East Side Commercial District - Milwaukee, WI
N 43° 02.250 W 087° 54.500
16T E 426008 N 4765379
The East Side Commercial Historic District is located in the Milwaukee central business district on the east side of the Milwaukee River. It is located within the area bounded approximately Wells, Jefferson, Broadway, Michigan, Clybourn and Water Sts
Waymark Code: WM5E9H
Location: Wisconsin, United States
Date Posted: 12/27/2008
Views: 11
The Milwaukee City Department of City of Development web site has a copy of the Historic Preservation Report (
visit link) for the East Side Historic District which gives the following information:
"The district is comprised almost exclusively of mixed business uses. There are retail shops, restaurants, a variety of commercial service firms and numerous professional offices. The district is compactly built with many buildings of party-wall construction.
The architecturally and historically significant buildings in the district represent the major periods of commercial development in Milwaukee from 1850 to 1900. All of the buildings in the district are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The district is distinguished from its environs by its visual cohesiveness and by the change of character in the adjacent commercial areas. To the east of the historic district are some of the largest commercial buildings in downtown. These buildings, mostly modern, generally cover most of a city block and some rise thirty stories or more. They contrast with the low-rise, ornately detailed Victorian buildings in the district. Along the south boundary are expansive surface parking lots and the East-West Freeway. The elevated freeway is a dominant visual barrier that divides the district and the rest of downtown from the Historic Third Ward National Register Historic District. Large scale, high-rise office buildings also bound the district on the west and north. Surrounded as it is by modern buildings, surface parking lots and the freeway, the historic district comprises a distinctive enclave of low scale, Victorian buildings set within the larger context of the east side central business district.
Within the district, the wide range of building sizes, types and uses is the result of the successive generations of building that occurred on the east side. Milwaukee’s commercial district developed as it did as a result of the original town settlement pattern of three independent villages: Juneautown east of the Milwaukee River, Kilbourntown west of the Milwaukee River and Walker’s Point at the confluence of the Milwaukee and Menomonee Rivers. Upon the incorporation of the three villages as the city of Milwaukee in 1846, Juneautown and Kilbourntown emerged as the city’s central business district. Today, the surviving buildings in the district reflect the differing commercial functions that distinguished the east from the west side commercial area. Banking and commodity trading were concentrated on the East Side on Michigan Street with extensive wholesale and commission offices on Water Street and Broadway. Professional and business offices were located on Broadway and Wisconsin Avenue. In contrast, the West Side became the city’s major retailing and entertainment center.
There are three periods of commercial development represented in the district. The majority of the buildings from the earliest period (1854-1875) were built as small two and three-story Italianate commercial structures with retail and service shops on the first floor and offices and manufacturing space above. Most are rectangular blocks with flat roofs, sometimes with gabled parapets. In the second period of development (1875-1890), four-to-ten-story office buildings wholesale blocks and commission houses were built. In form, these range from the palatial banking and insurance blocks on Michigan Street to some of the long, narrow loft buildings on Water Street and Broadway. The last period of development (1890-1900) was characterized by the advent of the high rise loft industrial structure and office tower. Built to accommodate the increasing demand for office space in the central business district, these early, steel-framed skyscrapers range up to 12 stories tall. The McGeoch Building, 322 East Michigan Street, the Button Block, 500 North Water and the Railway Exchange Building, 229 East Wisconsin Avenue are typical examples.
The buildings in the district range in style from Italian Renaissance Revival to Italianate, Second Empire, Victorian Italianate, Romanesque Revival, and Neo-Classical influenced Commercial Style. Some of the finest examples of each style are contained in the district."