All of life went through the city's `old red lady'

Built in 1889 of red brick and granite, the Chicago and North Western depot stood on East Wisconsin Ave., a part of Milwaukee's lakefront and skyline, until it was demolished in April 1968.

THERE SHE IS! I steal a glimpse of her as the office personnel director and I go over company rules and policies. Would he understand my prime motivation for accepting his job offer? Could I explain to anyone my need for an unobstructed view of a decaying building, occupied only by black bats, black birds and black bugs?

As I ponder the depth of my love for her, I hear again the synthesized mix of the trills and gutturals of a zoo aviary the drop forge pounding of wheels meeting rails all eclipsed by the penetrating wail of the whistles, sounding their salute to the life going through.

Trolley buses huddle up close to the old red lady, as passengers rus h down her cold, gray concrete stairs to be embraced by her charms. It's the newsstand that always beckons me. The pink and blue plastic ducks filled with baking soda, bobbing on the stand's countertop, mimic the feathered ducks paddling by on the lake outside.

The newsstand's daisy-yellow light bulbs flash on and off, begging me to enter a world of boxed dolls and wind-up toys, of cigarettes and candy bars. The eye-watering smell of burned bacon and eggs mixes with yesterday's cigar smoke, still lingering in the air.

Oh, how I wish the quarter Daddy pressed into my hand would buy me the blue-plate special. I peer through the doors of the restaurant. The chubby waitress is teasing her customers. The dull beige crockery coffee cups lift in unison as she wields two heavy coffee pots above her captive audience's heads. Winking to herself, she fills neither, turning instead to catch the burned toast springing up behind her.

I continue my watch, seated regally in an elegant chamber of glass the pay phone booth. Dialing Mama, I tell her I've arrived. The bus ride was fine. Not that Mama ever really worries. Safety was never an issue when I was growing up.

" `Bout an hour more." Daddy works the swing shift. This means working all the weekends and holidays and doing whatever that day's shift would bring. Daddy's calling the trains today: "Oshkosh, Appleton, Green Bay, boarding at Gate 2." Daddy's commanding voice, booming over the loudspeaker, has everyone grabbing suitcases and smoothing shirts and skirts.

A last-minute dash to the newsstand and I am all alone. It's time for me to play my travel game. The Little Lulu comic book I've purchased with my quarter becomes my travel atlas. I am not sitting on this black wear-varnished bench. I apologize to the sleeping spider curled next to me beneath the rumpled classified ads. But only by rubbing my fingers back and forth over the pit marks and scratches of the bench seat can I tap into the magic. Within seconds, I, too, am boarding that train. (I've never ridden on a train). But I know exactly how to enjoy fine dining and sleep in a berth. I press my nose against the clouded window. It's the mountains the same mountain peak pictured on the calendar page that's trying hopelessly to hide the gaping cracks in the slate gray wall above my head.

" C'mon! Now!" Daddy's voice stops my trek up the mountainside. "Gotta finish up in the Baggage Room and we can go." I follow Daddy across the concourse to the tracks. The crashing of the wheels as the silver streamliner pulls away leaves my ribs doing the rumba. I hold tight to Daddy's hand. Up more steps. Oooooh, we're heading for the clock tower. I'm Rapunzel. I try to shake my 6-inch-long hair down as far as it will go.

"See, the cars and people look like ants!" Daddy's so happy to share the view with me. But, I'm too busy trying on my glass slippers and dancing with princes to answer him. Down to the Baggage Room. A coffin is being loaded onboard. Daddy helps push it on. Wiping his brow with his red and white polka- dot work hanky, Daddy heads me out the door. "Seems ain't nothin' doesn't come through here," Daddy whispers. "Had boxes of baby chicks this morning. Ya see it all all o' life, jus' goin' through."

Suddenly, as if someone had pulled the emergency stop, nothing was allowed to "go through" the red lady any more not a train, not a passenger, not my Daddy, not me. The railroads combined jobs were lost. A new, modern depot would show her a thing or two. Cities did not need magic back then. Cities needed efficiency and progress. Cities did not need old, tired, red-towered ladies.

Soon, she is just a source of scorn. Sticks and stones are thrown through her dirt-spotted windows. And as I walk over to give her chipping bricks a massage, I see the boarded signs: They're tearing her down. The pigeons, holding a sidewalk meeting, are startled by my hoarse cry.

As I watch through my lakeside window, the wrecking ball sends her red dust up, past my eyes. Her clock tower falls away to the ground, freezing time and stopping forever all the life going through.

Copyright 1995
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.