April 2016

Volume 1, No. 1

The Washington Park Beat

Contents
Meet The Browns.....................1
The Field School.......................2
Next Stop, Bus Stop
Coffee Shop! .............................3
Washington Park
Community Design.................4

CAPTION: Barbara and

Ulysses Brown stand in
the dining room of their
Washington Park home.

Meet The Browns

If you live long enough, you have
many stories says Ulysses Brown.
The Browns opened up their
2,363 sq. ft. home to the 2014 BLC
Field School after several years of
restoration and renovation projects
at their home.

Around the Neighborhood

Send in your photos from
around the community to be
showcased in The Washington
Park Newsletter.

Built in the early 1900s, the Browns

took down the paneling and
removed colorful shag carpet put in
decades earlier by previous owners
to restore the original plaster and
oak floors. Fully complementing the
historical architecture of the house,
new upgrades prepared the house
for another 100 years.

Mrs. Brown got her dream

kitchen and Mr. Brown got his
entertainment center supported
by an upgraded electrical system.
The Browns value the woodwork,
detailing, and ceiling height in their
present home. The neighborhoods
proximity to work, downtown, and
recreation made Washington Park
a desirable location to raise their
children.

The Washington Park Beat

The Field School

Meet the Browns
continued
Ulysses and Barbara Brown have
lived in their home for over 30
years. They are one of three
remaining families who have
lived in the same neighborhood
block since the mid-1970s. Thus,
the Browns have many stories to
share.
With a VA home loan and the
generosity of their realtor,
the Browns moved into their
home very quickly. They had
two pieces of furniture and
little else. From that they built
an incredible life. From their
wedding, which took place in the
house, to hosting Mardi Gras and
other family gatherings, you are
invited into their home and lives.

This upcoming summer field

school provides students from
the University of Wisconsin
- Milwaukee an immersion
experience in the field recording
of the built environment and
cultural landscapes and an
opportunity to learn how to
write history literally from the
ground up.
The 2014 field school focuses
on Washington Park, a racially,
economically, and culturally
diverse neighborhood known for
its artist communities and active
neighborhood groups. A recent
influx of Somali and Burmese
refugees has added to an
existing diverse group of white,
African American and Hmong
residents.

As cultural resources, saturated

with diverse values, memories,
stories and imaginations, our
homes matter, because they
represent how we feel about our
community and how we value
our environment.
This project seeks to employ
the enduring creativity of
storytelling, the power of
digital humanities, and depth
of local knowledge in order to
galvanize Milwaukee residents
to talk about their homes as
repositories of community
memory, spaces of caring and
markers of civic pride.

This summer we will study

a variety of homes in this
neighborhoodeveryday
residences, boarded up homes,
refabricated and reused homes,
homes transformed into stores
and workplaces, homes as works
of art, homes remembered in
family histories and homes as
domestic worlds.

CAPTION: Students of
the 2014 summer UWMilwaukee Field School.

The Washington Park Beat

The Bus Stop Coffee shop got

its name from a bus stop on
Route 57, which is part of the
Milwaukee County Transit
System.
In 1920, at the height of
Milwaukee expansion, a man
named Emil Doubek obtained
his plumbing license. Eight
years later, he started his own
plumbing business. He lived
above his store and made extra
money by renting out extra
apartment and business space.
Doubek employed architect Paul
Bennett, who designed the Times
Cinema and Tosa Theater (now
the Rosebud Cinema), to design
and construct his residential and
commercial space on Lisbon
Avenue.
The original design included
two storefronts on the first floor
and two apartments on the
second floor. A flight of stairs
to the second floor apartments
was built in the middle bay
of the building, separating
the store and apartment unit
on either side. Such a layout
allowed property owners to rent
out apartments and stores to
multiple renters. Doubek lived
right above his store.
By 1930, for unknown reasons,
Doubek closed his store but
continued to live in his home.
As industrial workers moved
into the area, businesses that
served their needs started to
be in demand. Doubek rented
out his former business space
to Peggy ONeill, who started a
beauty salon. Doubek rented out
the other business space to The
American Auto Cleaning Supply
Company.
In the 1940s and 1950s, real
estate businesses occupied
one or both spaces. Ten years
later, Florence E. Giguere,
a housekeeper, owned the

CAPTION: Bus Stop Coffee

Shop dining room

Next Stop, Bust Stop

Coffee Shop!
building and lived above one of
the storefronts. Windshield and
window maintenance shops and
a photofinishing store occupied
the retail spaces in later years.
The property was in disarray
when Pat and Jeanette Gleason
bought it in 2011. The exterior
retained most of its original
design but most of the interior
was gutted as the Gleasons
renovated the building. The
niched storefront entrances
were removed and the two
retail spaces united into one a
hallway connects the Bus Stop
Coffee Shop and Pat Gleasons
other venture, the Midwest
School of Photography.

an open space over the roof of

the garage. The Gleasons use this
space as an exercise area for their
dogs.
The building has served the
community and provided living
space since its construction. The
public stops in and hangs out
at the Bus Stop Coffee Shop for
coffee, food, and laughter.

The whole second floor is now

the Gleason residence. The
Gleasons connected the stores
to their upstairs residence
internally. A long hallway
stretches from the front living
room to the back kitchen area
upstairs. Beyond the kitchen is
The Washington Park Beat

CAPTION: Hebah Abu-Baker

discusses her design with
community members
during a Washington Park
art event.

Washington Park Community Design

Students of the Architecture 845
studio class worked over the
fall semester to create projects
specific to the Washington Park
neighborhood. Their projects
fell into four main categories:
rethinking infrastructure, flexible
prototyping, catalytic insertions,
and new programming.
Claire Olson reused an alleyway
as a social, economic, and
cultural generator while Richard
VanDerWal built around an
existing warehouse to share
utilities and structural systems.
Hyrom Stokes adaptively reused
an old industrial building and
urges us to examine the way
we think of homelessness in the
neighborhood.

The Washington Park Beat

Hillary Byrnes prototype

acknowledges the diversity and
complexity of this neighborhood
and she demonstrates how
her proposed prototype
may be adapted in order to
accommodate this diversity.
Hebah Abu Baker, after a careful
study of street corners along Vilet
Street, proposed an architectural
kit of parts that may be deployed
and tweaked in order to produce
better street corners.
Kasey King saw ecological
habitats as catalytic spaces. Such
habitats enhance local flora
and fauna, generate alternate
sources of income, reproduce
beautiful landscapes, and
restore neighborhood health.
Michael Babbitts viewed food
and food-related practices
as catalytic forces that bring
neighbors and strangers

together, create healthy

communities, and produce
economic opportunities. Milan
Outlaw explored how empty lots,
in-between spaces, transition
zones, and alleys may generate
new ideas, encourage new forms
of social life and enhance social
and economic value.
Tailored towards the unique
demographic and social needs
of this neighborhood, the design
proposals from Ashley Pollex
and Rafael Ferreira reflect how
these students understood and
interpreted this community, local
assets, and resident dreams and
needs. While Ashley worked with
Washington Park Partners and
Bus Stop Coffee Shop, Rafael
entered this discussion as a
Brazilian student, new to the
cultural context.