Historic Milwaukee has announced that its annual Doors Open Milwaukee event, which offers looks inside buildings all around town, is set for Sept. 23-24 and will open the doors to more than 130 sites.
Doors Open, which kicked off in 2011, includes all kinds of sites, from museums and gardens to theaters and art galleries, municipal buildings and more.
In addition to popular sites like We Energies’ Public Service Building, MGIC and the Federal Courthouse, there will also be new sites, like GRAEF, Mitchell Street Arts, The Garage at The Harley-Davidson Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum Research Center in the historic Judge Jason Downer Mansion, Shechem at Hope Street and others.
As always, there will also be ticketed tours, which typically sell out fast. Tickets go on sale on Sept. 13 (Sept. 6 for Historic Milwaukee members). Details on those are here.
The Historic Milwaukee app will also feature app-based tours with community partners of Lindsay Heights and Layton Boulevard in English and Spanish.
New this year is a Doors Open Bingo Card, created in partnership with The Bindery, that will allow participants the chance to win prizes while they're out digging deep into Milwaukee.
In addition, there will be live music and artists at a number of locations on Saturday.
From 11 a.m. until 3 p.m., there will be musical performances at the War Memorial and Milwaukee Art Museum, and at 2 p.m., Artist Eats – a culture and travel series that explores neighborhoods via their food and music scenes – will stage a live show at Walker’s Point Center for the Arts.
The bingo cards will debut at a special kick-off event Saturday, Sept. 9, with letterpress print demonstrations at 2 and 3 p.m. at The Bindery, 347 E. Ward St. in Bay View.
You'll get to print your own bingo card and get a Doors Open pin.
For more information, visit doorsopenmilwaukee.org.
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 can be heard weekly on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories.
