tell me about milwaukee

Anyway, Kirsten OTM, she has it covered.

I've been out in Milwaukee on a Saturday night, and it STILL looks like that. Not a soul to be seen. Unless the Brewers are playing or they're in college, seems everyone just sits home with a 6-pack. No thanks.

:'(

I bet it's okay, really.

(x-post, agreed)

I liked Madison. The parks and view of the buildings and water are beautiful on the drive in. The shops are cute, though a bit artsy in an 80s sort of way.

4 Words: Frozen Custard at Kopp's.

OTM. That stuff is addictive.

Kiersten has covered it well. Milwaukee's a great city. I love the lakefront. Of course it's quieter than Chicago, it's a much much smaller city. I like that about it, actually.

Also, when the wind is blowing in the right direction, everything smells like brewery.

I think on my week off I should do things that I never actually did while living in Milwaukee, like take a brewery tour and go to the art museum.

does anyone have anything to tell me about milwaukee before i FREAKING MOVE THERE TOMORROW AFTER NEVER HAVING BEEN THERE OR ANYWHERE NEAR THERE BEFORE

me & the wife are coming to milwaukee this weekend, tell us some fun shit to do

you could hang out with me and my girlfriend on friday.

we won't get there until saturday, we have a show in chicago friday night, otherwise we totally would

oh ok. we're probably going to back to madison on sat afternoon, but i'll ask around and see if anything cool is happening that night.

we're going to aim to get in pretty early saturday morning, i think sarah wants to get brunch at beans & bagels ... do you guys want to join us?

beans & barley? yeah that could work (it can get pretty busy on the weekends though).

yeah beans & bagels is in chicago, i meant beans & barley. i think i have yr phone number, i can just text you on saturday morning when we're getting near milwaukee

milwaukee mayor lost teeth in battle with suspect

I was standing around before the start of the Labor Day march the other weekend and Mayor Barrett walks right up to my wife and me with his good left hand extended, all "hey, thanks for coming out." Have to admit I was a little starstruck. Took me a second to register where exactly on the TV I knew this guy from.

I absolutely despised living there in my angsty 20s. But I think it's a fine place to, er, settle down in one's slightly less angsty 30s. Haven't lived there in a while so I'm not sure if any of the below are still in biz but:

Fave bars are At Random (where Peg Bundy would go to meet her secret lover...amaaaazing decor and positively jaw-dropping drinks...share a Tiki Bowl with someone) and This Is It (where Al Bundy would go to meet his secret gay lover...VERY difficult to find even when you're standing right in front it @ 418 E. Wells Street)

Woodland Pattern Bookstore - tons of poetry books but I went for the art music vinyl (e.g. Joan LaBarbara, Robert Ashley, etc.) and the great monthly avant-garde films

The Cactus Club - fave place to see a band like my beloved BRMC (still open?)

Basilica of St. Josaphat - We lived LITERALLY across the street from this and never went in. :(

The Calatrava - Gorgeous but, um, you can't really put much art in it. Soooo Milwaukee. But the art museum is indeed lovely.

Atomic Records - Most of the record stores I loved are prolly gone but I'm sure this one is still going. Tad pricey but always found sooo much great shit in the Compilations section.

Food - The only thing I love about MKE over any other city I've lived in is the food. Your ass gets FED in Brew City! Plentiful and unpretentious for the most part. Love the Greek family restaurants! Jalisco's! Tres Hermanos! Grecian Delight! Shahrazad!

Lots of places that are fine to visit once (The Domes, Pabst Mansion [still open?]) but after that...

Vile, avoid like the plague, should be razed: Summerfest

Cactus Club is still open. Saw Neil Hamburger there last month (and dined at the booth next to him at Palomino before the show).

I'll have to stop in to At Random for an alcoholic goblet sometime. I've walked past it a number of times and would probably have mistook it for a public library if it didn't have the sign on the side.

