 17 obscene, but eventually dismissed.

The continuous threat of a theater raid made the Princess seem like a very dubious and dangerous place, on top of its already scandalous reputation. Patrons reported that the appeal of the Princess Theater wasn’t even the movies themselves— it was the sheer thrill of being a spectator in such a forbidden place.

And the theater’s moral integrity wasn’t the only problem. Its architecture was literally falling apart. In 1967, both the auditorium flooring and the stage had to be replaced — because the cork lining had finally rotted. In 1977, a portion of the neighboring building crashed through the Princess Theater’s roof. Seating was often removed rather than repaired or replaced. Plumbing, lighting and heating were often unreliable —as was the cleanliness of the theater inside and out. Modern air conditioning had never been installed — and the building still had its original dirt basement floor throughout its entire lifetime.

Nothing could make the Princess a morally acceptable destination again — nor would it be affordable or feasible to try. Early VCRs and pay-per-view channels were starting to show up in the privacy of people’s homes. Nobody in their right mind was going to risk their reputation, safety or self-respect to visit a run-down theater. The thrill was gone.

With Grand Avenue, the Hyatt, and a new Federal Building all being built within a one-block radius, it was increasingly obvious that the decadent and now decaying Princess Theater’s days were numbered.

On December 10, 1982, the Sentinel reported that the Milwaukee Redevelopment Authority had voted unanimously to raze the theater. However, the Authority refused to hear the arguments of Joseph Balistreri, owner of the Brass Rail, who was working with an architect to reopen the bar as a restaurant run by “established restaurant people.” Balistreri was the son of Frank P. Balistreri, who was documented as the head of organized crime in Milwaukee and indicted in ongoing FBI and Justice Department investigations.

The Authority was asked to consider the plight of 62-year-old Violet Clemons, long-time cashier-manager and one of the seven Princess Theater employees, whose story was told in the Milwaukee Sentinel. ”Vie” sat on the same ticket-taking stool for ten years, in a secure, glassed-in world, with a little TV, telephone and artificial Christmas tree, without ever once seeing an adult movie. The surprisingly progressive Christian grandmother defended her customers as “quiet, hard-working men” who “weren’t bothering anybody” and needed this type of outlet in their lives. ”It’s their money and their time, and they are all adults. A lot of guys are not married, will never marry…as long as they are hurting anyone, the government should keep their nose out of it.” She also noted, “I don’t think anybody has the right to deny anybody else the right to watch an adult movie.”

Clemon’s lawyer said “It’s very easy to view this as nothing more than a dirty movie theater, but even that is better than another hole in the ground in downtown Milwaukee.” The owner of the Century Building on 3rd and Wells disagreed, “I, for one, just think it stinks. Let’s face it, guys, it’s just a porno theater.”

But was it? Two weeks later, historian Hugh Swofford came forward with a proposal that was ridiculed by city officials and papers. Since the Princess was the city’s oldest continuously operating movie theater, it was worthy of redemption, not razing. The proposal did have merit, according to the city’s historic preservation guidelines, and the discussion gained a foothold as the Redevelopment Authority fumed. The Brass Rail, however, attracted no preservation defenders.

Was there bias against these sordid downtown properties? Most certainly. Even the Balistreri lawyers pointed this out, saying “As this (redevelopment) plan is being constructed, I think certain individuals are being singled out, and I think they’re being singled out unfairly.” This statement could be applied to not only porn theaters, adult bookstores and strip joints, but the “undesirable” downtown denizens that frequented them. None were welcome in the new “everything must go” downtown of the 1980s.

By 1984, the Princess was the last remaining X-rated theater in Milwaukee — and one of two downtown movie theaters left standing after the Redevelopment Authority’s renovation rampage down Wisconsin Avenue. In March, the Authority seized the Princess and Brass Rail, ordered tenants to move out within 90 days, and began condemnation proceedings. The Brass Rail was flattened at the cost of $14,300, but as preservation talks continued on the Princess, demolition was at a standstill. On August 31, 1984, a random hole was punched in the theater wall to prevent its designation as a local historic landmark. Within a few weeks, the city’s seizure actions — including this wanton vandalism — were ruled legal by a local court, the oldest movie theater in Milwaukee was flattened, and Third Street had finally been exorcised of its demons.

The Authority voted to turn the Brass Rail / Princess site into a surface parking lot “until a new development is decided upon.” When pressed for definite plans for the parcel, a smug Authority member sarcastically offered, “trees.” Almost three decades later, the cement lot remains vacant, undeveloped, and treeless — a testament to the pointless ruin of an intact city block.

