This postcard is postmarked 1923 and is labeled West Water Street. Around a decade after this postcard was sent, Milwaukee would rename the street as North Plankinton Avenue, which is how we know it today.

This view is facing south toward Wisconsin Avenue (which, as of the postmark date, would have been named Grand Avenue). In the center is the Gimbels Building. Adam Gimbel first opened a shop in Vincennes, Indiana in 1842. He and his seven sons (the Gimbel Brothers) eventually relocated to Milwaukee in 1887, renting space from John Plankinton on the corner you see here. The retail operation rapidly expanded into adjoining buildings, and in 1902, Gimbel demolished the original three-story building on the southeast corner of Water and Grand (now Plankinton and Wisconsin) and built the eight-story structure you see in this postcard. This Gimbel building, designed by D.H. Burnham and Co. of Chicago, was the first of many adjoining structures that the Gimbel Brothers would build in the following decades to expand into the entire block along the river from Wisconsin Avenue to Michigan Avenue.

On the near corner on the left, across Wisconsin Avenue from Gimbels, the Empire Building (containing the Riverside Theater) would be built five years after this postcard was sent. The much smaller building you can see in this postcard on the corner was also known as the Empire Building, and it was built around 1898. This building featured the Empire Café on the corner of the ground floor. It was also known as the Browning Building from 1921 until 1927, when it was razed to make way for the current Empire Building and Riverside Theater.

The white building on the far left is now the Riverfront Lofts. Built in 1916, the building was a furniture store and warehouse for Waldheims and Nelson Brothers over the years.

Sources:

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Property/HI16193

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Property/HI41778

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM47664

Milwaukee Journal, May 8, 1979: https://0-infoweb-newsbank-com.countycat.mcfls.org/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb.newsbank.com&svc_dat=WORLDNEWS&req_dat=0D8DE8DE83992E4A&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Aimage%252Fv2%253A1477BBDEA50EB75C%2540EANX-NB-156E03CD64C6200B%25402444002-156E02A9922028A3%2540130-156E02A9922028A3%2540/hlterms%3A%2522Browning%2520Building%2522

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 19, 1997: https://0-infoweb-newsbank-com.countycat.mcfls.org/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb.newsbank.com&svc_dat=WORLDNEWS&req_dat=0D8DE8DE83992E4A&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Anews%252F0EB82ABB00487972

Identifiers:

PLUS code: 23QQ+Q7 Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Approximate Google Street View today: https://goo.gl/maps/HSCZKTDiGqwZekFm8

The postmark on this postcard is 1928. This shot is a view looking northeast from Union Station (also known as Everett Street Station and Milwaukee Union Depot). The station opened in 1886, was replaced by the Milwaukee Intermodal Station (the Amtrak station on St. Paul Avenue) in 1965, and was razed the next year following a fire that damaged the building.

Today, you will find the WE Energies annex building where Union Station once stood. It is on Everett Street, between 2nd Street and Vel R. Phillips Avenue/4th Street. The street is parallel to Michigan Avenue, which you can see running left to right in the foreground of this image. The station faced the Fourth Ward Park (now known as Zeidler Park), seen at the bottom of the postcard.

Several of the buildings in this shot still stand. The stately white and cream building on the right is the Milwaukee Interurban Terminal, which was opened in 1905 by The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company. At the time, it was the largest terminal of its kind in the United States. Today, that building is the WE Energies headquarters at 231 W Michigan Steet.

The white building standing tall in the center also still exists and is attached to what was the Grand Avenue Mall. The Majestic Building was built in 1907 by the Schlitz Brewing Company. It once housed the Majestic, the second-largest vaudeville theater downtown. After hosting acts including the Marx Brothers, Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, Fanny Brice, and George M. Cohan, the Majestic closed in 1932. The building today houses the Majestic Loft Apartments.

And to the left, the tall, red building with the peaked gable roof and flag also still stands. It is the former Hotel Wisconsin, which opened in 1913. Many famous people visited the Hotel Wisconsin, including first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and comedy duo Laurel & Hardy. In the 1990s, a favorite restaurant of mine, Cafe Melange, was on the first floor. Today the building is The Grand Wisconsin apartments.

The middle flag sits atop the Milwaukee City Hall in the distance.

The buildings in the foreground are all gone–this is where the Courtyard Marriott now stands.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_Street_Depot

http://www.wisconsinhistoricalmarkers.com/2012/08/marker-234-milwaukee-interurban-terminal.html

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Property/HI41861

http://www.wisconsinhistoricalmarkers.com/2014/10/historic-milwaukee-west-wisconsin-avenue.html

https://onmilwaukee.com/visitors/articles/urban-spelunking-hotel-wisconsin.html

Identifiers:

PLUS Codes: 23PM+HV Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Approximate Google Earth view today: https://earth.google.com/web/@43.03753846,-87.91476257,190.93950686a,85.55386167d,35y,23.49206988h,82.90810522t,0r

This postcard calls the street (running from the foreground to the lake in the background) Wisconsin Street. Prior to 1926, this street had two different names–Grand Avenue west of the Milwaukee River and Wisconsin Street east. In 1926, the city renamed the entire length as Wisconsin Avenue.

The postcard isn’t dated but comes from the early years of the 20th Century. We can tell this because the scene is from the perspective of the tower of the Federal Building, which was built in 1899 between Jackson and Jefferson Street on Wisconsin Avenue. The most prominent intersection, in the lower right corner, is Wisconsin and Van Buren, which today is dominated by three familiar buildings: The Gas Light Building (1930) on the near left corner, the Northwestern Mutual building (1914) on the far left, and the US Bank tower (1973) on the far right. (Also, the rear of this postcard has the sort of familiar divided back we know today–with a section on the left for a handwritten note and another section on the right for the address–and those postcards weren’t permitted in the US until 1907.)

This section of Milwaukee’s downtown saw considerable change as the “city” grew eastward from its origins on the river. The many residential homes and small apartment buildings that you see on the left (north) would be replaced by commercial and midrise apartment buildings in the next several decades.

On the right (or south side of Wisconsin Avenue), you can see a number of historic old buildings that were subsequently demolished. The tall tower in the distance is the Chicago & Northwestern Lake Front Depot (built in 1890 and razed in 1968). The circular turret in front of that is the Globe Hotel (built in 1892 and razed in 1961), which was on the southeast corner of Wisconsin and Cass. And the large red building on the right edge of the postcard was the Hotel Martin (built in 1889 and razed in 1958).

The shore of Lake Michigan was a lot closer to the city at the time of this postcard than it is today. Lake and Veteran Parks were created from landfill over the course of decades, expanding the city’s footprint into Lake Michigan.

Sources:

https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/grand-avenue/

Identifiers:

PLUS Code: 23QW+C4 Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Approximate Google Earth view today: https://earth.google.com/web/@43.03920584,-87.90256499,184.8871059a,166.93667098d,35y,70.8383103h,74.43074418t,0r