For more nearly half a century, you’ve been lucky enough to have as your Milwaukee tour guide the city’s preeminent historian – and a local celebrity (I can see him cringing as he reads that!) – John Gurda.
But now, Gurda has put his tours on paper so that you don’t need him (though surely you still want him) along for the ride as you explore Brew City history.
“John Gurda’s Milwaukee: A Self-Guided Historical Tour” is an 83-page spiral-bound guidebook with detailed route maps, historic photographs, solid directions and the kinds of compelling stories you’ve come to expect from Milwaukee’s master storyteller.
The book, which sells for $24.95, is published by the Milwaukee County Historical Society, 910 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr., where it wil be officially launched on Sunday, Dec, 10 at 1 p.m. You can also buy copies at Boswell Book Co., 2559 N. Downer Ave., and at Historic Milwaukee Inc., 235 E. Michigan St.
So, why now?
“One motivation for publishing now is simply age,” says the author of “The Making of Milwaukee,” "Milwaukee: A City Built on Water" and “Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods” and many other great volumes.
“Keeping track of your bearings, giving the narrative and telling the bus driver where to turn, all at the same time, and while the bus is pitching back and forth, was never easy, and it's even harder when you're in your 70s. The tour guidebook imparts the same information, but it's a DIY experience.
“Historical tours are based on hard research, but the actual experience is pretty ephemeral. I've always wanted my tour to have a permanent place in the local literary firmament, where it can be accessed by anyone at any time.”
In the book, which is easy to follow (and to handle, thanks to the spiral format), you’ll get background as you explore everything from Jones Island to Lake Park, polish flats to grand mansions, in neighborhoods including Bay View, Concordia, Downtown, the East Side, Halyard Park, Merrill Park, Pigsville and beyond.
“Perhaps the most common reaction people have to the tour is surprise,” Gurda says. “Unless they're seasoned Uber drivers, the route takes them to places they've never seen, or seldom seen, in their own city.
“Pigsville is always a highlight, as are the Polish flats on the South Side, where my grandmother was raised on a 30-foot lot with five living units and 27 kids.”
While he admits most will likely use a car to navigate the guidebook’s 25-mile route, it’s also “eminently bikeable,” says Gurda, who is a well-known cycling enthusiast.
The detailed book reminds me a lot of the late 1930s guide to Milwaukee created by the Federal Writers Project but not published until decades later. I look at it all the time because it opens a window to a specific time in the city.
That book was an inspiration for Gurda, he says.
“One of my inspirations was the WPA Writers Project, a New Deal employment program for people like me and you,” he notes.
“Their guide to Milwaukee in the 1930s is great reading. The city they describe is almost unrecognizable today, and it really underlines how dynamic cities are. I hope someone picks up my guidebook 90 years from now and has the same reaction.
“This is very much a legacy project. The guidebook crystallizes most of what I’ve learned about Milwaukee and transfers it all from my aging brain to the public domain.”
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.
