End Near For West Pittsburgh Avenue?
City officials, including Department of City Development Commissioner Rocky Marcoux and Milwaukee County Water Council president Dean Amhaus, have called for extending West Pittsburgh Avenue westerly through the Reed Street Yards, where they hope to attract water-based industries to the long-vacant 15-acre site.
Also on the agenda – renaming Pittsburgh Avenue to something a bit less reminiscent of a city other than Milwaukee. No sense confusing folks!
Although no names have been “floated” as yet, Pittsburgh Avenue was known until 1930 as Lake Street, which might, indeed, be a good replacement choice.
How do the folks in Pittsburgh take to the news that they will be the first city removed from the rolls of Milwaukee’s streets since Detroit was swapped for St. Paul, also in 1930? Should they retaliate and change the name of their own Milwaukee Street?
“Damn right, this means war,” says Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Brian O’Neill, adding, “to paraphrase Eric ‘Otter’ Stratton, rush chairman, this situation calls for a truly senseless act be done on someone's part. Or something.”
No Recall for Larson
When 14 Wisconsin Senate Democrats left the state last February to deprive it of a quorum, all but one was in peril of being recalled. The exception was Chris Larson, who had taken his seat just weeks before, and was therefore ineligible. Now that he has served a year and can be recalled, there seems to be no movement afoot to do so. “I was expecting a recall,” he said. “But when a group tried to get organized, I noticed they spelled my name wrong, and thought that was a good omen.”
You mean they spelled “Larson” as “Larsen”?
“No," he said, "They spelled 'Chris' as 'Crhis.'”
Like his counterpart Treasurer Wayne Whittow, city of Milwaukee Comptroller W. Martin “Wally” Morics retired from office before the expiration of his term. “There was no sense hanging around,” he said, explaining that there is a lull about this time of year in the work of his office. Unlike Whittow, however, Moric’s deputy – Michael Daun, who has announced his own plans to retire – remained for the transition, while Jim Hannah, the treasurer’s deputy, left with his boss on November 30. “We didn’t think it right that a new comptroller would take office without having somebody experienced around at the beginning of the new guy’s term,” Morics said, exhibiting the prudence that has been his hallmark as the city’s fiscal watchdog, and holding a fistful of coupons while shopping for groceries at the Metro Market. Morics, an enthusiast of The Bard, says he and his wife will attend a full ten days of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival next season.
Study: Milwaukee in Holiday Travel Top 10
A survey of 100 U.S. cities places Milwaukee in the top 10 nationally for holiday travel based on visitors arriving by air during the season. Brew City drew 52,763 visitors last year, ranking us 6th for Thanksgiving, 8th for Holiday and 13th most popular for Christmas visitors.
Notorious Mr. Jensen
Milwaukee real estate executive Andrew Jensen, a Boerke Co. Inc. principal, says in his bio, he “expanded the firm’s business and notoriety.” That may be, since Jensen spent a few nights in jail for refusing to cooperate with the John Doe probe into associates of Gov. Walker during his term as Milwaukee County Executive.
But it wasn’t what he had in mind – he was referring to Boerke’s alliance with real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield, which he was “instrumental in securing.”
“Notoriety,” (like “infamy”) is not “fame,” as Jensen seems to think, although the terms are increasingly misused interchangeably. “Notoriety,” is defined as “the condition of being well known for some unsavory or undesirable reason.”
More Interesting News
Leonardo DaVinci’s “Lady in Ermine” is the featured image of a show at London’s National Gallery, dominating its posters and advertising. The show is a blockbuster, and the painting is familiar to Milwaukeeans who saw it here in 2002 at the Milwaukee Art Museum. “You have to go to a scalper to get tickets for the London show,” says the museum’s Laurie Winters, who was instrumental in getting the painting to Milwaukee. “And we had it first,” she adds with a note of triumph.
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