I love how if you order a bloody mary in this town it is customary to be served with a High Life chaser. The cheddar and sausage garnish was less surprising.

hey, i'm pro'lly going to milwaukee for a few days in a few weeks.

any suggestions?

what are the best venues for live music? are there good milwaukee-area music and film calendars i can check out?

vintage stores? record stores? restaurants? parks?

I'm pretty sure literally every good record store in Milwaukee closed in the last couple of years. Beyond that, I dunno...

I don't know enough to make worthwhile recommendations about live music or vintage stores-- maybe some else here can help you out with that.

The Union Theater on the UW-Milwaukee campus usually shows interesting things but they don't publish their film calendar until school starts for the fall semester. Right now they're closed for the summer, and otherwise the only film venues of note are the Landmark theaters on the east side, which are vintage buildings and really pretty, but just show basic new arthouse releases. If you come between September 23rd and October 3rd, the 2010 Milwaukee Film Festival will be going on at different theaters around town, but they haven't released their calendar yet either.

Any park on Lake Michigan is basically pretty nice. Lake Park and Veterans Park on the lakefront north of the art museum are probably the ones most worth checking out for a tourist.

Restaurants, I dunno. Comet Cafe has good food and drinks but gets incredibly crowded on the weekends. I'd recommend eating fish fry somewhere if you're around on a Friday for the full Milwaukee experience. Also, get frozen custard somewhere, preferably either at a Kopp's location (where you can also enjoy a delicious cheeseburger with the works) or at Leon's on the south side. Jake's Deli makes really good corned beef sandwiches during lunch hours if you don't mind going to the inner city to get it.

What else... The Lakefront Brewery tour is the most fun brewery tour in town and they make the best beer too. If you're a beer snob, I'm pretty sure that the best bars for that are in the bar district along Kinnickinnic Avenue, including Sugar Maple and the Palm Tavern. The best liquor store in town is Discount Liquor on Oklahoma Avenue. Huge, cheap, and they have a really choice selection of beers. And, um, I guess that's it. Milwaukee is a pretty nice place to be when there's leaves on the trees, so enjoy, I guess!

We are coming upon the best time of the year to visit Milwaukee - between the end of the summer into early fall. What types of outdoor recreation are nearby, I can't remember?

I don't get out a ton, but there are a lot of parks with mountain bike trails in southeastern Wisconsin. Maybe the Kettle Moraine region would be the best for that? Or just go out for a drive and maybe go up a hiking trail to a lookout tower like the one by Sheboygan. Also muskie fishing or whatever on any of the lakes in the area. It's the one month of the year that Lake Michigan isn't too cold to swim in, so you could do that or go parasailing or rent a jetski at Veteran's Park. You can also rent rollerblades at Veteran's Park and go up and down all the parks by the beach on Lincoln Memorial Drive. Bradford Beach in Milwaukee has a ton of nets set up for beach volleyball that are open free to the public. Also there are a ton of good public golf courses in the area.

Well, I'm a regular visitor here, but Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors. The French missionaries and explorers began visiting here in the late 16th century.

Hey, isn't "Milwaukee" an Indian name?

Yes, it is. In fact , it's pronounced "mill-e-wah-que" which is Algonquin for "the good land."

I was not aware of that.

This is a touristy thing but I thought the Pabst mansion was actually pretty impressive.

Also there's a massive used book store downtown. I don't remember what it's called but it shouldn't be that hard to find. MASSIVE.

If it's the book store I'm thinking of, it's godawful. The owner's a prick; the used vinyl is sealed with tape which ruins the jacket (they honestly think someone's going to make off with a $2 Sa-Fire record with no jacket???); and, worst of all, there's nothing to buy. It's full of disogranized junk, more a graveyard than a store (although the wiki above suggests that it's improved).

Atomic Records - Most of the record stores I loved are prolly gone but I'm sure this one is still going.

