Exploring Milwaukee
Jane’s Walk MKE’s free tours teach you about the city.
From a performance-based walk to a tour of Milwaukee’s LGBTQ heritage, a Milwaukee organization is giving people pretty unique ways to explore the city — and they’re free.
From May 15 through June 15, Jane’s Walk MKE is organizing at least 11 community-led in-person walking tours and explorations, as well as a handful of video tours and mapped routes that can be done at any time.
“I think it really encourages people to see the city, see a neighborhood that’s familiar or even unfamiliar (and) to learn about it,” said Dominic Inouye, city organizer of Jane’s Walk MKE. “I think we’re all kind of craving for things like that. It really encourages people to look more closely at things. ... It’s a way for us to appreciate our city, or reappreciate it after a year of being kind of hunkered down.”
Jane’s Walk MKE’s goal is to help people engage with and learn about the city through conversations, storytelling and observation.
The Milwaukee group is part of a “worldwide movement of more than 200 cities” that host free, resident-led walking tours, inspired by Jane Jacobs, an urbanist, writer and activist, according to a news release. Jane’s Walk MKE is a program of the Milwaukee Turners, a civic organization focused on strengthening the community by developing sound minds and bodies, according to its website.
A look at the walks, explorations
Since this year is Jane’s Walk MKE’s fifth anniversary, the walks are themed “take five” and will have some element of the number five to them — for example, five points of interest, five stories or a focus on the five senses, Inouye said.
Inouye has created and will be leading multiple “untraditional” walks.
“All is Flux(us): Brady Street Live!” is going to be a “performance-based walk, really exploring the practice and art of walking,” he said. It will be held at 1 p.m. May 23.
His other walk is “Meander: A Surrealist Exploration of City & Self,” which is scheduled for 7 p.m. May 21 and June 4.
“We’re just going to kind of spread out and go where our feet take us,” he said.
He will encourage participants to be “hyperaware” of their surroundings, senses and the things they “wouldn’t notice on a daily basis” to allow them to “see the city in a different way.”
Other explorations include a Menomonee River Valley waterways walk, a storytelling tour of five of the city’s infamous events, and “uniquely Milwaukee” destinations accessible via Bublr bikes.
Registration is required and can be done through janeswalkmke.org/inperson.
COVID-19 safety measures
Attendees are to wear masks and social distance at Jane’s Walk MKE events.
This year’s walks and explorations will have “no huge groups” like in past years, Inouye said, and capacity will be limited.
For groups of about 15 to 25, Inouye said tour leaders will be communicating with participants through headsets or conference calls. That way, people will be able to hear what’s going on while remaining “a safe distance” apart.
Virtual and solo options
In 2020, Jane’s Walk MKE offered video tours online. Those will be available once again this year, as well as mapped routes.
There’s a video tour of Brady Street People can also create their own and a mapped route called “Visual walks and submit them by the end of Vibes on Villard: Outdoor Mural Wall May through Crawl,” among others.
“The idea is to really give people the “It’s giving people a little glimpse of power to showcase, highlight and explore what’s out there in the city that they what’s important and what’s familiar might not have explored, or inviting to them,” Inouye said. them to explore it in a new way,” Inouye said.
Both the videos and mapped routes are available under the “Take a Walk” tab on the group’s website.