PABST BREWERY

After visiting the site of the old Schlitz brewery (see post of 5/6/2013), I paid a visit to Pabst, the other major Milwaukee brewery that closed operations some years ago.

The scene was similar:  many abandoned and deteriorating buildings, many of cream city brick, but with some signs of revitalization.

Here are a few of the former.

And a couple of the latter.

This building was handsomely restored, and I liked how other buildings were being reflected in its windows.  Here is a close up of the main entrance.

One of the financiers important in the revival of this area is Joseph Zilber, and there is a extremely small park that has been created to honor his involvement.

The statues are a bit larger than life-size and nicely rendered.  However, I'm not sure anyone looks good cast in bronze.

The major breweries have generally sported large facilities to store the grain used in making the beer.  Pabst's main grain elevator is still standing, now used primarily as a glorified billboard post, as it sits on the east side of I-43 just north of the downtown area.  I took a few shots of ladder system attached to the poured concrete structure.  This one is looking up.

A little confusing, I'm afraid.

However, behind one of the vacant buildings close by I discovered what I believe are the remains of a much older grain elevator.  This one was built of individual curved clay tiles.  What I liked were the warm natural colors of the tiles and the fact that they had been painted or otherwise coated at various times in the past and that those coatings have been weathering away for what appears to have been a very long time.  Here are a couple of shots.

To give an idea of size, the half-cylinders were perhaps 6-8 feet in diameter.  I have no idea of the cause of the major gash, which is 2-3 inches wide, that is running diagonally across a number of the cylinders.  The space in front of the towers available to get photos was quite limited, so any shots suffered from a perspective problem--the cylinders appeared to be leaning in.  I chose to rectify this issue in post processing.

Here is a closer shot of a few of the cylinders.

Finally, following is another example of a deteriorating wall, situated directly across an alley from the clay tile grain elevator, that had seen some sort of repair at some point in the past.

I liked the texture of the lannon stone blocks as well as the brick patchwork on the right.  This was taken hand-held at a shutter speed of 1/13th second, and a close inspection reveals that there is a hint of camera shake.  Otherwise, I like that the story that the image tells.

John