Paradise Valley?

-->

Photo by Noah Froh

Did you know there is a place called Paradise Valley in Waukesha County? Hard to imagine the origin of the name. It’s about as flat a landscape as I’ve seen anywhere in Wisconsin.

Someone tried to farm the wet soil here for a while until it proved unfruitful. The Wisconsin DNR purchased the land in 2012 and began a management plan that has been encouraging it to revert to wetland. The Bark River channel once flowed through the “valley” but the farmers diked the property and diverted the river. Now, with the dike breached, the river simply floods into the marsh.

I was introduced to the place recently by DNR wildlife biologist Dianne Robinson. She hosts regular tours of wildlife areas in Southeastern Wisconsin. The theme this time was tracking. We walked along the snow-covered roads that divide the marsh, watching for tracks along the way. There were plenty.

Larger animals, like weasels and coyotes tended to follow a straight line, taking advantage of the road just like we do. The smaller tracks of field mice, voles and the like tended to wander across from side to side. We learned to distinguish between dogs and coyotes and that the “thumb” of a mink is on the outside of its paw where our pinky is.

Robinson showed us how to measure the size of the print. People often overestimate, she said, because the impression in the snow can be quite a bit larger than the actual footprint.

We also saw sled tracks that veered off into the marsh grass. Paradise Valley is a popular spot for hunting and trapping, Robinson told us.

We saw the most tracks when we ventured out onto the frozen Bark River. However, with the thermometer reading a neat 0° Fahrenheit and wind chills approaching -15, we didn’t linger long.

The most surprising find was a cache of fish carcasses in amongst the cattails. Robinson speculated that they might have been hauled up by some predator before the water in a nearby pond froze over. More likely, she thought, the wetland dried up under them, leaving them high and dry to be picked apart by birds and passing animals.

The DNR website provides a long list of recreational opportunities for the Paradise Valley Wildlife Area. In addition to hunting and trapping they include birding, canoeing, cross-country skiing, fishing, hiking, snowshoeing, wild edibles gathering and wildlife viewing. There is even an accessible blind for hunters with disabilities. The sight lines are totally unimpeded under a sky as broad as the horizon.

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce Noah Froh, who is a student at Bennington College in Vermont. Noah, whose home is in Milwaukee, is interning with me during the winter interim period. This was our first outing together. Noah contributed the photo featured at the top of the post.

North Bank Trail nears completion in Menomonee Valley

-->

I discovered the new North Bank Trail by chance last week. Clearly I haven’t been spending as much time in the Menomonee Valley as I did when I was artist in residence there. Although slated to be completed in the fall, the project appears to be pretty far along already.

Formerly one of the “wildest” sections of river in the Menomonee Valley, the riverbank had been severely eroded and the river’s edge virtually inaccessible. The most striking feature of the new North Bank is the re-contoured slope and burlap-encased terraces.

Situated across the river from Three Bridges Park, the new trail begins at the 33^rd Court bridge and connects the existing park bike trail with the Hank Aaron State Trail in Stormwater Park.

The North Bank is not officially part of a named park. The Redevelopment Authority of the City of Milwaukee owns the land (as well as Three Bridges Park). In addition to providing the trail link, the project serves two other purposes: bank stabilization is intended to limit erosion and keep soil from sloughing into the river.

It also provides public access to the water via two stone staircases that anchor each end of the trail.

Previously, cyclists who crossed the bridge from the park onto 33rd Court were forced to continue past Rexnord, Palermo’s, and Ahern and to share the roads with semis and thousands of those companies’ employees. The new trail enables riders to stay off the streets and along the river—a much more enjoyable ride. 

The $1.4 million project is funded by grants from an alphabet soup of agencies, including WisDOT, CMAQ, EPA, GLRI, MMSD, and the Fund for Lake Michigan, as well as some matching funds from the City of Milwaukee. I was surprised to find that the pavement terminates in Stormwater Park where it meets the existing gravel of the Hank Aaron Trail. I learned that some of the grant funds require the asphalt and that the existing trail is not part of this project. The pavement may be extended in the future when additional funds are available.

Of course the newly stabilized bank looks unnatural—I’ve already heard that comment after posting an image on Facebook. It is one of the great paradoxes of our time (which has been dubbed the Anthropocene era because of human influence on the earth’s “natural” processes) that natural areas require human intervention in order to provide a satisfying experience of nature. This is particularly true in urban areas where there is the need is greatest.

