Photo by K.E. Newton
The White Tower
by Michael J. Cudahy
For 80 years, a stately white landmark on Milwaukee’s lakeshore has punctuated the Downtown skyline when viewed from the east. It is seen on morning TV shows, travel brochures and Google maps, and has a slight mystique of New York. It has withstood the onslaught of countless competitive high-rise apartments and condos to the north. It was built in 1928-29, not of brick and mortar, but of solid-white terra cotta, a beautiful man-made Italian ceramic.
The story of the Cudahy Tower starts with my grandfather Patrick Cudahy, who came to this country from Ireland in 1849. He was just 3 months old when he and his mother, father, three brothers and sister embarked on the perilous, 3,000-mile journey across the Atlantic Ocean. These so-called “coffin ships” could take months, depending on the winds, and passengers sometimes became deathly ill, with some thrown overboard to prevent the spread of their diseases.
But infant Patrick and his family all survived. Arriving in Boston, they found the Irish had created a bad name for themselves with their rowdy conduct and were not welcome. So the Cudahy family pressed on toward the Midwest and Milwaukee, by barges, horse-drawn wagons and, yes, just plain walking. What an adventure that must have been!
Patrick was a true entrepreneur. He went to work at age 12 because the family was destitute. He got his first job at the Plankinton Packing Co. and worked his way up to become president in less than 20 years. Then he started what was called Cudahy Brothers Co. (later changed to Patrick Cudahy Co.) and built an empire with some 6,000 employees.
With his success, Patrick ventured into real estate and formed the Patrick Cudahy Family Co. Its board of directors consisted of his wife Anna, five of his daughters (sometimes with their husbands) and two sons. They were Josephine, Katherine, Elsie, Irene, Mary, Michael and my father, John, the youngest. Those must have been some board meetings.
The company built its first large apartment houses in 1907 on the lakeshore at the foot of Mason Street. These buildings, now called The Cudahy, are just south of the Cudahy Tower and were remodeled into condominiums in 1985.
In 1928, nine years after Patrick had passed away, the family company, following his entrepreneurial spirit, decided to build a major structure that would become known as the Cudahy Tower. They hoped to create the finest and tallest apartment house in the city – 11 stories high with a tower extending another three stories.
Minutes of the board meetings for this colorful family company suggest the first discussions of the project were in 1927. With what was, I’m sure, a heated exchange, the board selected the Chicago architectural firm of Holabird & Roche to “submit plans, specifications and superintendence of the building.” Holabird’s proposed design was a “Maltese cross” as seen from above.
In 1928, there was talk about whether to go ahead with the project. Board Chairman Michael F. Cudahy wanted to wait a year; the ladies wanted to see if they could negotiate a reduction in the cost. After much deliberation, it was decided to award the construction of the tower to C. F. Haglin & Sons Co. of Minneapolis for the grand total of $724,000. They estimated the annual gross rental income would be $171,000.
Later that year, the minutes show, a “discussion ensued” with members of the board about materials to be used on the building’s exterior. The men wanted “colored brick with Bedford stone trimming,” but the ladies had their hearts set on white Italian terra cotta.
Good thing the ladies won. Try to imagine the Cudahy Tower in brown brick. I doubt it ever would have become an icon of Milwaukee; it might well have been torn down. We should be profoundly thankful to the family’s farsighted ladies.
With a bit of bad Irish luck, the construction was completed just in time for the crash of 1929. My uncle Michael was said to have remarked, “better brick and mortar than worthless paper” as the Great Depression descended upon America.
In the 1960s, I was elected to the family company’s board and soon began to cause trouble. I told the board members they didn’t know how to run a real estate company and should sell out. Some reacted with anger: What did this young whippersnapper know about it? But others got to thinking the money they’d get would come in handy, and within a few stormy years, I prevailed. The Cudahy Tower and the apartments to the south were sold to the Marshall Company.
Unfortunately, Marshall failed miserably at sustaining this beautiful icon. The company lost money and reduced the very backbone of the Cudahy Tower: the service and quality that had once been its calling card.
Then, in 1977, I found myself with considerable success on my hands at Marquette Electronics, a company I had started in 1965. With perhaps a more reckless move than the family ever made, I offered to buy out the Marshall Company. Marshall was in trouble with the venture, so bargaining was easy. The banks loved the idea, too. Cudahy was buying the Cudahy Tower, so they generously helped with the financial arrangements.
Then the fun began. Julie Cudahy, my daughter and an instinctive mechanic, and I set out to restore the place to its original condition. Floors needed polishing, walls needed painting, electrical circuits needed work, plumbing needed repair. Worse, the two gigantic boilers that heated the buildings were a disaster. Fired originally by coal, then oil and now gas, they were not only terribly inefficient, but mysteriously required several hundred gallons of extra water each day to keep them full.
