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In a city like this, there are secrets and surprises seemingly behind every corner. Join us as we uncover the places, history and other stories that are just too good to keep under wraps.
Peek Inside: The Amazingly Small Kitchen at Sanford!
If you’re standing in the Sanford kitchen, you’re in the way. The cramped, unfussy space – smaller than the kitchen in some houses – does not offer the luxury of room to maneuver, especially during service at the East Side restaurant, when up to seven chefs pack in there. A casual observer of the scene might think they’re looking into the back of a roadside diner – until they notice the meticulous culinary process that chef and owner Justin Aprahamian has implemented.
This careful, rapid, station-to-station brigade creates some of the best fine dining in Milwaukee. Ask one of the chefs what makes Sanford’s kitchen different from others they’ve worked at in Milwaukee, and they’ll emphasize that organization, that exactitude, that intense care that goes into making every dish delicious … and also how small it is.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Peek Inside: Cactus Club’s Hidden Time Capsule
The second floor of Cactus Club, like its nearly 140-year-old Bay View building, has a long and winding history. It’s been a former owner’s apartment, a storeroom, a greenroom for artists, and it was even an Airbnb during COVID. Now, it serves mostly as a crash pad for the acts that perform downstairs four or five nights a week.
Push past a door plastered with stickers, walk up an LED- and mural-lined staircase, and you’ll feel like you stepped into a time capsule of Milwaukee circa 1972. A Löwenbräu beer clock a yard wide hangs on the wood-paneled wall, alongside a vintage rabbit-ear television and electric organ. Look around, and you’ll find bunk beds, a kitchen with decades-old carpeting on the wall, and a vinyl player with a shelf of records – many left by the dozens of artists who’ve spent the night.
Peek Inside: The Deep Tunnel Pump Room
One of Milwaukee’s wonders of engineering rests far underneath our streets: the Deep Tunnel, a 28.5-mile reservoir that holds up to 521 million gallons of sewage and rainwater. Nobody’s allowed in the tunnel itself unless they’re wearing a breathing apparatus – the sewage gas is deadly – but you can get pretty close in its pump room 320 feet below Jones Island.
To reach it, you ride over three minutes down in a rattly industrial elevator that can fit five people shoulder to shoulder. At the bottom is a concrete cavern holding three pumps, each about the size of a big box truck, that propel all that wastewater up to the treatment plants above. It may not be pretty, but the heart of Milwaukee’s wastewater treatment system is the envy of cities across the world. If that elevator breaks down? Well, there are two ladders out, one crisscrossing over the elevator and another going straight up an enormous drop shaft – a harrowing climb for the few who have done it.
Peek Inside: The Rarest Books in Milwaukee
In the Milwaukee Public Library, up the central stairs and around a corner, you’ll find a locked door accessible to only a few staff members. Beyond, you’ll find … another locked door. Only three people have that key. One of them is Timothy Rush, guardian of MPL’s rare book collection. The public is never allowed into this archive, kept behind walls of glass. If Rush even leaves the door open a little too long, an alarm goes off. The two stories of shelves within are lined with 18,000 of the most valuable print materials in the entire city, kept under dim light and at a climate-controlled 68 degrees.
The quiet is eerie even for a library. Stay in there long, and you can almost feel the oil on your fingers secreting dangerously close to the priceless papers. Notable works include A Book of Autographs, a 50-pound 1898 collection of signatures and original artwork, including Mark Twain, Buffalo Bill Cody, John Philip Sousa and Susan B. Anthony; a single Bible page from around 1240; and one of only 100 complete collections of John James Audubon’s The Birds of America. While you’re not allowed inside, you can view any of the rare books, brought out to a browsing area – although for the rarer volumes Rush has to turn the pages for you. Email mplarchives@milwaukee.gov to set up an appointment.