If you need proof of the healing effect of time on such a managed landscape just go across the bridge to the park. When it opened three years ago it looked just as unnatural—and five years ago it looked far worse!

New Menomonee Valley book now available

A Year in the Valley:

Witnessing Menomonee Valley Revitalization

As followers of this blog know, I served as the 2014 Menomonee Valley Artist in Residence. During that time I created two small books. One, entitled Gestures, is a photo essay that explores the visual vocabulary of the Valley in intimate detail. It is a slim, meditative volume.

Link to preview or purchase Gestures.

The second, also slim, serves as a portfolio of images from the year. Titled simply 2014 Menomonee Valley Artist in Residence, it’s basically a sampling of highlights from a year of photographing in the Valley.

Link to preview or purchase 2014 Menomonee Valley Artist in Residence.

However, my newest book, entitled A Year in the Valley: Witnessing Menomonee Valley Revitalization, is a comprehensive compilation of the work done during the residency period (January through December, 2014). In addition to an expansive selection of images, this book includes the text of most of the essays, stories and profiles that I wrote during the year. These were originally published on my blogs.

A Year in the Valley also represents in book form what I’ve posted on the website created specifically for the Menomonee Valley project. 

Link to preview or purchase A Year in the Valley: Witnessing Menomonee Valley Revitalization.

Project goals included documenting physical transformation in the Menomonee Valley, promoting public awareness of this nationally renowned redevelopment model, fostering connections amongst the diverse communities who work and recreate in the Valley, and highlighting the importance of art and culture in carrying out future developments as well as developing a sense of place.

The history of the Menomonee Valley is one of continual transformation. The original environment, a fertile wild rice marsh, was completely filled as the Valley became Milwaukee’s industrial powerhouse. By the late twentieth century most of the industries had moved out, leaving a legacy of blight and pollution. The last 15 years have seen a concerted effort by the city, business interests and environmental advocates to revitalize the Valley. Visionary plans are underway that combine economic and community development with environmental restoration. Businesses have returned, the river has been rehabilitated and new parks have been created, along with new opportunities for arts, culture and recreation.

This project and this book captures a 12-month slice of the ongoing story of the transformation of the Menomonee Valley.

The 2014 Artist in Residency was sponsored my Menomonee Valley Partners and Zimmerman Architectural Studios.

To go to the Menomonee Valley AiR website, click here.

 

Ruby and the Tree: Growing with 3 Bridges Park

-->

It is at once perfectly ordinary and miraculous each time a baby is born into a loving family as it was for Dan and Nora not long ago. By contrast, the creation of an urban park isn’t an ordinary event and although in retrospect it may seem like a miracle, it is not. The establishment of 3 Bridges Park in Milwaukee’s Menomonee Valley was the result of a long planning process, hard work, and no small financial commitment. 3 Bridges Park arrived the same year as Dan and Nora’s daughter, Ruby.

The coincidence of these seemingly unrelated events has become intertwined for the young couple who saw in them new beginnings not only for their family but also for the community at large. Moved by the symbolism of new life and growth, they began what they intend to be an annual ritual. They agreed to let me accompany them and to share their story.

On a warm, sunny afternoon in August I met the three of them at their home in the Merrill Park neighborhood on the north edge of the Menomonee Valley. After bundling Ruby into her stroller, we headed past the 35^th Street viaduct towards the freeway underpass where 32^nd Street connects with Canal Street. Dan, who works for Layton Boulevard West Neighbors, explained that he takes the viaduct back and forth every day to his job near 27^th and Greenfield. For casual walks in the Valley and to reach the park they prefer the Canal Street route. Although less direct, it’s quieter and they generally see other people using the Hank Aaron State Trail, which parallels the roadway.

We wound our way through the Menomonee Valley Industrial Center, past Palermo’s Pizza, J.F. Ahern Co. and Falk Corporation, to where 33^rd Ct. ends at the middle of the three bridges leading into the park. We paused on the bridge to look out over the river and the park. Dan pointed to the place they had gone the year before to pick out a tree. “We thought it would be meaningful,” he said “to document Ruby growing up as the park grows up.”

