Sunday, August 22, 2010

Streetcar Sunday - Milwaukee, WI

Not much traffic other than the streetcars in this early photo of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Milwaukee had electric streetcars starting in 1890. They operated until 1958. Milwaukee also had interurbans that connected the city with Kenosha, East Troy/Burlington, Watertown, and Sheboygan. The interurban trains had all been replaced with buses by 1947.

This card dates from about 1907. If you're specifically interested in streetcars of Wisconsin, you should check out the Transport Co. Web Station website.
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9 comments:

  1. LindaAugust 22, 2010 at 6:58 AM

    Another great urban scene from the past. These old red brick and Romanesque-style buildings never cease to enchant me.

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  2. Christine H.August 22, 2010 at 10:33 AM

    I agree. There's something solid, industrial, but still romantic about it.

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  3. tonyAugust 22, 2010 at 12:08 PM

    Yes.Vibrant.You could weave many stories & lives into this picture.

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  4. AnonymousAugust 22, 2010 at 12:48 PM

    What's fascinating (and troubling to me) is how many of our cities were built, then demolished, then rebuilt, built doubly over with factories and homes and commercial buildings--then seemingly laid waste in recent decades. Somehow, explanations (capitalism's "creative destruction", e. g.) don't click when you drive for mile after mile through urban wasteland that resembles Europe in WWII. Jack/Youngstown

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  5. Aimee DarsAugust 22, 2010 at 5:09 PM

    Streetcars are so awesome. I am very upset that we've abandoned them!

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  6. AnonymousAugust 22, 2010 at 8:29 PM

    J/Y, property value almost always trumps artistic value in this society... I too get a kick out of people calling things 'progress' that are actually regression.

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  7. AnonymousAugust 23, 2010 at 2:01 AM

    Yes, I agree Anon., and you mean a declining property value, too. I'm no expert, but my understanding is those feckless urban renewal programs of the 1960s actually accelerated the destruction of America's cities. (Lyndon Johnson and the Congresses of that period rate as some of the worst governments of the 20th century in my book.)

    Looking at this postcard gets me thinking: would our cities and people have been better off or worse off if "civic maintenance" (my term) had been thought of as a public value?

    Or, looking at things another way, with something like one-fourth of Americans (don't hold me to that) earning $20,000 a year or less, why are they mostly compelled to own a car? I'm a longtime Libertarian voter, but I have objections to a nation organized as a life support system for "corporatist" powers. You don't even need much of a brain to figure out that freeways blasting through urban areas will have a deleterious effect on civic life. Jack/Youngstown

    BTW--Thanks, Christine, for allowing me this "micro-vent".:)

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  8. AnonymousAugust 23, 2010 at 9:31 PM

    Uh oh J/Y, we have opened a can of worms that is way to big to tackle on this blog, we had better focus on the post cards!

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  9. AnonymousSeptember 1, 2012 at 5:19 AM

    where the street cars went, http://www.themakingofmilwaukee.com/classroom/photo_large.cfm?cat=11&p=593

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