Diving the deep wrecks

During the winter months, Bay View resident Jitka Hanakova works as a business analyst. But from April to October, she takes scuba divers to some of the deepest, least accessible shipwrecks on the Great Lakes.

Hanakova started diving in 2000 and quickly fell in love with the sport. She found a good, local charter boat operator in Jerry Guyer and started exploring area shipwrecks. In 2004 she got her captain’s license and worked on Guyer’s boat as a captain. In 2008, she bought her own boat and started her own charter business, Shipwreck Explorers, with Chicago partner Lubo Valuch.  »Read more

Students dive into aquatic science at Lake Sturgeon Bowl

Skiers have the Olympics. Football players have the Super Bowl. And Wisconsin high school students with a passion for the Great Lakes and oceans? They have the Lake Sturgeon Bowl.

Since 2002, UWM’s Great Lakes WATER Institute (GLWI) and School of Continuing Education, together with UW Sea Grant, have been hosting the annual academic tournament in which students are quizzed on their knowledge of all things aquatic. The Lake Sturgeon Bowl is one of 25 regional competitions around the country that lead to the Consortium for Ocean Leadership’s National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NOSB). The competitions aim to raise interest in aquatic science.  »Read more

Mystery Building—Old Stollenwerk warehouse

This Cream City brick warehouse building was constructed in 1922 on the rear lot of Joseph and Nicholas Stollenwerk’s hardware store (now Faust Music) located at 2202-06 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. In 1935 it housed the Peerless Pattern Corporation, a metal pattern manufacturer, but is now used again as a warehouse. The structure is adjacent to the Ward Street parking lot, but the turret on its southeastern quadrant is only visible from the alley to its east.

Information from building permits and assessment records.

Transition Milwaukee

For some, the future is bleak. Imagine, if you will, a nightmarish apocalypse of oil shocks and climate change that leave everyday Americans groping around alone, cold in the dark, cranking induction flashlights to illuminate cars that won’t run, big-box retailers devoid of merchandise, and decaying cities peopled by zombie-like citizens who can tap out text messages with precision but go hungry without microwavable meals.

For others, the forecast of a world without cheap and abundant oil is motivation to start building a brighter future today. A growing vanguard of people around the planet are rejecting a vision of self-imposed apocalypse and embracing this second future, with an emphasis on humanity and sustainability customized at many local levels.

They’re part of the Transition Movement, an idea exported five years ago from Ireland and the United Kingdom and now taking root in hundreds of locations across the globe.

In early 2009, 40 people interested in sustainability issues gathered at the Urban Ecology Center to explore how Milwaukee can prepare for a future that may look very different from today. Nicole Bickham, of Jefferson, Wis., and Bay View resident Tom Brandstetter organized this first “Transition Milwaukee” event, distributing 20 copies of Rob Hopkins’ The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience to generate discussion and present a possible framework around which to get organized.

“That first meeting was exciting-to be connecting with so many leaders in the sustainability arena,” said Christie Mole, an East Side resident and Transition Milwaukee steering committee member.  »Read more

Art in Bars

As a bar or restaurant, featuring different artists’ works every few months provides both an advertising opportunity and a change of scenery to regular patrons. It’s a low-cost way to stay artistically current and create a supportive feeling of community.

But a few area bars take an opposite yet equally rewarding approach, displaying permanent art pieces that take up large swaths of wall space. While installed or painted at an initial cost to the businesses, the pieces also attract a following, mostly by word of mouth. In addition, the large pieces, made by local artists, often create or contribute to the atmosphere of the bar.  »Read more

Brew City Bruisers start fourth season

The Brew City Bruisers roller derby club kicked off its fourth season Jan. 16 at the Milwaukee County Sports Complex, 6000 W. Ryan Rd., in Franklin.

The Bruisers estimate between 1,500 and 1,600 people attended the standing-room-only match, whose two bouts and halftime entertainment spanned about three hours.  »Read more

Welcome, Bay View’s Baby New Year!

Kendall Rose Thomack, who is celebrated as Bay View’s Baby New Year, must have been curious to see her new neighborhood. She was born about three weeks early 7:26am, Jan. 22 at 4 pounds, 14 ounces, and17 inches.

Kendall’s parents, Chad and Heather Thomack, have lived on Morgan Avenue for close to two years with cat Elliot and dog Pencil. Chad said Elliot and Pencil have been very curious about the baby.

Like all new parents, Chad and Heather have been dealing with evening feedings and diaper changes, but seem to be adjusting well. “We love seeing the changes that happen in the first days of life,” said Chad.

As “little peanut” Kendall grows and temperatures warm up, she will get to see more of her surroundings. “I am looking forward to getting her out in Seminary Woods on a walk,” said Chad.

Mystery Building—The Palmer House

The Palmer House at 2425-27 S. St. Clair St. was built around 1867 by the Milwaukee Iron Company as a boarding house for its mill workers. This Second Empire-style building was named for an 1880s proprietor. Over the years the building housed a bakery, a restaurant, and a tavern, and it now houses three rental units.

Information from the Wisconsin State Historical Society website and city assessment records.

Lights, camera, action teams

Schools with strong parental involvement often have high-achieving students. This isn’t a groundbreaking concept in education. But now Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) is attempting to involve parents in its schools in new ways.

New this academic year, MPS is facilitating Action Teams for Partnerships (ATPs) in every district school to connect all parents with their child’s school and the larger community.

Organizationally, the action teams are similar to school governance councils (also a district-mandated entity) in that they include the school principal, staff, and parents. Community representatives may also join ATPs.

