Property Record
2400 BLOCK OF N LINCOLN MEMORIAL DRIVE - BRADFOR BEACH - LAKE MICHIGAN PARKWAY N
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Bradford Beach Bathhouse |
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| Other Name: | Bradford Beach Pavilion |
| Contributing: | Yes |
| Reference Number: | 100425 |
| Location (Address): | 2400 BLOCK OF N LINCOLN MEMORIAL DRIVE - BRADFOR BEACH - LAKE MICHIGAN PARKWAY N |
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| County: | Milwaukee |
| City: | Milwaukee |
| Township/Village: | |
| Unincorporated Community: | |
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| Year Built: | 1949 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 2011 |
| Historic Use: | pavilion |
| Architectural Style: | Art/Streamline Moderne |
| Structural System: | Unknown |
| Wall Material: | Brick |
| Architect: | Grunwald and Behrens |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| National Register Listing Date: | |
| State Register Listing Date: |
| Additional Information: | Shaped like a ship, this pavilion seems ideally suited to its location on a popular swimming beach. The city built the bathhouse to provide restroom, changing, and bathing facilities. Architects Grunwald and Behrens decked out the two-story, brick and concrete structure with maritime motifs. The upper story opens onto a ship-like promenade deck. The enclosed lower story resembles a ship’s hull, perforated only by doors and glass-block ribbon windows. A curving prow forms the front of the pavilion, and a flagpole rises like a mast. A long, rail-enclosed sundeck trails off to the stern, its twisting staircase descending to the beach. Before the 1920s this site lay beneath Lake Michigan. In the late 1920s, city crews began to fill the Milwaukee lakeshore out from the lakefront bluffs for Lincoln Memorial Drive. The outer part became Bradford Beach and the Milwaukee’s other sandy beaches. 2011- Appearance unchanged from 1990. The pedestrian bridge over Lincoln Memorial Drive in c.1951, wrapped around the east elevation. A concrete deck was constructed on the second story with a concrete staircase providing access to the beach on the north elevation. The handrail around the pavilion was altered at this time. Date of construction from the Milwaukee County database. 1990- Original entry. |
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| Bibliographic References: | Buildings of Wisconsin manuscript. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |