Author: Guest

Fond memories from four decades of family, friends, and fish fries at Fritz’s Pub

Fond memories from four decades of family, friends, and fish fries at Fritz’s Pub

Posted by | Mar 22, 2020 |

Fritz’s Pub opened on September 28, 1978 as a simple bar, until it was remodeled and expanded to serve food in 1981. After that, it became known for is Serbian menu – particularly the “Fritzburger” and its Friday Night Fish Fry. Operated by the Djuric family for 41 years, it closed on October 11, 2019. Dragoslav “Fritz” Djuric was Serb from Belgrade who lived in Germany, and decided to start a new life in America. He moved with his wife Katherine, a Donauschwaben – an ethnic German from Croatia, and their three children – Maria, Stephen, and Joseph to...

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Frederick Douglass Day: The February 14th holiday that Hallmark makes no greeting cards to celebrate

Frederick Douglass Day: The February 14th holiday that Hallmark makes no greeting cards to celebrate

Posted by | Feb 14, 2020 |

“Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation abolished slavery. The Civil War, for the most part, dismantled the treasonous Confederacy. Yet Frederick Douglass inherently understood it would take more than words and war to grant African-Americans public register of their humanity. He had seen enough caricatures of blacks, their faces nose-deep in watermelons, or dangled above lakes as alligator bait. He despised drawings portraying his people with exaggerated features, slack-jawed expressions, or as giddy slaves. Such images, Douglass knew, reinforced white supremacy by presenting black people as simple-minded and subjugated. Douglass soon embraced a technological weapon to challenge his nation’s racism: photography....

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Park East Corridor: The freeway teardown that helped put Milwaukee on the national stage this summer

Park East Corridor: The freeway teardown that helped put Milwaukee on the national stage this summer

Posted by | Feb 13, 2020 |

When it comes to in-city freeways, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Park East Freeway planners in Milwaukee during the 1960s were probably well-intended, but the price was destruction of neighborhoods. Residents stopped the freeway in mid-construction, one of many grassroots battles with the 20th Century highway juggernaut. The mile-long spur, scheduled for reconstruction at the turn of the century, was instead torn down in an audacious plan spearheaded by the City that won a Charter Award in 2003. The plan and code, by the Planning & Design Institute (since acquired by GRAEF), has helped...

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Aaron Perry: Self-awareness is a political permission slip to “say something”

Aaron Perry: Self-awareness is a political permission slip to “say something”

Posted by | Feb 12, 2020 |

“Say something, I’m giving up on you.” Those are lyrics performed by the band, Great Big World. In reflection, it’s another example of life imitating art. 2020 is here and our own great big world is asking us to say something. So, before it’s too late, I’m going to. Self-awareness is one of life’s most beautiful and cruelest attributes. It can be a constant struggle, a seemingly invisible target. One that if you happen to hit it and be able to evaluate yourself objectively, then we often don’t like what we see and have little clue on how to...

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When Hell Freezes Over: New documentary celebrates the life of Father James Groppi

When Hell Freezes Over: New documentary celebrates the life of Father James Groppi

Posted by | Jan 30, 2020 |

Milwaukee-based creative studio 11th Story recently released a youtube trailer teasing a new documentary about the life of local Civil Rights leader, Father James Groppi. Expected sometime in 2020, the new film uses TV footage of Father Groppi from the late 1960s, along with photos and recorded interviews. This will not be the first documentary about him, and other than some highlights of his activism the trailer provided little else to explain this version’s narrative. We’ll uncover the story within the story of segregation in Milwaukee of a clergyman who questions a religious institution in order to pursue his...

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Wuhan Coronavirus started far from Milwaukee but global links have brought the infectious risk home

Wuhan Coronavirus started far from Milwaukee but global links have brought the infectious risk home

Posted by | Jan 28, 2020 |

The Chinese government has quarantined Wuhan, a port city of 11 million people, and has restricted travel for more than 51 million citizens to and from 20 other cities, including Beijing, to contain the coronavirus that has sickened thousands and killed several dozens. The order came during China’s Lunar New Year celebrations, a time when people – the equivalent of the entire population of America – were on the move. The rapidly expanding outbreak has overwhelmed the Chinese hospitals and fueled fears of a global pandemic. Health officials estimate that 100,000 people could be infected with the new coronavirus...

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