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In advance of the 2025 Catalano Beer Mixer, enjoy this history of Catalano Square, where the event will be held on Sept. 27.
While playgrounds and parks dot the Third Ward, Catalano Square is the neighborhood’s highest-profile green space. The centrally located triangle at the foot of Broadway hosts live music, a popcorn cart, public art and more.
It also pays tribute to an influential family from the days when the Third Ward was Milwaukee’s Little Italy.
Who were the Catalanos?
“The Catalanos were the Italian family that helped to create the neighborhood,” says Gary Catalano, great-grandson of Vincenzo Catalano.
Vincenzo and his four brothers – Mariano, Vincenzo, Agostino, Giovanni Battista and Antonio – were born in Sicily and traveled to Chicago in the 1880s. Having heard of opportunities in Milwaukee, they hopped a train.
Once here, the story goes, they saw a produce boat being unloaded and offered to help. After they were allowed to take produce that had fallen, they returned to the train station and sold it to arriving passengers. With the proceeds, they bought more and it wasn’t long before the Catalanos were the city’s largest produce wholesaler, with a building on Broadway’s Commission Row.
The produce business, founded in 1884, still exists today.
After the 1892 Third Ward fire, when Italians began to settle the once heavily Irish neighborhood in larger numbers, the Catalanos were already there.
By 1910, the family business had grown into the the biggest wholesale produce distributor in Southeast Wisconsin.
“A lot of parks are named after people,” says Gary Catalano, “and there is a reason for it. When the square went up in 1984, after the Catalanos were in Milwaukee for 100 years, they asked my dad, Vincent, to do the speech because he was one of the oldest surviving Italians. It was earned.”
An evolving space
The square has evolved over time. Initially, the street grid overlaid this southern part of the Ward.
The 1894 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows a couple saloons and a couple dwellings – along with with one building in the southeast corner described as "badly damaged by fire. Partly unroofed" – on what would become Catalano Square. Perhaps the latter was a remnant of the fire of two years earlier.
The 1910 map shows a wagon painting business and a couple attached retail buildings along Menomonee Street and a couple dwellings and a saloon along Erie Street, with the rest of the site – as in 1894 – seemingly vacant.
In 1929, the short Young Street was carved through at an angle, connecting Milwaukee Street to the north end of the Pittsburgh Avenue Bridge.
In 1992, the small patch was enlarged as part of a streetscaping project along Broadway that closed the street between Erie and Menomonee Streets.
Changes have continued over the years.
An urban amphitheater and the adjacent Dragotta Fountain were constructed, the latter honoring Frank Dragotta’s family, which operated Dragg’s Bar on the square for nearly a half-century.
The old Dragg’s building has a plaque commemorating the Caradaro Club, birthplace of pizza in Milwaukee, which stood across the street, but was razed in 1979 after a fire.
A sculpture called Pink Planet, by Richard Edelman was added in 2013.
One of the old streetcar shelters that long perched atop the 16th Street Viaduct has also found a home in the square.
The two buildings on the square are home to loft apartments, Milworks Men’s Goods shop and the office of lawyer Jay Urban, a Third Ward resident.
“Anytime you have a lot of density of people then green spaces for all to interact are a huge benefit to community, and it was definitely the right idea to close the street to make it,” says Urban.
“It has such promise due to the location and the growing resurgence of the neighborhood. The Christmas tree festivities, the music series, random picnics and weddings, and MSOE projects are heartwarming.”
In summer, the free Ayre in the Square concert series is held on Saturdays and when in the dark of winter, Christmas in the Ward illuminates the neighborhood holiday tree in the square.
In 2023, a seasonal beer garden was added to Catalano Square.
A source of pride
“When people hear my last name, they ask about Catalano Square,” says Gary’s daughter, Kristin Catalano. “It make(s) me feel a little famous, I suppose. It's quite an honor, but more so a remembrance and a reminder of how hard the Catalano family worked to make their mark on Milwaukee.”
The square – which is a central feature of what is once again a heavily residential neighborhood – is a reminder of when families called the Third Ward home and children played there before urban renewal wiped out their houses. While it bears the name of just one of those families, Catalano Square is also a tribute to all those hardworking Italian-American families.
But the hundreds of descendants of the five Catalano brothers can take a little extra pride.
“Instead of just letting everything go, where nothing is remembered, it will be a part of Milwaukee forever,” says Gary Catalano. “It's wonderful.”
NOTE: This article first appeared in THREE, a Third Ward magazine, which you can view online here. Learn more about Third Ward events and news in the email newsletter.
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. A fifth collects Urban Spelunking articles about breweries and maltsters.
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 been heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
