Photo by Mary Gorski
By Geoff Carter
We’ve been residents of the Riverwest neighborhood in Milwaukee for the past thirty-two years. During that time, we’ve raised a child, seen neighbors move in and out, watched businesses change hands, followed local politics, and witnessed neighborhood groups rise and fall. All sorts of stuff has happened over the years. An old, demolished factory site behind our house has been transformed into a hugely popular county dog park named, wait for it–“Roverwest” (really).
When the circus parade used to come to town each summer, the train cars would arrive in Milwaukee from their headquarters in Baraboo, unload at Humboldt Yards, and then the circus wagons used to pass through our neighborhood on their way to the parade grounds. Families would sit on their porches and watch. We had our very own mini-circus parade.
A few years ago, some neighborhood volunteers built an ice rink behind the beer trail that runs through our side of town, and—of course—we have the Riverwest 24, a day-long bike race that winds through the neighborhood. The event incorporates all sorts of community activities into the main event. Contestants can earn points by helping out in the community gardens, encouraging a junior RW24, or even getting a tattoo (really)
You can sit on your front porch and watch bikers zoom by in clown suits, bumblebee costumes, or pirate-themed groups. Some take the race quite seriously, hitting it hard for the whole twenty-four. Others join in just for the fun of it. Bands set up on houses porches to play, residents man rest stops, hydration stations, and even serve the bikers breakfast in the morning. It’s a one-of-a-kind event. In short, Riverwest is an eclectic, lively, dynamic, and funky neighborhood.
When my wife and I moved here in 1991, we were part of a new wave coming into the neighborhood. Many longtime former, or soon to be former, residents, were aging and moving away into smaller homes or retirement communities. People who had lived there since World War II were leaving. Even then, Riverwest was a very diverse community, arguably the most diversified community in Milwaukee.
Riverwest is also an urban community, and as such, we’ve always had our fair share of petty crime, nuisances, and vandalism. In response to this back in the nineties, my wife and I helped form a neighborhood block watch. We talked to the neighbors, called a series of meetings, and invited the Milwaukee Police Department liaison and our alderman to meet with us. Since this was before the days of texting, emailing, and ubiquitous phone access, we actually made a phone tree, which, for anyone born after 1990, is a flow chart with the addresses and landline numbers of our neighbors. (Yes, Virginia, that’s how the old folks used to do it.)
We kept track of graffiti, vandalism, and other more serious crimes. We learned to call the cops for anything suspicious, to keep our porch lights on, and to keep an eye out for each other. As the years passed, and technology blossomed (making our phone trees outmoded), the watch became more than a neighborhood association. Many of us have become good friends. Until recently, most people of our block were longtime residents.
But now, since we have rapid access to information and instantaneously know what’s going on, block watch meetings have become more or less moot. If something criminal is going on in the neighborhood, we’ll get hold of each other, but we don’t have to physically meet to report on crime. We still see each other and keep an eye on things, but technology has taken care of a lot of security issues. We have cameras, neighborhood watch apps, texting, and online crime reports—we are wired, and we are inspired.
Still, we’ve always had—and savored—that personal touch. Part of our original and informal block watch mission (probably the best term) was to increase neighborhood camaraderie. We wanted to meet each other, see our neighbors face to face, and to create connections up and down our block. We wanted to build trust
About twenty years ago, Karen, Bill, Rose Mary and Mary, a few of our stalwart neighborhood institutions, proposed the idea of an annual Block Watch Pancake Breakfast, instead of a more traditional evening beer party. Instead of a half-barrel, we have a Blood Mary table. Instead of chili, we have pancakes, sausage, bacon, and more baked goods than you can shake a stick at. Since the breakfast takes place in late September, the Block Watch Breakfast also features the scarecrow-making activity. Kids bring old clothes, hang them on a cross (but maybe a stand is the better way of phrasing it), stuff them with hay, and bam!! Instant scarecrow.
In years past, a jazz band used to play at the breakfast, hitting everything from Miles Davis to Freddie Hubbard to Joabim to Wynton Kelly, and covering standards like “Freddy Freeloader”, “Summertime”, “Little Sunflower”, “My Funny Valentine”, and—of course—”Autumn Leaves”. It was perfect music for a fall morning. Unfortunately, one of the band members passed on, and now one of the neighbors drags out an old stereo system (complete with turntable), his vinyl collection, and plays vintage tunes non-stop.
This last meeting, we heard Louis Prima, The Specials, Jimmy Cliff, Nancy Sinatra, Weather Report, the Beatles, and everything else in between. We could easily have gone digital and brought in Bluetooth speakers or a Sonos system or a deejay with a laptop, but vinyl seemed to be the most appropriate choice—not because most of us are boomers, but because the very act of changing records seems to be more personal, more human, and more right for this particular event.
So, we get together with our neighbors once a year for the Blockwatch breakfast. We eat, we drink, we sit, we talk, we get reacquainted. Sometimes we dance. Sometimes we make plans. There is already talk of a Blockwatch Christmas Caroling event. Woo-hoo! We talk about crime, neighborhood problems with city services or the cops or parking or whatever, but we mostly get to see each other again.
We’re good neighbors. We shovel each other’s walks, we watch each other’s yards, we report criminal activity, and we put on our porch lights. We work hard to put on our annual Pancake Breakfast. That coffee doesn’t walk itself over from Colectivo; those barricades aren’t delivered by the city by accident, and those delicious Bloody Marys do not make themselves. Neither do the pancakes, the sausages, the bacon, or the music.
It’s only by working together that we’re able to pull off this event. It is the perfect metaphor for the camaraderie of our block. We provide, we welcome, we listen, and we help. And just about everyone chips in. While these events do not happen solely in this neighborhood, our special unique brand of funky elegance and stylish sincerity make this one of the best events in Milwaukee. It is vintage Riverwest.