It’s a common theme in literature and film: a person journeys back to their childhood home only to discover that it’s so much smaller than they remembered. Mostly this is simply a matter of the person having grown since childhood, but it also reveals something about memory and perspective.

Well, your childhood home remains in the family thanks to your brother, Jimmy, who bought it from Dad not so long ago, which means you still get to visit the place from time to time. And, sure enough, it does seem impossibly tiny when placed alongside your memories. The entire neighborhood seems to have shrunk as well. In this sense, at least, the expression is true: you can’t go home again. Not to the home you remember. But sometimes, the home you thought you remembered is actually bigger.

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For the last several years you’ve been working on the biggest art project of your life: a suite of serigraph prints commemorating the Milwaukee of your boyhood—a memoir by design, as it were. Prior to this year, 1992, you’ve completed seven of a projected twenty prints, and the reception has been encouraging. You’ve done tributes to the Wisconsin Gas Weather Flame, The Milwaukee Clipper, Borchert Field, Nash Automobiles, Marquette University football, The Milwaukee Road Depot and the North Shore Line. Because all except the Weather Flame have passed into history you’ve had to do some digging for reference material, and this research component has been a particularly stimulating part of the process. It has meant hours sifting through records and photos at the Public Library, the County Historical Society, and the historical archives of both UWM and Marquette universities. You even tracked down someone who owned the precise model of Nash you were looking for and drove about 400 miles just to take the necessary photographs. But here’s the interesting thing. You’ve journeyed back to the days of your boyhood and discovered that the Milwaukee of the 1950s was even bigger than you remembered! In fact, as you look at the photos of downtown Milwaukee from the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, the city looks bigger and more vital than it does right now in the 1990s. You’ve been wondering lately how this could possibly be, haven’t you? I mean there are certainly taller buildings now than there were back then, and more are going up every day. The Milwaukee of your distant childhood should look puny, but somehow, this is simply not the case. With apologies to Bob Dylan, you are tempted to say that: “Milwaukee was so much bigger then. It’s smaller than that now.” And not long ago, you realized why that was.

The Streetcars!

That’s what separates the big guys from the pretenders, a dynamic public transportation system, but most importantly the streetcars. Streetcars move people, of course, but they also give a city personality and charm. You felt it when you traveled to New Orleans and rode the Streetcar Named Desire. And you felt it in San Francisco when you rode the Cable Cars, which are really just streetcars with an alternative form of locomotion. You’ve been to other American cities that have kept at least one streetcar line operating perhaps as a tribute to the city’s past, or maybe to maintain their Big League status, and you felt it in those places too. You also feel it every time you look at those beautiful old black and white photos of downtown Milwaukee and see those wonderful streetcars.

The streetcars of Milwaukee stopped serving the city in 1958 when you were only 7 and, while you did have the opportunity to ride them once or twice, your memory of them is hazy. You remember seeing them during excursions to downtown Milwaukee more than you do actually riding them, but you remember some of the rides too. You remember the wicker seat backs, and the “clang, clang, clang” that would distinguish the streetcar experience from, say, a ride on a bus or a ‘trackless trolley.’ You remember thinking, “So this is what it means to be in the city.”

I know you’ve intended to include the streetcars in your series all along, but lately you seem a bit obsessed with the idea, and that’s ok. Heck, just go for it! I know there’s an airport print you want to do, and the one about Muskego Beach. I also know you’re anxious to do one with that gorgeous Chicago & Northwestern Depot and clock tower on the lakefront. And you will, trust me. In fact, you’ll do all of them plus one or two more this year. So, go ahead, move the streetcars up in the rotation. Oh, and when you do I’ve got a suggestion for you. Remember that little artistic temper tantrum you threw a while back about the whole Jaywalking thing? Anyway, look at your reference photos of the streetcars. Those things were plastered with advertisements and public service announcements, right? Maybe you could place a PSA on your streetcar, one that warns passengers and pedestrians of the peril that is jaywalking. I don’t know. Just a thought.

The Streetcars of Milwaukee   1992   John T. McCarthy, Jr.   8-color silkscreen

Note to those of us who reside in the future. Here is a link providing information on Milwaukee’s New—21st Century—Streetcar initiative: http://www.themilwaukeestreetcar.com/news/latest-news.php