Hans Weissgerber III opened a beer garden is Milwaukee’s Estabrook park earlier this month. It’s huge, not the beer garden itself, but the idea of a beer garden in a Milwaukee Park.
Oh to be sure, it’s pretty hard to go to any outdoor event in South Eastern Wisconsin, or all of Wisconsin for that matter, and not find vendors selling beer and brats. Milwaukee’s Summerfest is going on now. Beer and brats are sold there. The Brewers played at Miller Park yesterday. Beer and brats were sold there in addition to those enjoyed at tailgate parties before the game. A little north of Milwaukee there was stock car racing on Singler’s little ¼ Mile oval. Matt Kenseth narrowly beat out Kyle Busch to win his sixth Slinger National title. I’ve got to believe beer and brats were on menu at that race. A little further north, the ladies will have a professional golfing match, 2012 Woman’s US Open, later this week at Kohler. More beer and brats.
On Saturday there were around 100,000 at Milwaukee’s Summerfest. Over 40,000 watched the Brewers play baseball. But more importantly, on that same Saturday afternoon there were thirty or forty people enjoying a cold glass of beer on a nice summer day at Milwaukee’s new beer garden. Don’t let the size of the crowd fool you.
A standalone beer garden in a Milwaukee County park is in class by itself. Milwaukee hasn’t had one since before Prohibition. And it took Weissgerber six years to convince Milwaukee County officials that is was a good idea. That just shows you how huge it is. I don’t think the Calatrava addition to Milwaukee’s Art Museum took as long to approve. As I recall, residents of the five county metropolitan-area didn’t spend more than three years debating on whether or not to build a $500 million new ball park. Small things like that are as they say “no-brainers” -- easy to call.
Truly big things like beer gardens in county parks take long and careful deliberations, a half of a decade and sometimes longer, before moving ahead.
This isn’t to say the bird-in-flight like, architectural addition to Milwaukee’s lakefront skyline wasn’t big. But in many ways the beer garden is a bigger deal. Here’s why.
Santiago Calatrava is an elite, big dog, international architect. Big dogs carefully choose where to leave their mark, and of all places, Calatrava chose Milwaukee for his United States debut. But he didn’t define Milwaukee. In aggregate, it’s the small quirky things that define a city. Milwaukee’s has a lot of those.
· Milwaukee has a map store. By itself not a big thing, but Chicago doesn’t have one.
· Milwaukee has the Rockerbox Block Party. Not a big thing by itself either, just a cool and quirky motorcycle event. People who ride old Kawasaki 500s, Vincent Black Shadows and such show up there.
· Milwaukee has what can be called a lively theatre community anchored by the Milwaukee Rep. Yet, it’s the Alchemist Theater that ranks number 12 on tripadvisor.com’s top 80 city attractions. I don’t what’s up with that, but it must be way cool.
· Just north of Calatrava’s bird, there is a small portion of Milwaukee’s lakefront that’s long been taken over by people who like to fly kites.
· There is a used bookstore in Milwaukee’s airport. Of all the bookstores in all of the world’s airports, the used bookstore in Milwaukee’s might be the nicest.
This list could go on. The point here is that we take place we’re from for granted, and often not too kindly. I’m from Milwaukee. I don’t talk it up much when I’m elsewhere. After all, as most people see it, Milwaukee is just another declining, Upper-mid-west, Great Lakes, “rust belt” city. There's not much happening here -- we're just a beer and brat kind of town. There is no reason to bring that up, other than to evoke sympathy.
Oddly, Calatrava didn’t see “rust belt.” I don’t know for sure what he saw. He could be unusually fond of beer and brats. Or in aggregate, maybe he saw thing that are invisible to us only because they are so familiar.
From that perspective, a beer garden in a Milwaukee County park is a huge. Monumental works of architecture can rise up like an exclamation point and brand a place. On the other hand, County park beer gardens, airport used bookstores and all of those small things define a place. In aggregate, it’s those things that make a place worth branding.
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