Ugh I should have done my research. Atomic closed six months before I wrote that! :( RIP. Here's a Popmatters requiem all about it.

thanks so much, folks, for all the recommendations!

i like going to Roots for brunch. love lisa's pizza too.

oh, and nessun dorma is my favorite bar in town. great food (inexpensive too), amazing beer/liquor list, and by far the nicest atmosphere in riverwest.

I still haven't been to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_Art_Museum, I keep thinking of the Calatrava thing as new. Seems like it would be great to try your camera out on.

Is Ren Books the same store that has an offshoot in the airport??? Because I love that place and wish I could fly through there EVERY SINGLE TIME I FLY AT ALL.

Also the Milwaukee airport has a bar with a smoking fishbowl/area right next to it, so you can take your beer in and smoke INSIDE the damn airport.

I attended a summer college program there in 1993, when I was 15. I made friends with these crazy punk dudes & we snuck out of the dorms one night & saw a triple bill of Ed Hall, Flipper & The Dwarves. It was one of the best shows ever!

These are my favorite things about Milwaukee, unless I'm confusing it with Minneapolis, which I may be.

iirc it is a good city for skateboarding.

Is Ren Books the same store that has an offshoot in the airport??? Because I love that place and wish I could fly through there EVERY SINGLE TIME I FLY AT ALL.

yup, it's the best airport bookstore in the country (maybe the only used bookstore in an airport?). i have fond childhood memories of getting sci-fi books there before family trips.

Also there's a massive used book store downtown.

I guess you were talking about Renaissance Books, but speaking of massive used bookstores in downtown Milwaukee, there's also Downtown Books, which is on Wisconsin Avenue east of Water Street and has a much better used comic book selection than Ren Books does.

Also, the UWM Union Theatre just mailed out their fall 2010 film calendar. Hopefully they'll update their website pretty soon. Lourdes, Trash Humpers, the films of Bruce Conner-- any of this sound interesting? Also, mini Kurosawa fest at the end of September.

I love that there IS a used bookstore in the airport, but I find their prices weirdly high and never actually buy anything there.

The Milwaukee Art Museum is great -- as you'd expect from Milwaukee, some good German Expressionism in the permanent collection, and as you might not expect, some good, weird folk art too.

I have always heard good things about Serbian food there, esp. Three Brothers, but have never been. I like the Polish restaurant in the Public Market.

Endorsing the art museum, with its flapping wings and fun and manageable yet extensive collection. The public market had a great lobster dinner (I know, not exactly local fare) for $12. Waterpark in the Hilton Hotel was great for kids and isn't just for hotel guests.

some good German Expressionism in the permanent collection

The Expressionist print room is my favorite part of the art museum by far. They have a gazillion of them in the collection and rotate them out on a regular basis.

Pretty sure my bf applied for a job there but it was a long shot and no answer (yet?). But hey, I could end up back on this thread, wait and see!

And by "there", I mean, Milwaukee. Not the art museum in particular.

http://www.cmftool.com/Milwaukee_logo.gif

Someone had to do it.

OK, I guess I was lying upthread-- the lake was cold as fuck this morning. I don't know why I thought it ever gets any better.

Anyone who lives there know if the weather is generally that much better than it is in the Green Bay area? Is there really a difference?

Heading downtown there this evening. Will try to visit the Safe House.

Okay, Safe House would be much more fun as a group and visibly intoxicated.

Okay, Safe House Milwaukee would be much more fun as a group and visibly intoxicated.

any ethnic recommends that folks could recommend? maybe something in the central/east europe category? or whatever.

i've had some really good tacos from trucks in milwaukee, but have never been to a proper restaurant

proper mexican restaurant, i should say

yes, i've heard people rave about Three Brothers, i think it's Serbian.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/01/us/murder-rates-rising-sharply-in-many-us-cities.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

76% rise in murders so far this year in milwaukee : (

this is not what i want to hear when visiting brew city

i'm visiting in August. were's a good place to go for beer??

Sugar Maple