Tourist Traps

Surprise! Milwaukee is hip now. So reported the Detroit Free Press last summer in an article that had everyone from the mayor to the local media turning cartwheels.

Yet after proclaiming Milwaukee “a magnet” for young people, the article resorted to some played-out picks. Turns out, “twentysomethings looking for fun” should try the same haunts their parents visited 40 years ago: The Safe House and Mader’s. The Food Network’s Rachael Ray agrees. (She’s still fawning over bratwurst-with-rye-points on reruns.)

From Frommer’s to the Chicago Tribune, travel writers can’t seem to resist contrasting dated conceptions of the city with its astounding new identity. The Calatrava is trotted out repeatedly as an antidote to the old beer-and-Harley stereotype – a beacon of culture in a town that was apparently a total wasteland until ever so recently.

The approach isn’t a new one. Consider a 1965 issue of The Plymouth Traveler, a monthly guide put out by Chrysler. There, the editors struggle to reconcile the “electricity of change” in what was then the country’s 10th-largest city with Òthe other Milwaukee: the mythic city of happy villagers dancing in the square, wurst and sauerkraut, of um-pah-pah und bier, beer, beer.” Oh, for the good old days. Now where did we put our dirndls?

Then there’s Jane magazine, which recently scoured five cities for five “types” of guys. “It’s easy to put the knock on Wisconsin’s largest city,” the article concedes to its Ùber-hip readers, “but it’s a perfect destination for those of you who’ve had your fill of angst-ridden, namby-pamby boys.” Who knew that all along we were sitting on a goldmine of “Type No. 1: The ex-frat boy with a heart of gold”? Jane also offers travel tips for the ladies, such as what to wear (“a hoodie and flats”) and how to fit in with the locals (“Buying shots is an easy way to make friends in Milwaukee.”).

Some travel writers, we suspect, skipped the trip to Milwaukee altogether in favor of faulty Internet research and bong hits. The Milwaukee entry in Let’s Go USA 2006, for example, appears stuck somewhere between the late ’80s and never. “The downtown business district becomes desolate at night,” the guide reports, while “downtown restaurants tend to favor traditional [German] menus heavy on the meat and potatoes.”

That would make sense if it weren’t totally inaccurate. You know things are bad when you confuse Downtown’s Japanese, Cuban, Thai, French, Italian and Greek cuisine with German.

After extolling the short-lived and long-defunct International Arts Festival, Let’s Go plugs “Bradley” and Water streets as hubs for “trendy, upscale dining.” Never heard of Bradley Street. Never thought of Water Street as trendy or upscale. But what do we know? We just live here.

And then there’s the delicate issue of how much we like to eat. The Plymouth Traveler is euphoric: “The good burghers here eat considerable quantities of food the local proprietor braces himself when he sees Mama und Papa und the kids park themselves around his table.” Alas, old conceptions die hard. “Of course, in Milwaukee, your next belt-busting meal is probably just around the corner,” a 2003 New York Times story assures readers.

But our favorite moment came when the tables turned, and a reporter cast himself under the microscope. “I swam in my underwear on an empty beach (it beckoned with the force of any sand in the Caribbean),” confesses a writer for the Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune. Too much information, buddy.

But really, they’re not all bad. Lonely Planet singled out the Palm Tavern, genuinely one of the coolest bars in town, for its beer and single-malt scotch selection. The Chicago Tribune drooled over the “gorgeous females in black” working at Tangerine (points off for objectification of women, but unlike Let’s Go, they did manage to find Milwaukee Street). The New York Times dug Beans & Barley, Hi Hat Lounge and a simple walk by the lake.

And maybe we don’t want tourists to discover all our hidden gems anyway. Some secrets are better left for the locals.