“Where the heck is the water going?” Julie asked. Then someone noticed the sidewalks in front of the building were always wet and warm, even in the dead of winter. We found a huge leak in the steam distribution system’s piping. Our steam and hot water was trickling down the bank to the lake below.
Also, we learned that some tenants kept their windows partly open in winter because their apartments were too hot and they had no way to moderate the temperature. So Julie and I designed and built an electronic steam valve control system. We checked our calculations over and over for any possible mistakes, and one day stood shaking with fear in front of the 11,000,000 BTU boilers. We flipped the “on” switch. One mistake could have blown that entire corner of Milwaukee away, but all went well. The new system reduced the gas bill by about 25 percent.
Next, we needed to clean up the back end of the property. One problem was the Sydney Hotel on Marshall Street, a “flop house” directly behind the Cudahy Tower. Something needed to be done about it if the Cudahy was ever to become a first-class operation again, plus we needed more parking. Of course, the owner knew he had us by the neck, so I pretty much had to meet his purchase price.
After buying it, I wanted to see just how bad the Sydney Hotel was. “I wouldn’t go in there if I was you, boss,” our maintenance chief, Ron Mason, warned.
Arriving in the dark, shabby lobby, I found its only elevator wouldn’t respond to my call. Then someone came out of a side room and said “Ya gotta talk to it, mister.” He forced the door open and growled “Get in.” I did, and said I would like the sixth floor. We started with a jerk and arrived on six with a wild shaking motion. When the elevator door closed behind us, I noticed a wad of tape wound around a bracket on the door.
“What’s that?” I asked. And the man replied, “It’s to bypass the safety switch.” I realized that if you were to get your leg caught, the jury-rigged door would break it in two.
At apartment No. 63, I knocked on the door. From inside came a voice: “Yeah, whaddaya want?” I explained that I had just bought the Sydney. He opened the door and said, “You’re just the guy I wanna talk to, mister. I’ve had no hot water for a month and I ain’t paying my rent ’til it’s fixed!” Can’t say I blamed the guy.
Soon after, the wrecking ball came and the Sydney Hotel was demolished.
As we finished all the renovations, some of the old tenants who left the Cudahy Tower during the Marshall days began coming back. Soon we had a waiting list of interested tenants. The building’s one-time charm was restored, it seems.
Some of the Cudahy staff had worked there for years, and one day I sat down with them. They regaled with me with stories of the old days, many about the celebrities who stayed at the Cudahy through the years. Of course, I can’t divulge these stories – except maybe one.
In 1960, my aunt Josephine, who lived in the Tower for many years, boarded the elevator on the sixth floor. She had a bubbling personality that wouldn’t quit, and when the elevator stopped on the fourth floor, she recognized the man who stepped in. “Why you’re Bing Crosby, aren’t you!” she declared. “Why, you’re much shorter than you look like in the movies. You’re just a little man, aren’t you!”
It was said that Crosby scurried off on the first floor with only a “Good day, madam.”
And so the Cudahy lives on, with Julie as vice president of operations. The Cudahy Tower will go to my foundation when I pass away, never to be sold. The thought of someone buying and renaming it, for example, the Ajax Tower would cause me to roll over in my grave. It’s an icon we think is worth preserving, part of a tradition that goes back 160 years, to when Patrick Cudahy arrived in Milwaukee as a baby boy.
Ten Timeless Buildings
by Russell Zimmermann
1860: The Iron Block (205 E. Wisconsin Ave.)
One of the few cast-iron buildings remaining in the entire Midwest. Designed by New York architect George H. Johnson, its hundreds of component pieces were cast there and shipped by lake schooner to Milwaukee. (Legend says the first boat sank not far from here and a second had to be ordered.) All of the pieces were bolted together on-site, creating an Italian palace-like structure complete with “quoin” blocks decorated with vermiculated rustication and numerous lions’ heads. It was so novel that the public ignored its official names (Excelsior Block, Martin Block, and Masonic Hall) and forever dubbed it “Iron Block.”
1876: The Mitchell Building (207 E. Michigan St.)
Arguably one of the top five French Second Empire Mansard-style commercial structures in the country. It was designed by Edward Townsend Mix to house Alexander Mitchell’s bank. The yellow Ohio sandstone superstructure is set on a heavily rusticated granite foundation. Mitchell, once considered the state’s wealthiest man, spared no expense on ornament. The two street façades are a riot of carved cherubs, scallop shells, winged horses and (gasp!) bare-breasted female caryatids. This spectacular building was so admired that photographs of it were sent to the 1878 Paris International Exhibition for display.
1879: Chamber of Commerce Building (225 E. Michigan St.)