After we had circled around and descended the boat ramp nearly to the water Dan gestured towards a small oak, its tender leaves resplendent in the mid-day sun. He continued his story. “We found the tree in this picturesque spot. You can see the river and the middle bridge in the background.” They sat infant Ruby next to the tree and snapped the shot.

“The idea,” Nora told me, “is that every year around the same time we will come back and take a picture so that as she grows and the tree grows and the park grows up around it, we’ll get a record of that kind of growth—the park, the community, our daughter.”

In the year since that first photo was taken Ruby already has grown significantly, of course. She now toddles around the tree, the nearby log, and the rocks along the path. The park too has begun to bloom. The earthen slope, still predominantly covered in protective burlap, sprouts spindly saplings, thin patches of rye grass and the occasional wildflower. Dan concludes, “It’s nice to see all of this happening all at once right here where we live in the center of Milwaukee.”

I looked up from the tableau of this family and their symbolic tree and surveyed the surrounding landscape. Suddenly, from this vantage it seemed as though the city itself was growing up around the newly created park. Perhaps it is, in a sense. Perhaps that’s the real lesson of 3 Bridges Park and of the Menomonee Valley redevelopment process. Like Ruby, we all have an opportunity to grow together with a new and sustainable urban landscape. After all, building a park out of an abandoned brownfield is a hopeful act.

Ruby and the tree are a perfect symbol for the desire to improve our world. The motivation for planting trees is to some degree the same as for having children: they embody our dreams for a brighter future. 

This post is one in a series that relates to my Menomonee Valley Artist in Residency. For more information about the residency and links to previous posts and photographs, go to MV AiR.

Hanging Gardens: green roofs, stormwater management and bioremediation

-->

Until fairly recently the mention of a “green roof” elicited for me a mental image of Al Johnson’s famous restaurant in Door County. The sloping roof of that rustic log building sports a plush lawn with a small herd of goats casually munching on it. It is unabashedly romantic tourist bait. It is also a far cry from the technologically sophisticated contemporary green roof used to mitigate stormwater runoff in urban areas that are increasingly concerned about environmental sustainability.

I was introduced to green roof design by Peter, the Chief of Design Integration at a company that specializes in them called Hanging Gardens. The company is located in Milwaukee’s Global Water Center and we were standing on the spongy surface of its roof overlooking the Menomonee Valley. Although it was mid-summer the first thing I noticed was that the roof wasn’t particularly green. Instead of grass it was planted with multi-hued varieties of Sedum.

Peter explained that several species of Sedum are used because they are hardy and easy to maintain. The vegetation was set into a grid of waterproof containers, a little like the flats of flowers one sees at a garden shop. The whole array was divided into 12 sections called “slices,” which represent five different types of vegetated roofs. Some of the sections were as yet unplanted. One section was packed with what looked like brown sponges, obviously different from traditional soil that’s used in sod roofs like Al Johnson’s. The absorbent blocks are made from a combination of organic and inorganic materials that hold water longer than soil, Peter tells me, and the roots of the Sedum can grow directly into them.

Green roofs can provide a variety of benefits. Chief among them are reducing or slowing down stormwater runoff and filtering pollutants from rainwater. In some locations they can also reduce cooling loads on buildings, act as soundproofing, save money on energy, and even provide wildlife habitat or a place for agriculture. A side benefit in urban settings like Milwaukee is to reduce what’s known as the “heat island” effect. Cities become hotter than surrounding countryside because traditional building materials absorb and radiate heat from the sun.

Back in the Hanging Garden office I discover that the process of establishing the green roof had to weather its own problems. John, Chief Marketing Officer and company partner, picks up the story. It was his idea to move the company out of its previous location in the basement of his home. He was eager to bring his company’s expertise to the new and exciting enterprise of the Global Water Center.

The first hurdle to overcome was financial. Because a green roof had not been included in the construction budget, Hanging Gardens offered to help install a green roof that would become a research project utilizing grants from MMSD and the Fund for Lake Michigan. The second hurdle almost stopped the project in its tracks. Pulling up the existing roof revealed extensive damage from rot. Accommodating the 25 pounds per square foot required over the entire roof would have been prohibitive. The architects compromised, however, by rebuilding approximately one fourth of the roof with sufficient structural support for the test plots.

