The Time Spends Like Water

This is a poem written after a brief but meaningful conversation in the lobby lounge. I never asked the gentleman’s name, it seemed silly after discussing important life conclusions; regressive somehow. It would have been like asking for steak sauce at Mason Street Grill.

My wife and I were able

to travel the world.

All those years

my colleagues

missed t-ball games,

and watched sunsets

through office window blinds.

We were in our 30′s, then our 40′s

- just starting out

and I urged them not to wait til 65, or 70

while we…

Meeting "The Captive"

One morning I was having breakfast in the lobby lounge and ended up speaking with a young lady. She was enjoying a Healthy Start Frittata and I’d ordered my favorite, The Vegetable Omelet. This young woman’s name was Jessica and we spoke about many things including art, cuisine, travel, music. Most of the topics you hope a new acquaintance will be able to discuss at length. Eventually we got to the topic of relationships and Jessica told me a story about a preposterous first date she had recently gone on. One might say say her experience was uncannily…

Details, in photographs

So much of the Pfister Hotel is about details. See if you can pick out where I took some of these photos. A cheat list is included at the end. Happy Hunting!

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Take your grandmother out for Afternoon Tea

Last weekend my grandma and I decided to go out for afternoon tea. I don’t believe anyone’s ever taken tea with my grandmother, aside from a bag she dropped in a mug above her stove. When my mom called to remind her, my grandma asked what she should wear for such an occasion, what is appropriate attire for tea? “We didn’t go out for tea when I was a girl. Am I supposed to wear her long white gloves? I would if I had them.” Fear not, we found that beautiful silver can be placed in front…

A brief history of Spring Street, Grand Avenue, Wisconsin Avenue

The Pfister Hotel is located on Wisconsin Avenue and sandwiched between Jefferson, Milwaukee, and Mason Streets. 424 East Wisconsin Avenue to be exact. That may seem like a simple enough fact; Wisconsin Avenue is a main street through the heart of downtown Milwaukee, a city not coincidentally located in the state of Wisconsin. However the history of Wisconsin Avenue is not as simple as one might guess. It’s actually a tale of Spring Street and Grand Avenue. To understand the story we actually have to delve into a tale of two cities. (Technically three considering George Walker and Walker…

My favorite lady lives on the 2nd floor

My mother has always had portraits of women around the house. Her taste for paintings and sculpture spans the 1870′s up to early art deco. Overall she’d probably list Monet as her favorite painter. I grew up with these ladies hanging around so they’ve probably influenced which variety of painted ladies I find attractive and prefer to have in my walled company. I’m sure Freud would have plenty to say…

The art collection encompassed in the Pfister is the world’s largest hotel art collection on permanent display. Given that the hotel was initially completed in…

The Good Life in Blu (is a cocktail too)

Last night I was able to listen to a concert with pianist Dr. Jeffrey Hollander. The good doctor plays every first Thursday of the month on the 23rd floor at Blu, the cocktail lounge which looks east over Lake Michigan. Patrons sat at tables which radiated from the piano. Couples sat close to one another in a piano-dangled warm quiet until the last few songs, at which point I began looking for a singer who appeared to my ears from of the middle of nowhere. I looked around the room to find someone now accompanying the piano. I then…

Your City Through Visiting Eyes- "Absolutely Gobsmacked!"

The other night I was sitting in the lobby lounge editing photographs on my computer. Something a bar patron said caught my ear and made me laugh. I don’t remember what exactly he said, but the gentleman’s tone and volume invited anybody within earshot to join. Hearing my chuckle he turned around, delighted that another was entertained by his observation. As he approached my table with a glass of beer in hand I closed the screen on my laptop and returned the machine to it’s case.

Wayne was this fellow’s name and he was in…

Holiday Season Begins

Last year I took a seasonal job selling Christmas trees in Florida. Why Christmas trees? Why Florida? Because it’s seasonal and the job is over soon. It’s nice to spend a month in the warmth. They paid for my travel, a house we shared on the beach, and all my meals while in the FLA. There exist customers who are glad to pay healthy prices to take their time selecting a special tree. They also enjoy that healthy Wisconsin farm boys, for a fee, deliver their chosen tree to their house and set it up. (Wherever, however, turn…

Generations of Serendipity Swirl Through the Pfister

It’s not every day a person informs you the place you work probably had a hand in their family escaping the Holocaust.

