Immediately north of the Allen-Bradley clock, between 1st and 2nd Streets on West National Avenue, is a stretch of Milwaukee [1] that kinda smacks of a Depression-era photo during the day but by night becomes one of the city’s most underappreciated tip-the-elbow neighborhoods.
Walker’s Point is also one of the most ethnically mixed neighborhoods in Milwaukee. German, Scandinavian, British, Welsh, Irish, Serb, Croatian, and Polish settlers came in originally, and Hispanics and Southeast Asian immigrants have arrived more recently.
Activated in 1962, the Allen-Bradley clock, the second-largest four-faced clock in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records (it was first until 2010, when an enormous clock in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, dethroned it), has octagonal clock faces twice the size of the clocks of Big Ben in London. The hour hands are 15 feet 9 inches long and weigh 490 pounds; the minute hands are 20 feet long and weigh 530 pounds. It’s still crucial as a lake navigation marker. (And I love the nickname: the “Polish Moon.”)
Stop by Tivoli Palm Garden, an original alfresco produce market renovated into a biergarten by Schlitz Brewing Company and in the 1980s redone yet again.
Links:
[1] http://www.moon.com/destinations/wisconsin/milwaukee