If you love Milwaukee history and architecture then surely you’re a fan of events like Doors Open Milwaukee and Spaces & Traces, an annual neighborhood-focused tour.
These are organized by Historic Milwaukee, Inc., which also has a great shop full of Milwaukee books and other goodies at 235 E. Michigan St.
As with everything, it takes money to run these great events, and so HMI hosts the annual Remarkable Milwaukee fundraiser, which, this year, is slated for Thursday, Feb. 15 from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the War Memorial Center on the lakefront.
At each year’s event, there are honorees and this year, HMI salutes Veolia and Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) for their management of the Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility.
According to HMI, "The Jones Island facility has been in operation since 1926 and was designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1974 by the American Society of Civil Engineers in recognition for its innovations in providing high-quality wastewater treatment. Jones Island had been one of the top sites visited during Doors Open, attracting thousands of visitors to their state of the art facility."
Milwaukee’s premier historian, John Gurda, will also give a 30-minute presentation at the event.
It’s called "Milwaukee: A City Built on Water" and is described by HMI like this: "Lake Michigan and the rivers that feed it have been Milwaukee’s dominant natural resources since the days of the Potawatomi. Join historian John Gurda for a lively illustrated look at the lake and its adjacent watersheds. See how they served the community as transportation routes, recreational resources, and industrial corridors, and how they have weathered a cycle of heavy use and flagrant abuse to emerge as focal points of both celebration and concern in the twenty-first century.
Doors open at 5:30 and there will be games and hors d’oeuvres until 7, when dinner and the program begin.
Tickets are $85 for Historic Milwaukee members and $100 for everyone else. Purchase them here.
OnMilwaukee is a proud sponsor of this event.
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.