This past weekend the Pfister was blessed to host the wedding of Mr. Wiley Norden and Ms. Marissa Mullen. Marissa recently followed her career to Chicago but left her heart in Milwaukee. With the man willing she decided not only to marry in Milwaukee but wanted their big day to contain components specific to the city. Area beer, wines, and cheeses were par for their course and Marissa wanted them to be encompassed within a prominent Milwaukee…

The Unexpectedness of Travel

One can plan all the details of a trip but one can never plan the end result. I spoke with this fella in the Pfister’s Lobby Lounge. His name is Joon and he’s a Chicago native who moonlighted in Milwaukee before moving back home to th’Windy.

This past summer Joon was able to travel all over Europe including a stop in Denmark. Once  in Copenhagen with a friend they roamed around the city, finding the Copenhagen they’d always heard about. But they also stumbled into the Copenhagen where drug dealers protect their turf regardless of how…

Veterans Day at the Pfister

This past Saturday I asked Pfister Chef Concierge Peter Mortensen (found out chef translates to “chief,” and not strictly the cuisine variety. Yep, I asked.) to grant me a tour of a few rooms and unique suites. The Pfister is actually two buildings, the initial 1893 Wisconsin Avenue building and the 1960′s tower addition which stretches the hotel to Mason Street. I wanted to get a feel for the subtleties of each. Saturday morning there was time prior to check-in so Peter and myself raced around the two buildings. Just in case…Knock knock knock. Knock knock. “Good…

The Pfister Hotel and Johnson Controls grew up together

Did you know the first building to (ever!) have temperature controls in each room was the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin? During the Industrial Revolution Johnson Controls and the Pfister Hotel grew up like two kids on the same block. Both also grew to garner international recognition in their chosen fields. I met with Johnson Controls Head Archivist Ken Wirth to hear their intertwined stories.

We couldn’t leave the guest of honor out of the conversation, so Ken and I talked over coffee in the hotel’s lobby lounge. This interview originally aired November 1st, 2011 on 89.7…

Our Quaint Spirits

A 1yr-old tiger cub is racing around the lobby.  He bounds and leaps down the main hallway, creeps by the lobby tables and pounces on the stair steps.  With his muted “Rawwwwrrr,” he terrorizes the guests – terrorizes them with his cuteness.

It’s Halloween and this adorable nipper is certainly getting in the spirit of the holiday.  While ghouls, witches, and zombies prowl the streets outside, the Pfister remains ghost-free.

Or does it?

Of the millions of people who pass beneath the red canopy and through the revolving doors on Jefferson Street, a few are bound to haunt…

The Fuel of Magnificence

“When I first decided to be a professional artist, I wanted that fishbowl experience, so I got a storefront studio,” Reggie says.

“It’s not intimidating to discover an artist in public space,” adds Caitlin.

A group of us are seated in the Lobby Lounge, discussing the two residency programs the Pfister has developed for art and writing.  As the current artist-in-residence, Shelby Keefe, is out of town, the inaugural AIR, Reginald Baylor, joins us instead – along with his business partner Heidi Witz.  One of the managers, Jessica, is also taking part in the conversation, at the head…

Words in Blu

An artist, a summer camp director, a theatre operations manager, a board member, and two poets walk into a bar.  There is no punchline, this is something that happened a few weeks ago.

“Hello sir,” the bartender greets them as they arrive, setting a napkin on the bar, “what can I get you to drink?  Do you need to see a menu?”

The menu is taken by all, perused slowly – considering all the flavorful options.  The bartender offers to “whip something up on the spot, we’ll just charge you by the ounce.”  Tonight, charging by the ounce would go…

Letter to a New Narrator

As the proverbial pen is about to passed to the next Pfister Narrator, recently chosen through hours and hours of deliberation by a committee of writers, editors, marketers and businessfolk, and soon to be announced, I wanted to pass the pen not only to my successor, but also extend it to those who didn’t get selected or who have yet to apply.
Dear New Narrator,

So it begins: your quest to write about the people, events, and moments that occur within the historic Pfister Hotel.  Where else can you walk the same floors tread by every U.S. President…

Not Everyone has a Story

And sometimes not having a story is the story.

