Mayor Tom Barrett will be on hand Thursday afternoon as the City of Milwaukee celebrates its 104th annual Christmas tree lighting at City Hall, 200 E. Wells St.
The celebration is now the second-oldest celebration of its kind in the United States after New York City’s.
The event kicks off at 5 p.m. and the Lincoln Center of the Arts Ambassador Choir performs at 5:15. The official program begins at 5:30.
This year’s City of Milwaukee Christmas tree is a 32-foot Colorado Blue Spruce that was donated by 8th Aldermanic District residents Thomas Scannell and Elizabeth Hipp. The tree was harvested from their home on South 26th Street on Nov. 1. It was then escorted by Milwaukee Police to City Hall, where it was place in a planter.
Department of Public Works staff decorated the tree with more than 5,000 lights and 200 ornaments.
BMO Harris groundbreaking
Earlier in the day, BMO Harris Bank broke ground on the new 25-story tower that will replace its parking structure on the southeast corner of Water and Wells Streets.
The 379,400-square foot tower – with a nearly 650-car parking lot – will be home to BMO's own local offices as well as those of law firm Michael, Best & Friedrich LLP when it is completed at the end of 2019.
Once BMO moves next door, its current home at 770 N. Water St., built in 1968, will be redeveloped into a mixed-use building that could include residential uses, hospitality and what developer Irgens calls "creative office."
The contractor on the building project is JH Findorff & Son; the architect is Kahler Slater.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
