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.

Rebooting the oral tradition

The power of verbal communication may have provided an evolutionary edge for our prehistoric ancestors. Especially given a frenetic 21st-century lifestyle filled with texting and Twittering, it’s tempting to imagine early humans sitting around campfires, trading stories, building the bonds of trust, and passing cultural information along to the next generation.

Inside the homey confines of Bay View’s Sugar Maple tavern Dec. 16, a gang of urban storytellers followed in the footsteps of those ancestors, sharing their true tales as part of a new local phenomenon dubbed Ex Fabula, Latin for “from stories.”

Eleven people spoke at the second monthly Ex Fabula installment-from a beer festivalgoer recalling his firsthand discovery that “people are not allowed to show their buttocks in Denver” to “the only black woman in Lake Geneva” recounting how she hit a Golden Retriever with her Chevy Blazer.

Leah Delaney, Megan McGee, Matt Sabljak, Amy Schleicher, and Adam Weise organized Ex Fabula in late 2009, with support from 91.7 WMSE and 89.7 WUWM.

“All of us are big fans of This American Life. We’re just in love with the idea of live storytelling performed in front of an audience,” Delaney said, “because everyone has a story, because the more real it is the more engaging it is.”

The first Ex Fabula event was held Nov. 19 at Art Bar, the second at Sugar Maple, with the third planned for Tuesday, Jan. 19 at Hi Hat Garage, 1701 N. Arlington Pl. Ex Fabula organizers ask for a $3 cover charge, and WMSE records the stories with the intention of broadcasting them.  »Read more

Russian dancers hone skills at Marian Center

The Kavkaz Russian Dancers, a dance troupe that combines traditional Russian immigrant dance-think the Nutcracker-and steps of their own choreography, has found a rehearsal home in Bay View. The group practices Wednesday evenings in the social room at the Marian Center for Nonprofits, 3195 S. Superior St.

Kavkaz’s director David Pook met his wife through the dance troupe, which his uncle Chuck started 60 years ago. Pook’s father Jerry directed the group after Chuck, and Pook, a former Bay View resident, has been the director since 1993. The group has practiced their energetic steps at the Marian Center since October 2008.  »Read more

Mystery Building—Former Delaware Ave. barn

The building at 2545 S. Delaware Ave. was once a barn and was converted to a house in 1905. In 1928, Dr. Dominic Gardetto owned the house and added the front bay and front side wing for his physician office. In 1941, the building housed a beauty parlor, and in 1982, a fishing bait shop. The building is now a residential duplex.

Information from building permits and assessment records.

The unforgettable day

After Bernie Perszyk (Pio Nono Class of 1937) made the Compass aware of the Veterans Day event he and world history teacher Sister Rita Krusell planned for St. Thomas More High School, we asked if one of Sr. Rita’s students would write a reflection on the all-school assembly where four veterans shared their stories and discussed what Veterans Day meant to them. Approximately 430 students gathered in the school auditorium the morning of Nov. 11 to listen to the veterans. A senior girl scout presented the colors; history teacher Emilia Hackney (whose husband, Staff Sergeant Colin Hackney, is stationed in Baghdad, Iraq) led the opening prayer; and student musicians performed the anthems of each U.S. service branch. Special thanks to Sr. Rita Krusell and Bernie Perszyk.

During the morning ceremony, I was very moved by the heroic acts of our country’s veterans. It was astonishing to hear the details of the combat and invasion of Normandy, France on June 6, 1944. It was amazing to hear of the bravery and sadness about this horrible time in our history.  »Read more

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