Let me give you an example.

Today was a day so busy – everyone moving to or from something, and even the gathered groups in waiting are in stasis, with any outsider’s approach treated as an interruption – that the person most eager to chat is on his way into the men’s room, pausing briefly as he views me scribbling with a pen, to ask, laughing, “You taking a survey?”

Among all the sparkling movement of scarves and high heels, suits and even a kilt, there was one spot of stillness…

A Knock at the Door

Knocking once, Blake calmly sings out, “Rooooom ser-vice.”

Silence.  Through the door, we can hear the sound of a television.  Blake raises his hand slightly, the one that isn’t balancing a tray, considers knocking again when a voice comes from within, “Just a minute.”

The door opens.  “Evening Ms. ——, how are you?”

One hand on the door handle, the other removing an earring, she replies, “tired, and very hungry.  I’m so happy to see you,” moving aside to allow entrance.

A moment later, he reappears, backing up and closing the door behind him as he grants the…

Finding Your Roots in Milwaukee

Joe, the newest addition to the lobby bartending staff, is standing behind the green marble countertop, polishing a glass; his black pants, stiff white tuxedo shirt and black vest with gold-threaded “ThePfister” monogram crisp in its newness.  “I just had the best calamari in the city,” he says, “at Umami Moto.”

The female half of a couple, seated nearby, jumps in, “We’re from Seattle, we can’t do sushi anywhere else.  Where does it come from out here?”

Joe, with his earnest smile, ever striving for perfection, giving his all to this new position (previously he was a…

Clap, Clap, Clap-Clap-Clap

Milwaukee is hot with Brewers fever right now. Skyscrapers have windows lit up in a pattern that reads “GO MB!” and the scrolling signs on the fronts of the city buses stream route numbers alternating with “Go Milwaukee Brewers!” Sculptured sheep that graze peacefully in empty storefronts now wear team garments.

One night last week in the lobby bar, Jeffrey was playing his airy, light beautiful tunes while on the TV in the corner, Corey Hart silently hit a home run, cheered on by more than 40,000 mute fans on their feet in Miller Park. Bernie launched himself at…

Dinner for Books

“Life is a bunch of crazy!” interjects the young man seated across from me at a table in one of the back rooms of Mason Street Grill, as he shakes his head with slow acceptance of this fact.  Nate, 14, is the son of one of the dinner guests, herself the long-lost childhood friend of the guest of honor, Lisa McMann.  Lisa’s other guests are all fairly nondescript, which is not a surprise once you find out they’re all booksellers or librarians.  Book people aren’t known for their flamboyance, but they certainly get animated when you…

Faith, Family and Friends

This Sunday, thousands of women who were breast cancer survivors and fighters, along with their friends, families and supporters, gathered in the rain at the lakefront for the annual Susan G. Komen race for the cure.  Somewhere in that crowd were some folks likely staying the night in one of the InterContinental Hotel’s Pink Rooms.

Just last Thursday, only a few days before the race, a large crowd gathered in the lobby of the InterContinental (a sister hotel to the Pfister, in the Marcus Hotels family) to celebrate the one year anniversary of the Pink Rooms.  Servers circled around…

Relakin

In Colorado, you have “relatives” and in Kentucky you have “kin.”  So what happens when a group of people from both states work together and play together so often they consider each other family?  Well, the Colorado folk now have kin, and the Kentucky folk now have relatives!  And what happens when you get adopted by this affectionately slapdash family?  You become “rela-kin.”  Or, at least this is what I learned late one night last week in the lobby lounge.

At the end of a long day that consisted of 8 hours of my day (sometimes night) job, followed…

The Turk's Head

Jimmy McManus sits at a table in the lobby bar, having a beer.  He’s heavily bearded, gruff and scruffy, in a t-shirt featuring a skull & crossbones, drinking a nice pint of beer.  His appearance indicate you might not want to run into him in a dark alley, but he has the biggest, friendliest smile on his face.  Jimmy is a regular visitor to the Pfister, but only for beer because his home, at least for the summer and early Fall, is the S/V Denis Sullivan, the world’s only re-creation of a 19th century three…