But instead of just organizing the proverbial bake sale, ATP members are tasked with trying their hands at cooking up learning goals, and figuring out how the yeast of family and community involvement can best help student achievement rise.  »Read more

Meet Captain Barndt

Captain Luann Barndt stops in the 24/7 command center of the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Lake Michigan base, 2420 S. Lincoln Memorial Dr. The rooms are illuminated by the glow of computer monitors. Flat-screen televisions mounted on the walls keep the command center personnel abreast of current news and weather. Barndt, standing tall in her rich blue uniform, watches the lights on the radios and transmitters while she chats with a staff member.

Barndt, who assumed the duties of Sector Lake Michigan commander July 1, 2009, is the first female commander of Sector Lake Michigan. She said there are currently five women commanders among the USCG’s 35 sectors.

“We just are in the process of our assignment season, and I know of a few [women] that are going to be moving into command in the next year,” Barndt said. “We also have a woman commander at one of our training centers.”

She added that out of 40 admirals, four are women, with two who had just been selected. One is a former academy classmate of hers.  »Read more

BVHS students build houses, skills

Mark Bajurny has 20 years of reasons why he should be bragging, but he doesn’t talk much about his success.

A humble, no-nonsense teacher, Bajurny started and runs the construction program at Bay View High School, which teaches students real-world, home-building skills and has been responsible for the rehabilitation or construction of 11 Milwaukee houses in the last two decades.

The current project, a house built from the ground up at S. Ninth Place and Cleveland Avenue two miles from the high school, is nearly finished. Students have been working on it since 2006.

It’s the fourth from-scratch house Bajurny and his students have built. “I don’t want to do rehabs anymore,” he said tersely, explaining that they can be more difficult. The first seven projects his students completed were existing houses that needed renovation.

Bajurny began the program with seed money from donors, he said, but since then, it has been self-funded. “All our houses have made a profit, except the last one,” he said, adding they did not lose much on that house.  »Read more

Sweet Water auctions off first perch

The warm amber light shone from the postindustrial clerestory as though from a cathedral and not a repurposed Harnischfeger factory. Protected from the blustery night, people gathered inside to celebrate the first fruits of local urban aquaculture.

Instead of stained glass and candlelight, they found fluorescent grow lights suspended from an almost gothic scaffolding of bright lumber, illuminating rows and tiers of green, edible plants.

In place of an organist or choir, amplifiers lifted folksinger Howard Lewis’ rendition of Loudon Wainwright’s “Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road)” over the conversation, much which was about fish-the thousands of little fish swimming beneath people’s feet in three pits cut into the factory floor directly beneath the platforms of plants.

Sweet Water Organics, the experimental commercial fish and vegetable farm owned by Josh Fraundorf, Steve Lindner, and James Godsil, held its first fish auction Dec. 23 to celebrate the forthcoming January harvest of its first batch of yellow perch and raise funds for its operations.

Godsil gushed that the reality of the Sweet Water Organics facility, whose construction began last February, was “beyond my wildest utopian fantasies.” Later, he called the dozens in attendance to help support Sweet Water by bidding on its historic first batch of perch. “Is there anybody in here who might buy a fish so we can make payroll?”

Riverwest resident Martin Dietrich won the honor of the “first” perch for $42 after jocular bidding. The next four fish each went for $20 or more (see sidebar), with subsequent perch sold for $5 per fish. Recipients must return in early February with their ticket, and a cooler with ice, to claim their unprocessed fish.

Fraundorf discussed his ambition to expand Sweet Water. In the coming months, he plans to add three more fish tanks, each to contain about 10,000 fish. The current tanks house about 15,000 tilapia each. Fraundorf wants to phase from raising mainly tilapia to mainly perch because he sees perch as quintessentially Milwaukee-once a city staple but no longer widely available.

In three years he wants the facilities to be three times as big, with 24 to 36 employees. “We have high expectations to do great things in the city,” he said, and added that in December alone he’s entertained guests from Detroit, Chicago, Hawaii, and Holland who want to learn how Sweet Water is doing what they’re doing.

Sweet Water’s methodology is modeled after Will Allen’s pioneering aquaponics system at Milwaukee’s Growing Power urban farm, but it’s built on a larger scale. Aquaculture simply refers to the farming of fish; aquaponics refers to a system where water circulates among animals and plants, with plants and bacteria cleaning the water for fish and fish waste providing nutrients for the plants. The other component to the system is compost for the plants, enriched by the activities of worms grown on site.

Sweet Water’s plan is to sell the majority of its fish to other retailers and vendors, in part because it does not have fish processing facilities, but Sweet Water’s Andy Meier said they hope eventually to have a small market operation where neighbors can come to purchase fresh fish.

The Sweet Water Foundation recently organized as a charitable nonprofit, said its new executive director Theresa Kopac. She said the foundation will seek grants to support Sweet Water and advance a wider mission of converting waste into resource. “Right now people are working [for Sweet Water] without pay,” she said.

Fraundorf also envisions the foundation developing healing gardens behind the main building at 2121 S. Robinson Ave.

For more on Sweet Water Organics, see Casey Twanow’s comprehensive report in the August 2009 Bay View Compass online http://bayviewcompass.com/archives/1205.

Sweet Water Perch Auction Top Bidders

• 1st perch - $42 - Martin Dietrich
• 2nd perch -$30 - Jon Bales
• 3rd perch - $20 - Jason Haas
• 4th perch - $20 - Pat Wilborn
• 5th perch - $47 - Nik Kovac
• Subsequent perch were sold for $5 each, with a perch promissory note issued for fresh fish, good after Feb. 1.

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