Also built by Alexander Mitchell and designed by E.T. Mix. The design, by today’s standards, is elaborate, but was then described as “Modern Conventional Italian, plain in treatment.” The centerpiece was the Grain Exchange Room, where world wheat prices were set. It was for this huge, beautifully decorated room that the octagonal trading pit was invented – a device now used throughout the world. In 1909, the 15-foot allegorical statue of “commerce,” which stood above the entrance, was moved to Jackson Park. That same year, President William Howard Taft toured the city and inspected only two buildings. This was one.
1885: Old Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Building (611 N. Broadway)
The NML company was just 28 years old when it had this built. A textbook example of Richardsonian Romanesque style, it was designed by S.S. Beman, who drew plans for the entire city of Pullman, Ill. The gray granite exterior is virtually unchanged after 124 years. But the big surprise is its visually exciting interior, one of the state’s finest. Ironically, NML, which later built its landmark headquarters at 720 E. Wisconsin Ave., is now in the process of restoring that building’s granite cornices with a thin shell of glass-fiber reinforced concrete. Preservationists (including this one) have cried foul.
1890: Pabst Mansion (2000 W. Wisconsin Ave.)
Arguably the finest Flemish Renaissance Revival residence in America. It shouts out the immense wealth of Capt. Frederick Pabst and his brewing company. Architects Ferry & Clas encrusted the corbie-stepped gables with a rich complement of ornament. After Pabst’s death in 1904, the mansion became home of Milwaukee’s Catholic archbishops for 70 years. In 1975, after its buyer announced plans to raze the house, it was rescued by businessman John Conlan. A nonprofit organization now runs it as a house museum. The ongoing restoration has brought it closer to the pristine condition once enjoyed by the Pabst family.
1896: The Germania Building (135 W. Wells St.)
Once “the world’s largest German newspaper building.” Books and papers were published here, including Germania, America’s largest-circulation German language newspaper. The company’s owner, George Brumder, hired German-trained architects Schnetzky & Liebert to draw the plans, but wanted them based on Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World Building. The Milwaukee building sported a number of German features. The four sheet-copper domes were topped with spike finials, which so resembled military headgear that they were dubbed “Kaiser’s Helmets.” Also, there was a 3-ton statue of Germania, removed to assuage anti-German sentiments during World War I.
1900: The Railway Exchange Building (229 E. Wisconsin Ave.)
Designed by the father of the modern skyscraper, Chicago architect William Le Baron Jenney. Until he perfected the steel cage construction technique, the height of buildings was limited to how high you could stack masonry before it self-destructed under its own weight. With Jenney’s system of steel support, the sky was the limit on height. A little-known businessman named Henry Herman hired the Chicago architect, and this building, originally called the Herman Building, is probably Jenney’s only work north of Chicago. In its early years, it served as the local ticket office for the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, and was soon renamed to reflect this.
1930: The Wisconsin Gas Building (626 E. Wisconsin Ave.)
Originally the Milwaukee Gas Light Co. Building, the utility commissioned the state’s finest example of the New York ziggurat-like Art Deco skyscraper. Above the granite base is a blended brick veneer, starting with dark purplish-brown and graduating through reds and oranges as it rises to the top, where it’s capped with Kasota stone. This helps create the illusion of a much taller building. Architects Eschweiler & Eschweiler continued the theme with sunbursts, chevrons and zig-zags. In 1956, the 4-ton illuminated “gas flame” went atop the building. A beloved local feature, the flame still gives weather predictions by changing colors.
1930: A.O. Smith Building (3533 N. 27th St.)
One of those rare designs that, at nearly 80 years old, still looks contemporary. Designed by Chicago architects Holabird & Root, its construction and detailing was revolutionary for the time. It was once said that A.O. Smith’s greatest product was research – the automobile frames, water heaters and others were only by-products. This building was one of the country’s first dedicated research and development operations, and the company employed more than 400 engineers. Architects worked closely with A.O. Smith engineers on the project. In contrast with the Minimalist exterior, the interior sings a lovely Art Deco song. This gem needs a sympathetic owner: It’s now abandoned and on the endangered landmark list.
1961: Marine Plaza (111 E. Wisconsin Ave.)
The city’s first glass curtain wall building and the first major Downtown office building in 20 years. The Marine National Exchange Bank, then one of the city’s biggest, wanted an architectural statement. It commissioned New York architects Harrison & Abramovitz. They had built the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Time-Life Building. They worked with the giant Turner Construction Co. of New York to create an up-to-the-minute 22-story skyscraper that sung Manhattan – and that surely rattled Milwaukee’s by then lackadaisical approach to architecture. The plan included a much-needed public plaza, which adjoined the building’s separate, three-story glass entrance pavilion.
