City Beat – Urban Milwaukee

Marina Dimitrijevic. Photo from Marina for Milwaukee.

Milwaukee County Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic joined City Beat to discuss her time on the County Board, her run for the Common Council and her vision for a better city.

Unlike past episodes of City Beat, we met on location instead of a studio. We sat down at Colectivo in Bay View (2301 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.) for a wide-ranging, 16-minute conversation.

Dimitrijevic explains why she wants to trade the Courthouse for City Hall and her vision for development in Bay View.

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Underrated restaurant pick? El Senorial.

As with all candidate appearances on City Beat, Dimitrijevic’s appearance does not constitute an endorsement by Urban Milwaukee.

Want to come on the show? Contact us.

Yield to Pedestrians. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

Michael Anderson and Angie Livermore of the Wisconsin Bike Fed sit down for a conversation about the MilWALKee Walks initiative and the role of safe streets in a healthy city.

The two describe their work to establish a culture of safer streets through the use of “actions” targeted at high-pedestrian traffic areas where vehicles and pedestrians can mix in sometimes dangerous ways.

The two mobility advocates also share their thoughts on how Milwaukee can become a more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly city, including the addition of protected bike lanes.

We also discuss the topic of the summer: scooters. Are they good, bad or ugly?

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NEWaukee Partners with Greater Milwaukee Foundation for On The Table MKE

This week on Urban Milwaukee’s podcast, Kathryn Dunn and Laura Glawe join the show to discuss the work of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.

Dunn, the foundation’s senior vice president of community impact, and Glawe, vice president of marketing and communications, discuss the foundation’s 103-year history and plans for the future.

We discuss the organization’s involvement in Sherman Park and the Sherman Phoenix food and market hall. Dunn and Glawe share GMF’s model for ensuring community buy-in and ownership of the foundation’s philanthropic support and lending capability.

That model will be put to the test as the organization prepares to move to the former Schuster’s department store on N. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. The move, which will relocate all of the organization’s 55 employees from Schlitz Park, will see GMF partner with the Medical College of Wisconsin to revitalize the first floor of the building. Royal Capital Group will develop the building’s top floors into apartments.

The organization just held its first visioning session with residents from Halyard Park, Harambee, Brewers Hill and Bronzeville. “We’re doing ‘with community’ instead of ‘to community’,” said Dunn.

Dunn and Glawe also discussed GMF’s On The Table program, scheduled for Thursday, October 10th. The third annual program will see Milwaukeeans of all walks of live gather across the city to discuss affecting the city. For more information on where you can meet people to share a model, or to a host a table yourself, visit OnTheTable.org.

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Milwaukee Jazz by Joey Grihalva. Image from Arcadia Publishing.

We’re joined by an old friend for this week’s installment of City Beat.

Milwaukee writer Joey Grihalva, who wrote a weekly column for Urban Milwaukee from 2014 through 2016, joins the show to discuss his new book Milwaukee Jazz.

Grihalva, a socially-conscientious cultural critic, discusses how he was inspired to examine the history of Milwaukee’s jazz scene which dates back to 1916. He shares the role race played in the evolution of jazz music in Milwaukee, how some of the biggest names in the genre influenced Milwaukee musicians and what happened to many of the city’s jazz clubs. He also provides a primer where one can go today in Milwaukee to listen to jazz.

You can learn more about Joey’s book at MKEJazzBook.com.

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Underrated restaurant pick? Coffee Makes You Black

The show is recorded live at Riverwest Radio.

State Rep. Jonathan Brostoff before and after his hair cut. Photos by Jeramey Jannene.

Wisconsin Assembly Representative Jonathan Brostoff became easy to spot over the past year as his hair grew longer and longer. The Democrat had pledged to the disability rights community that he wouldn’t get his hair cut until a bill he sponsored, designed to increase the availability of American Sign Language interpreters, passed.

That day finally came in late June and on July 1st, Brostoff was joined by supporters outside Have A Good Hair Day! Salon & Spa (1910 N. Farwell Ave.) for a long-awaited shearing. The salon, a deaf-owned business led by Kayleigh Kwasny, played host to a fundraiser for organizations that advocate for the hearing impaired, where supporters took turns cutting Brostoff’s hair. He last had his hair cut in February 2018, so there was plenty of hair to go around.

With the politician now back to his standard close-shaved hairstyle, he joined Urban Milwaukee’s City Beat podcast to discuss what went into putting the bill together, why it’s important and why it took so long to get passed.

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Music – Light Corporate by Masteck Media – https://soundcloud.com/masteck_media. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

Jacob Krieg in front of 13th District Map. Photo courtesy of Citizens for Jacob Krieg.

Six candidates are running in a special election in the 13th Council District on Milwaukee’s far south side with a primary scheduled for June 16th. The top two will advance to an August 13th general election to determine who will replace retired Alderman Terry Witkowski.

