» Avenue tour:
Free app celebrates street’s past, future in 13 stops, 12 blocks
Milwaukee Downtown launches a free audio tour of W. Wisconsin Ave. to highlight its past while drawing attention to its revitalization.
Chicago has Michigan Ave., New Orleans has Bourbon St. and New York City has Fifth Ave.
With its historic landmarks and more than $1 billion worth of new projects, Milwaukee’s most prominent thoroughfare is W. Wisconsin Ave.
Milwaukee Downtown recently launched a free audio tour of the street to highlight the avenue’s past while drawing attention to the recent revitalization in the area.
“This is our major corridor,” Milwaukee Downtown CEO Beth Weirick said. “This is the spine of the community.”
The walking tour, which launched last week, is available through the Otocast mobile app. The free audio guide has been used in other cities to feature public art, architecture and other points of interest.
The walking tour — which takes a little under an hour to complete — starts at the RiverWalk and ends at Marquette University. The 12-block tour hits 13 points of interest and each stop has about 11/2 minutes of audio.
“It’s a really good way to learn about West Wisconsin in a short amount of time,” Weirick said.
The Otocast app is free to download at the iTunes Store and Google Play. Milwaukee residents and leaders, including Mayor Tom Barrett and Marquette University President Michael Lovell, act as guides on the tour, and stops include Gertie the duck, the Riverside Theater, The Wisconsin Center and Central Library.
The new tour is one of several recent projects that focus on Wisconsin Ave.
In May, Albuquerque artist Mauricio Ramirez began decorating 10 utility boxes on Wisconsin Ave., using some of the alternative canvases to commemorate people such as Santiago Calatrava, who designed the Milwaukee Art Museum, and Milwaukee founding fathers Solomon Juneau and Byron Kilbourn.
Sculpture Milwaukee is featuring 22 sculptures along the avenue through Oct. 22. Steve Marcus, chairman of the board of Marcus Corp., spearheaded the project and said the art could help attract more people to the avenue and downtown as a whole.
“It’s important that they see the downtown and take advantage of it,” he said. “I have never seen so much energy in the downtown as there is right now.”
Marcus said other plans for Wisconsin Ave., such as the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s move to the Warner Grand Theatre, could also have a positive impact on the area and could attract investors.
W. Wisconsin Ave. is also the locale for the Newaukee Night Market, now in its fourth year. Newaukee co-founder Jeremy Fojut said organizers chose the street for the event because they thought it could attract people from all over the city, not just the immediate neighborhood.
Weirick said the recent development around W. Wisconsin Ave. has created an opportunity for a new generation of people to enjoy the area.
“For a long time, people didn’t have that affinity for West Wisconsin,” she said.
Weirick hopes to eventually create a tour of E. Wisconsin Ave. and said the audio tour aims to appeal to both longtime residents and visitors.
“People love downtown for its history,” she said. “It’s another way for people to learn a little more while they’re here.”