It's Madison Week at OnMilwaukee.com. We sent our editorial staff to check out bars, restaurants, retail outlets and cultural venues in order to uncover some of the best of Wisconsin's second-largest city.
First of all, I'm getting some feedback e-mails from readers who are simply apoplectic that OnMilwaukee.com, Milwaukee's daily magazine, is running a week of Madison-themed stories.
Well, it is "Madison Week" here, which is a salute to our second-favorite Wisconsin city. But rest assured that among the 15 or so Madison-themed stories, you'll still get more than 75 articles, blogs and briefs about good ol' Brew City. It's OK to write about something a little different once in a while, and it's only for a week. If you find it simply unbearable, I urge you to come back Monday and brace yourself for our third annual Bar Month, landing in February.
Anyway, I really like Madison. I don't get there enough. But when I do I'm always amazed at how a city just 70 minutes from home can be so different and still so the same.
The similarities are easy to explain: lots of the same local brands and franchises abound. We're all Packers and Brewers fans driving cars with the same license plates. We speak with the same accent and exude those same Midwestern sensibilities you find in Madison. We're faced with many of the same challenges, too, though Madison's are just a bit shrunken down.
But every time I'm in Madison, I feel a little like I'm wandering around somewhere far, far from home. I know how to get around, more or less, and the city's smaller size makes it easy to remember neighborhoods and landmarks. Still, though, it feels really different, considering how close it really is.
After our staff's visit last month, I found myself amazed again at the high quality of both the dining and nightlife scenes in Madison. Milwaukee's no slouch when it comes to cuisine; in fact, pound for pound, I think our town has incredible restaurants. But all the meals we had in Madison were excellent, and the bars we visited felt unique to the area. I struggled to find their Milwaukee counterparts, and that's taking nothing away from our local watering holes.
Clearly, a lot of Madison's unique flavor comes directly or indirectly from the college scene. By the nature of having a giant university in the middle of the city, Madison attracts students and professors from all over the world, and I'm sure the city would be a lot less diverse if you took Bucky out of town. I enjoyed the palpable feeling of academia and intelligentsia that I didn't always feel on my own college campus in Washington, D.C., as our university was just a small part of an otherwise grandiose city.
However, I'm not sure I'd want to live in Madison, though if I had to pick another Wisconsin city in which to reside other than in Milwaukee, it would surely be the state capital. Once you hit the outskirts of Madison, Dane County seems a whole lot less desirable -- though that's just my perception as an outsider.
Our recent editorial trip to Madison reminded me, if nothing else, I should visit more often. It's easy to think of Chicago as a day trip or a weekend destination, but nearby Madison is plenty of fun with a fraction of the hassle.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