Green roofs are just one of the types of products and services Hanging Gardens offers. I am fascinated by a demonstration display of porous pavement, which is designed to allow rainwater to penetrate into the ground instead of running into storm sewers. A stream of water pours straight through without slowing down.

Both Peter and John are keen to show off a product called “GreenGlass,” a silica-based material that looks like exceedingly fine sand. “The raw product is dry, granular, odorless, hydrophobic and non-flammable,” says Peter. It’s also superabsorbent. When contaminants in water and soils come into contact with GreenGlass it captures them through hydraulic conductivity. “The dirtier the site, the better it is able to perform,” he assures me. A little like Depends for an incontinent society, I think to myself.

John points out the second floor windows towards the freshly landscaped Reed Street Yards. The series of bioswales installed along Freshwater Way utilize GreenGlass in a controlled test, he tells me.

John is decidedly bullish on his choice of locating in the Global Water Center. In 2013 Hanging Gardens became the first company to move into the incubator suites. He loves what he calls the synergy of the place, making connections not only with other people within the building but also with visitors who come from all over the world. He remembers when delegations from France, Germany, and England all came to visit in the same week. Then there was the time he went to a luncheon with a delegation from China, the CEO of Rexnord and the president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee. “That wasn’t going to happen in my home basement office.”

His enthusiasm also extends beyond the walls of the Center itself. On one side is Walker’s Point, which he observes is “the hottest area [in Milwaukee] for growth right now.” On the other side is the Menomonee Valley. “It’s incredible to have offices overlooking the Reed Street Yards and watching them being redeveloped,” he tells me. “We look out over the Sixth Street Bridge. I can see the Potawatomi hotel going up, the Harley Davidson Museum—the whole valley. It’s just very exciting to be in the middle of all this.”

“My ultimate goal is to have our company in a building over there,” he concludes, pointing again to the Reed Street Yards. “The valley has changed dramatically. There’s a lot of opportunity here and it’s exciting to see the possibilities. There are obstacles, too, because there are brownfields. But Hanging Gardens can help with some of those issues!”

This post is one in a series that relates to my Menomonee Valley Artist in Residency. For more information about the residency and links to previous posts and photographs, go to MV AiR.

Photo Phenology 3: A photo essay

-->

“The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”¹

Silver Maple

For the third time during the course of this year I’ve undertaken a personal, somewhat unscientific version of phenology in the parks of the Menomonee Valley. Phenology is the science of observation, specifically of seasonal variations in the life cycles of plants and animals. The Urban Ecology Center has volunteers who go out into the two parks adjacent to its Menomonee Valley Branch on a monthly basis to photograph in a methodical manner. On my first two phenology excursions I accompanied UEC teams. This time, it being a glorious autumn afternoon, I went more spontaneously, alone. The light was magnificent and kept getting better as the day wore on.

Sumac & Steel

The quote above is from Aldo Leopold who was a habitual and meticulous phenologist as well as one of our country’s most famous ecologists and author of the classic, A Sand County Almanac. The quote is suggestive, I submit, of a current way of thinking about the Menomonee Valley. The history of the Valley could easily suggest that our predecessors tinkered with it in rather unintelligent ways. The original, natural landscape was not just discarded piecemeal but very nearly in its entirety. Now, however, there is a concerted attempt to ameliorate the situation and reintroduce some of what was lost. I believe we have gotten better at intelligent tinkering.

My ramblings took me in a loop around Stormwater Park, adjacent to the 35^th Street Viaduct, then briefly into Three Bridges Park. Here is what I saw.

Switchgrass & Ingeteam

Black Oak

Wild Grape

Purple Aster

Silver Maple

If you're paying close attention you will have noticed that silver maple leaves can turn red or yellow. I was skeptical so I checked with Jeff, the wildlife ecologist at the UEC. He assured me that this is true.

Cricket

Nest

Hawthorn

Stormwater Park & Viaduct

View from Valley Passage Bridge

Kayakers Posing

Sumac Explosion

Tomatillo in Community Gardens

Community Garden Boxes & Sky

Signage

Oak Seedling

City on a Hill

I will end as I began, with a quote from Leopold:

“Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.”²

-->

Notes

1.  Aldo Leopold, Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold

2.  Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac with Other Essays on Conservation from Round River

This post is one in a series that relates to my Menomonee Valley Artist in Residency. For more information about the residency and links to previous posts and photographs, go to MV AiR.