In February 1985, the Milwaukee Journal reported, “Gone are the clusters of streetwalkers beckoning men who walked along 5th Street at night. Gone are the honky-tonks where go-go girls offered more than dancing for the right price. Gone is the Princess Theater, where several generations of young men learned about the birds and bees from Brigitte Bardot, Linda Lovelace and Marilyn Chambers. As the seamier types of entertainment have left downtown, more middle-class, family-style activities have moved in.” Milwaukee’s red light district was gone for good. Good, it seemed at the time, had triumphed over evil — leaving behind an ugly, barren, lifeless half-block stretch of street.

The Modjeska Theater, engineered by the Saxe Brothers in 1924 and still standing on Mitchell Street, has a street-level facade somewhat reminiscent of the Princess. However, the Princess Theater only lives on today in hazy, hush-hush memories — and in the eight marquee letters (P-R-I-N-C-E-S-S) salvaged by Times Cinema proprietor Larry Widen.

Lost Milwaukee: City Hall Square

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 14:11:14 -0500

Lost Milwaukee: City Hall Square

The Alhambra Theater, 334 W. Wisconsin Ave., in lesser...

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 13:18:00 -0500

The Alhambra Theater, 334 W. Wisconsin Ave., in lesser days.

The Alhambra Theater, 334 W. Wisconsin Ave., in finer days

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 01:01:00 -0500

The Alhambra Theater, 334 W. Wisconsin Ave., in finer days

Lost Milwaukee: White Tower Borrowing heavily — perhaps...

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 03:01:13 -0500

Lost Milwaukee: White Tower

Borrowing heavily — perhaps too heavily — from the hot-and-now success of White Castle, John and Thomas Saxe opened a White Tower hamburger stand near Marquette University in 1926.

Their rapidly-growing movie palace empire already included the Princess, Alhambra, Wisconsin, Oriental, Garfield, Tower and Uptown theaters. Within a year, there were six White Tower locations in Milwaukee and one in Racine, with most locations within walking distance of a Saxe Theater.

These “lunchrooms” were remembered for their unique architecture: white, impossibly clean, stylized medieval castles. The bright white buildings were intentionally designed to contrast coal-stained downtown buildings. Restaurants were laid out in polished chrome and white tile, and were staffed by “Towerettes” — female employees in white nurses’ outfits. In Milwaukee, cheap meals usually meant tavern food, so the Saxe brothers used white to sell the idea that dining out could be both affordable and clean. The lunchrooms served a simple menu for a blue collar crowd, including 5 cent hamburgers, coffee, ham sandwiches, pie, donuts, and soda, all available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

“They made an inexpensive meal in clean, shiny buildings for working people,” comments architectural historian John Margolies. “They did for hamburgers what Henry Ford did for the automobile.” Hamburger prices stayed at 5 cents until 1941 and coffee was sold for 5 cents until 1950. For decades, White Tower offered free meals on Christmas Day, “just to make sure that no single man, whether black or white, resident or transient, should go hungry.”

In a time before cars, the Saxe brothers strategically located their Towers at the intersection of train and trolley lines. For example, the most memorable 2nd and Michigan location was mere footsteps away from interurban trains, the streetcar exchange and the Milwaukee Road terminal.

A flabbergasted White Castle took the Saxes to court for unfair competition, and the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered White Tower to change its architecture, stay out of White Castle’s markets, and pay royalties for the business they’d already stolen. White Tower eventually expanded to ten states and 130 locations, including 30 in Detroit.

Local children were coming to White Tower on the streetcar for two generations before the first McDonalds opened. Unfortunately, White Tower didn’t update its operating model for car-crazy, postwar America. Many locations eventually found themselves landlocked in “blighted” urban areas that were no longer desirable destinations. At a time when drive-in restaurants were the rage, most White Towers didn’t even offer parking spots. In the mid-1950s, the chain had 230 locations. Only a handful remained 20 years later.

The White Tower brand vanished quickly from downtown Milwaukee. In 1962, the popular location at 723 N. 6th Street was flattened by a neighboring and now-defunct bank. The 24-hour downtown diner was wasted for an ugly surface parking lot that is even uglier 50 years later. The rambunctious White Tower near City Hall also disappeared in the 1960s. In 1976, the company was down to just two local locations. The local landmark on 2nd and Michigan — one of the first and smallest ever built — was the last to go. It closed in 1978, became a “Chuck Wagon” restaurant for awhile, and was demolished for the Grand Avenue parking structure in 1982. No effort was made to restore or relocate the historic building, or incorporate it into the redevelopment project.

With not a single Milwaukee location left standing, few of its residents even know that White Tower ever existed.