Dennis Walton remembers swimming in the new Calvin Moody indoor pool in the dead of winter.
Built in 1978, the 54,000-square-foot complex was a year-round gathering spot in what was then called Franklin Heights, on Milwaukee’s north side.
“It had a music system built into the pool so you could listen to the music underwater,” recalls Walton, 42, a lifelong resident of the neighborhood. “Beethoven. The local radio station. Everything.”
The pool was surrounded by middle-class bungalows and duplexes, all within walking distance of well over 10,000 manufacturing jobs. Walton’s parents belonged to an African-American community that found in Milwaukee a promised land of entry level opportunity. His mother worked at a meatpacking house, his father at the giant Pabst Brewing Co.
[For more of this story, written by John Schmid, go to http://projects.jsonline.com/n...st-neighborhood.html]
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