Here at OnMilwaukee.com, we pride ourselves in being Milwaukee experts. Since it's literally our job to eat, sleep and breathe all things Brew City, we get lots of questions from our readers.
This is where we answer them.
In the "Ask OMC" series, we take your questions, big or small, and track down the answers. Send your query to askomc@staff.onmilwaukee.com. Be sure to include your name and location, and we'll consider it for our next installment.
Our question today comes from Mary in Greenfield, but it also came from a handful of other sources:
Question: Why did they cover up the beautiful windows at Central Steel & Wire Co.? I used to love looking at that building when I drove past it on the freeway.
Answer: Mary has an eye for architecture. Central Steel & Wire Co.'s distribution warehouse, located at 4343 S. 6th St., was designed by the Chicago architecture firm of Friedman Alschuler Sincere and built by Milwaukee's Meredith Brothers in 1956.
A luminous glass curtain wall gave off a glow during the evening and made the building a visual landmark for people traveling to Milwaukee from the south.
So, why did the building change?
We posed the question to one of our favorite Milwaukee journalists -- Whitney Gould, the urban landscape writer at the Journal Sentinel.
Here is what Ms. Gould told us:
"The wonderful grid of industrial-sash windows at the Central Steel and Wire Warehouse was replaced in 2001 with putty-colored panels for energy reasons.
"The old windows were leaky and deteriorating. I wrote several columns about this, urging the company to replace the leaky windows with modern, thermally efficient duplicates; the city even offered to arrange a low-interest loan through the Milwaukee Economic Development Corp. to help pay the freight. But they weren't interested.
"It's really a shame. This distinguished example of modernist industrial architecture (designed by the Chicago firm of Friedman, Alschuler and
Sincere and built in 1956), once a beacon at night when you could see right into the guts of the building, is now little more than a Soviet-style box.
"This sad fate might have been avoided if the building had been landmarked, which would have given the city some real control over exterior alterations. But, like all too many other great examples of modernism, this one was overlooked by the preservation community.
"The best hope now is that more enlightened executives will undo the damage in the future and restore those beautiful windows."
There you go, Mary. Thanks for the question.
