Are there any houses in the downtown area that are worthy of saving? Or should we just flatten the downtown, kiss the house good-bye and build large zero lot line buildings with no backyards, no trees and no open space? Or are there some individual houses worth saving? Are there some areas of the downtown worth saving? And how do we decide what and when to save a house? Or a neighborhood?
Should this house be torn down?
Or this one?
Or this one?
Do you care what year the houses were built? If it was built in the 1800’s does that change anything? How many houses do you think we have in town that were built in the 1800s? Is an individual house built in the 1800’s worth saving? Are they more worth saving is someone who helped found the city lived there? Does the architecture have to be important? Does it matter when the houses built around it were built?
These are issues facing the Old Market Place Neighborhood, recently renamed the James Madison Park Neighborhood. Cliff Fisher has proposed knocking down the three houses above to build a 35 – 38 unit apartment building with underground parking. The houses are on Butler St. but the underground parking would be accessed from Hancock St. And the building would be built all the way to the end of the lot line on Butler and the underground parking would be under the Hancock St. properties. The building proposed is much better looking than it used to be, it fits in better with the neighborhood than the original proposal, but what is to become of this neighborhood? Is it to be flattened to make way for height and density? Or is there something worth saving? Consider these buildings and the other buildings on this block:
Picture 1 – 119 N Butler – Built in 1894
Picture 2 – 123 N Butler – Built in 1937 – Katherine P Regan House – Designed by Ed Tough
Picture 3 – 125 N Butler – Built in 1874
Based on some research I did several years ago, the other houses on this block include:
103 N Butler – Built in 1854 – Hiram G and Annette Dodge House
129 N Butler – Built in 1900 – Chester W and Hortense Constantine House – It’s a Claude and Starck
133 N Butler – Built in 1897 – William W Herrington Apartment
141 N Butler – Built in 1900 – William J and Emma Teckmeyer House – Also a Claude and Stark
(I used to live here.)
145 N Butler – Built in 1887 – Berger Olson House
149 N Butler – Built in 1909 – Charles L Pryor House
305 E Johnson – Built in 1892 – William J and Elizabeth Oakey Residence
317 E Johnson – Built in 1891 – A.N. Fjeld
319 E Johnson – Built in 1891 – Andrew & Karen Fjeld Residence
323 E Johnson – Built in 1914 – R.A. Fjeld
310 E Mifflin – Built in 1926 – A. J. McCann Apartment Building – Designed by M.P. Schneider
314 E Mifflin – Built in 1857 – A.H. Campbell House
318 E Mifflin – Built in 1854 – A Noyes House
322 E Mifflin – Built in 1900 – Anton Hebel House
Houses across N Butler St. and to the west include:
128 N Butler – Built in 1904 – George W and Lydia Kindschi
130 N Butler – Built in 1916 – George Kindschi residence
134 N Butler – Built in 1913 – Sophie and Frank Fleckenstein Jr
136 N Butler – Built in 1909 – Mary Roland House
140 N Butler – Built in 1886 – Henry B and Sarah French residence
203 N Hamilton- Built in 1857 – George Paine Residence
205-207 N Hamilton – Built in 1894 – Meyer Roberman residence
213 N Hamilton – Built in 1909 – Wayne Apartment Building
217 N Hamilton – Built in 1853 – E. J. Oakley residence
Houses one block to the east include:
107 N Hancock – Built in 1899 – Ole Knutson
125 N Hancock – Built in 1899 – James H Cummings
133 N Hancock – Built in 1900 –
139 N Hancock – Built in 1869 – Luke Gilligan House
143 N Hancock – Built in 1892 – Chris and Caroline Jaeger Residence
402 E Mifflin – Built in 1922 – Gloria Dei Church, Swedish Lutheran
Houses two blocks to the east include:
101 N Franklin – Built in 1857 – William F Reiche residence
111 N Franklin – Built in 1850 – George Baker House
119 N Franklin – Built in 1899 – George H and Dagmar Ambrecht residence
129 N Franklin – Built in 1890 –
(I also used to live here.)
153 N Franklin – Built in 1887 – JJ Van Keulen house
515 E Johnson – Built in 1877 – JJ Van Kenlen/Patrick & Bridget Conlin House
216 – 218 N Blair – Built in 1911 – Elizabeth McCormick Duplex
516 E Mifflin – Built in 1919 – A.L. Weaver Commercial Building
Houses on the three blocks to the north include:
301 N Hamilton – Built in 1893 – Christiah F Rinder Grocery
303 – 309 N Hamilton – Built in 1904 – W. J. Oakey Apt Building
321 N Hamilton – J A Stein House
308 N Hancock – Built in 1890 – J A Steinle House
310 N Hancock – Built in 1897 – Samuel Todd Residence
324 E Johnson – Built in 1867 – William Manning House
506 E Johnson – Built in 1872
512 E Johnson – Built in 1872
518 E Johnson – Built in 1877 – John Leyden House
308 N Blair -Built in 1877 – RR Smith House
312 N Blair – Built in 1886 – Alfred Smith House
316 N Blair – Built in 1885 – Al Smith House
Of the 139 houses in this area, 69 are listed in the Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory. And there are another 33 on the 5 blocks to the south between E Mifflin and E Washington.
Is none of this worth saving? Is any of it worth saving? If the individual homes are not worth saving, are they worth saving because it is a group of buildings and an intact neighborhood? Or must we get rid of it all in the name of progress? Is some history of Madison worth preserving?
