Our VOICES are a way to unite communities by sharing experiences about water and the natural systems that support our lives.
C: Melvina Park Voices
In 2022 WaterMarks interviewed neighbors who shared their perspectives on the past, present, and future of Melvina Park.
L: Lindsay Heights Voices
In 2022 WaterMarks interviewed neighbors about their relationship to water, community, and Lindsay Heights.
H: Beerline Trail (Riverwest/Harambee) Voices
In 2022 WaterMarks interviewed people along the Beerline Trail about their stories, their relationship to water, and their hope for the future.
G: Green Tech Station Voices
In summer 2021, stakeholders assembled to celebrate the opening of Green Tech Station, a unique green infrastructure research and demonstration site on Milwaukee’s northwest side. Nonprofit and civic partners, artists, educators, high school interns, young adults, undergraduate researchers, and green infrastructure experts shared their voices to illuminate different facets of this community space.
Greenfield Avenue
If we consider E. Greenfield Avenue a transect cutting across the different ways water is part of our lives, moving from Second Street down to the harbor’s edge itself, we can imagine that water, sometimes visibly and sometimes invisibly, touches the ways we work (M), live (V), learn (S), and play (H).
Technology made by Rockwell Automation engineers invisibly allows our society’s systems to work with water—ranging from ice rinks to sewage treatment. Green infrastructure like bioswales along city streets make visible the effort to capture and absorb stormwater, reducing flood risk and injecting plants into the asphalt scene. Inside the shiny blue building that houses the UW-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences, students and researchers are exploring frontiers of water health, the Great Lakes—and other fields like aquaculture, microbiology, and even economics. People of all walks of life enjoy contact with the water, including at Harbor View Plaza, which reminds us why Milwaukee exists as a gathering place by the waters.
M @ Rockwell Automation
V @ Greenfield Avenue
S @ School of Freshwater Sciences
H @ Harbor View Plaza
Ñ: Kinnickinnic River
In spring 2019, neighbors of the densely populated, ethnically diverse, and culturally rich neighborhood which surrounds the Kinnickinnic River shared their sense of pride in the positive changes tied to a transformed river and a beautified Pulaski Park. Reflo’s Michael Timm interviewed members of the KK River Neighbors in Action community group, including Linda Hope, Esperanza Gutierrez, and Marisela Martin. They shared memories, hopes, fears, and their perspective about the relationship between people and the river that flows through Wisconsin’s most impervious watershed. Below are three thematic vignettes from these conversations.
Videos by Michael Timm
A: UCC Acosta
Ms. Shannon Olson's students at UCC Acosta Middle School interviewed family members to discover and share how water connects and enriches our lives. Below enjoy six interviews from spring 2018.