Jacob Krieg joined the City Beat podcast this week to discuss his vision for the district, what he learned during his time in the Marine Corps and what he does in his role as general manager of his family’s business Canfora Bakery. Listen to the full interview below to learn more about Krieg and his campaign.

The 13th District, represented by Witkowski since 2003, is the city’s southernmost district and borders many of the city’s southern suburbs. The district, branded “The Garden District,” is anchored by Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport and runs roughly from W. Oklahoma Ave. to E. College Ave. with many a host of indentations and bump outs reflecting the city’s less than straight border borders.

According to a 2012 report on the city’s redistricting effort, the district has 39,703 residents. From those residents, 71.9 percent identify as Caucasian, 3.3 percent as Black, 19.3 percent as Hispanic and 4 percent as Asian.

Krieg’s appearance on the show does not constituent an endorsement. Are you a candidate interested in coming on the show to discuss your vision for the city? The door is open, the mic is on. Contact us.

Music – Light Corporate by Masteck Media – https://soundcloud.com/masteck_media. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

Jenna Kashou. Photo courtesy of NEWaukee.

If you ever find yourself bored in Milwaukee, Jenna Kashou has something for you to do.

Kashou joined the City Beat podcast to discuss her new book, “100 Things To Do In Milwaukee Before You Die.”

The book recommends activities in five broad categories, Food and Drink, Music and Entertainment, Sports and Recreation, Culture and History and Shopping Fashion. Recommendations include everything from the no-brainers (Summerfest, Brewers game at Miller Park) to the more obscure (dancing at Mad Plant on Friday nights, buying a hat at the Brass Rooster).

We learn from Kashou what went into writing the book, how she got the job from Reedy Press and how many people were upset to learn the Bronze Fonz leads off the culture section.

Buy the book

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The show is recorded live at Riverwest Radio.

Music – Light Corporate by Masteck Media – https://soundcloud.com/masteck_media. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

Colectivo in Wauwatosa. Image from the City of Wauwatosa.

Wauwatosa Alderman Joel Tilleson and city administrator Jim Archambo join the show to discuss what challenges the inner-ring suburb is dealing with, what role increased density will play in its future and how government functions in Milwaukee’s neighbor to the west.

We also discuss ways that Milwaukee and Wauwatosa can work together, particularly where Tilleson’s district borders the City of Milwaukee, and what’s fueling the growth along W. North Ave.

As discussed at the top of the show, Wauwatosa faces many of the same challenges as Milwaukee, it’s a landlocked city with changing demographics that must look to redevelopment for growth. At the same time Wauwatosa faces an approximate 7 percent poverty rate compared to 27 percent in Milwaukee and a very different racial composition, and with that comes a completely different set of challenges.

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Underrated restaurant picks? The Growler Gallery for Joel and Cafe Blue for Jim.

The show is recorded live at Riverwest Radio.

Music – Light Corporate by Masteck Media – https://soundcloud.com/masteck_media. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

Bublr Bikes

There’s a lot of change coming to Bublr Bikes in the next year.

Sally Sheperdson, executive director of the bike-sharing non-profit, joined City Beat to discuss how electric-assisted bicycles will be tested this summer and what goes into the recently-announced 26 station expansion. She also discusses how Bublr is a leader in providing bike-sharing access to low-income communities and how it intends to do the same with adaptive cycling.

Sheperdson also shares her thoughts on the system’s potential for-profit competitors, including dockless bicycles and electric scooters, and where Bublr would operate if it had a mission of solely generating a profit.

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The show is recorded live at Riverwest Radio.

Music – Light Corporate by Masteck Media – https://soundcloud.com/masteck_media. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

Broken Bat Brewing Company. Photo from company’s Facebook page.

It’s tough to keep track of all the breweries popping up in Milwaukee (baseball pun intended), but Broken Bat Brewing stands out from the lineup (I did it again) for its complete adherence to its baseball brand.

With bobbleheads behind the bar, Cracker Jack on the tables and bathrooms wallpapered with baseball cards you can’t escape America’s pastime when you visit the Historic Third Ward brewery. But should you instead find its beer at a growing list of locations, including Wrigley Field, the fact that every brew’s name is a baseball reference ensures you don’t miss the theme.

Brewery president Tim Pauly joins City Beat to share how he and friend Dan McElwee started the brewery, how they’re preparing to move to a new location and quadruple production and how they come up with all of the baseball names.

Pauly also discusses his vision for how the brewery’s current space could become a brewery incubator space and how Broken Bat intends to grow.

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Tim’s underrated restaurant or bar? G. Groppi Food Market in Bay View

Music – Light Corporate by Masteck Media – https://soundcloud.com/masteck_media. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported