Let's not miss the forest for the troll.
Everyone is talking about the Thomas Dambo troll that’s coming to Wauwatosa’s new Firefly Grove Park – which is, of course, worthy of discussion – but once the excitement of that settles down, what will be left is one of the area’s best parks, with some unique features.
The park, scheduled to open to the public on May 28 at 116th and Gilbert, is still under construction and closed to the public because there is everything you’d expect at a construction site: heavy equipment, uneven surfaces, etc.
We got a chance to visit on Tuesday to see how work is progressing and get a look at the site where crews will begin working on the 24-foot-tall troll next week.
In the meantime, a variety of teams are hard at work on other, more interactive areas of the park.
One of those teams is from PumpTrax USA which specializes in bicycle pump tracks – a series of paved ramps and curves and banks and dips – for BMX and mountain cyclists.
The company – which has done tracks all over the world, including one recently completed in Paraguay and also created the BMX track for the Paris Olympics – partnered with Spohn Ranch Skatepark Designers and Builders to design this feature, which is unique in the area.
The pump track will be open to riders of all skill levels when the park is open, 7 a.m. until 10 p.m.
“Once we had decided on the pump track and we had a contractor in place, we did a focus group with some local bike clubs, mountain bike clubs,” says Alex Krutsch, Tosa’s Superintendent of Parks & Forestry, “and based on their feedback, we actually developed different jump lines.
“The outside jump line is bigger for more advanced riders, and the inside jump line is smaller.”
Another area on the opposite site is aimed at young riders and even has a tunnel.
“We thought the little ones would be excited by that,” Krutsch says.
The track is currently being paved.
“This track is designed to be multi-directional with several transfer points,” he adds. “We’ll have some signage coming to educate riders to follow the route, but I'm sure there's going to be a little bit of a learning curve on etiquette for the riders here.”
As we pass a covered area and a small restrooms building, we come to another unique feature: a willow hut made from planted willow that’s woven like a basket to create a small shelter. While the horizontal members are not living, the vertical ones are in the ground where they are taking root.
In fact some of them are beginning to leaf out and when it matures, the hut will be a green refuge.
Krutsch explains how it came to be.
“The willow hut was in the plans, but it got left out of the bid,” he explains, noting that the contractor declined to create it. ”So we have a staff member here in the park who has a fine arts degree, and I went to her and said, ‘Hey, did you take any fine arts courses that were sculpture? We kind of have a living sculpture we need to make.’
“She was really willing to take on that challenge and she researched these types of living structures and willow huts, and she designed and built that based on her research and her fine arts degree.”
Wauwatosa Department of Public Works employee Gus Scherwenka, who studied art at the University of Minnesota, used willow from a grower in Appleton to create the hut.
“It was a surprise,” Scherwenka said of the request. “I’d never done it before, so it was an exciting new project. It took some time to brainstorm but with some help it went pretty easy.”
Following a path of huge stone down past the playground, which has some accessible features, like a four-person “we saw” teeter-totter, and a shaded area for parents – “one thing I know is if you want your playground to be busy,” Krutsch says, “you’ve got to have a spot for parents to hang out and socialize” – we head to the spot where the troll will be located.
The head of the sculpture is being made at Dambo’s studio in Denmark, but the remainder of the troll will be made on-site using trees that were previously cut down in Wauwatosa.
“We are thrilled to bring Thomas Dambo's incredible artistry to Wauwatosa,” says Beth Gleesing, Tosa’s Tourism Specialist. “His giant troll sculpture will not only enhance our new park but also position Wauwatosa as a vibrant arts destination.”
Part of the crew is expected to arrive next week to get started, with more crew, and Dambo arriving later. The work is expected to be hidden in some way as the artist likes a proper unveiling of his completed work.
“The foundation goes about four feet down,” Krutsch says. “There’s a concrete slab that is two feet thick, eight feet square and it has a rebar cage in it. There’s almost more rebar than concrete.
“Those piers come up,” he continues, pointing to the concrete that is visible above ground, “and those anchor bolts coming out of the top are embedded about 16 inches (in the concrete). They’re almost 20 inches long and an inch-and-a-half in diameter. Each one of those bolts probably weighs close to 10 pounds.”
There will be a steel armature that holds the sculpture’s parts together and that alone weighs almost 4,000 pounds.
“So that (foundation) has got to be sturdy to handle that alone,” Krutsch says. “We had an engineering firm review all the drawings to make sure that it could take snow load, wind load, and that it was safe. The artist designed it all and then they modeled it and made sure that everything we were building on could support it and make sure it wasn't going to tip over.”
Read more about the Dame troll in this article.
From here, we can turn around and see the sled hill, which like some other features of the park were created with free fill from the nearby freeway project.
The site, in fact, had previously served as a landfill, but Krutsch says, a bunch of the trash was scooped out and moved slightly south on land that is part of the city’s DPW service yard.
That created a large depression that has sat vacant for decades until talk of the park began a few years ago.
Firefly Grove Park will cost about $5 million, which comes from American Rescue Plan Act funds, a Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program Grant and stormwater grant money.
The troll – which will cost about $368,000 including installation – is being funded entirely by hotel/motel taxes, which are paid by visitors staying in Wauwatosa hotels or Airbnb accommodations. These funds can only be used for tourism and community attractions.
At the foot of the hill is a pond and large water retention basin.
“That's really just a fancy engineering term for rain garden,” says Krutsch. “This is essentially a gigantic rain garden and the water filters through it and then hits that pond. So hopefully by the time it gets to the pond the water's better quality for the wildlife there.”
At the top of the hill is a large solar array that provides about 75 percent of the electricity required by the Wauwatosa Police Department. A smaller array next to the bike track will provide the park’s energy.
They’re part of Wauwatosa’s effort to reduce municipal emissions to half of its 2010 levels by 2030. The solar array atop the Civic Center on North and Wauwatosa Avenues generates more energy than that complex requires and sends some electricity back to the grid.
Other park features include sensory paths, covered bench swings and more.
One of the best features is the site itself, which thanks to the scooping out of trash all those years ago, is below street level.
“It was below grade of the street,” Krutsch says, “and we really wanted to keep that because when you get down here, you really kind of lose the city. It feels very natural and peaceful.
“We didn't want to lose that sense of nature and kind of getting away from the city, but we needed to do it in a way that we could move people through the space, so that's why these paths have huge switchbacks, to make them ADA accessible.”
Krutsch says the features of the park were developed over time through a variety of methods, including the city’s Active Tosa comprehensive outdoor recreation plan, as well as public listening sessions.
The result is a park with some truly unique features.
“Hart Park has a different set of amenities,” Krutsch says, “if you want to play sports or athletics, and it also has the skatepark and the bandshell. So I think Hart Park has a pretty nice amenity set, too, but I think, yeah, outside of Hart Park, this park is probably pretty unique.”
The public grand opening of the park and unveiling of the troll sculpture is set for 4-6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 28 and it is free and open to all.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
