The neighborhoods of Milwaukee are mostly unofficial designations of parts of Wisconsin's largest city. There is no consensus definition of which parts of the city fall into which neighborhoods.
In 1990, the Neighborhood Identification Project set boundaries and names for 75 areas of the city. Prior to that, neighborhood names were not official and many areas had no names, official or otherwise.
North Side
Arlington Heights
Arlington Heights is a neighborhood on Milwaukee's north side. It is bordered by Capitol Drive to the north, I-43 to the east, Keefe Avenue to the south and 20th Street to the west. It is home to Lindbergh Park, an elementary school, a middle school, and a Lutheran grade school. Union Cemetery is located at the far southwest corner of the neighborhood.
Brewers' Hill
Brewers' Hill is a neighborhood north of downtown on the Milwaukee River. The neighborhood is bordered by North Avenue to the north, the Milwaukee River and Holton Avenue to the east, Pleasant Street to the south, and Dr Martin Luther King Jr Drive to the west.
The name Brewers' Hill (formerly "Uihlein Hill") is derived from the large number of brewery workers and owners who once inhabited the area. Just to the south of the neighborhood, the Schlitz and Blatz breweries once operated. It is a mixed neighborhood where a laborer's cottage could stand across the street from a manager's stylish house.
Neighborhood lore suggests baseball hall of famer, Hank Aaron, resided in Brewer's Hill during his time with the Milwaukee Braves.
Brewers' Hill contains an architectural mix of Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne (including Stick-style), and Colonial Revival buildings dating from the 1850s to the 1920s.Brief History of Brewers' Hill: A New Look At An Old Community.- brewershill.org The neighborhood has undergone gentrification, with former factories converted into businesses and condominiums. Part of the neighborhood, the Brewers' Hill Historic District, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, comprising 130 structures built from 1855 to 1929, including: The Fitch house at 1825 N. 2nd St. is a rather simple 2-story brick cube with Italianate styling built in 1859. This was the home of Baron Von Cotzhausen, a descendant of Prussian nobility who lived there from 1863 to 1868, practicing law in Milwaukee. With The house at 102 W. Vine St. is a 2-story frame house in Italianate style with a Gothic Revival emphasis on the vertical, built in 1873. The Miller Brewery Bar at 301 E. Garfield Ave is a 2-story structure with decorative brickwork on two sides, built in 1880. The James Knox house at 1843–1845 N. Palmer Street is a two-story brick and stone Queen Anne-styled house with a Gothic Revival-styled gable window. It was designed by Charles Gombert and built in 1881 for tanner Charles Scheiderer. The Oldenburg house at 303–305 E. Lloyd St is a 2.5-story house with a 3-story tower and Eastlake ornamentation, built in 1882. It is the only Italian villa-style house in the Brewers' Hill district. The Lubotsky residence at 1830 N 1st Street is a 2-story Queen Anne-styled house with a Stick style facade, built in 1890. 131–133 E. Lloyd St. is a 2.5-story frame Queen Anne-styled home built in 1901, with the shingles in the gable end which are typical of the style. It is one of many Queen Anne homes in the district.
In 2009, This Old House named Brewers' Hill as one of its "Best Old House Neighborhoods," where the neighborhood was referred to as "a distinctly Victorian-era neighborhood that's found new life in recent years as rehabbers buy up its blighted old mansions and restore them into beautiful urban homes."
Franklin Heights Franklin Heights is bordered by Capitol Drive to the north, 20th Street to the east, Burleigh Street to the south, and 35th Street to Townsend Street to the railroad tracks on the west. One third of the Franklin Heights population lives below the poverty line.
Granville
Granville is a historically working-class neighborhood located on Milwaukee's far northwest side, featuring new subdivisions, industrial parks, and Granville Station. Formerly the Northridge mall, the Station has undergone extensive renovations and is attracting new large-format tenants.
Grover Heights Located on the fringes of Williamsburg and encompassing parts of Glendale, Grover Heights is bordered by the Milwaukee River to the north, Port Washington Avenue to the east, Capitol Drive to the south and I-43 to the west. Built on lots carved from swampland or wetlands that bordered the river, Grover Heights’ houses were built between 1926 and 1930. Its occupants were primarily German until the 1960s, when immigrant descendants moved to the suburbs. Its first African-American family moved into the area in 1961. The neighborhood has had high stability. Currently Grover Heights has a diverse population consisting of African Americans, Caucasians, and Latinos. Its area forms one of the primary borders of the 5 Points Neighborhood Association, Inc.
Halyard Park Halyard Park is bordered by North Avenue to the north, Dr Martin Luther King Jr Drive (3rd Street) to the east, Walnut Street to the south and 6th Street / Halyard Street to the west. It is a residential neighborhood; new condominiums and sprawling residential lots with post-1980 construction are the norm. Carver Park buffers the area from I-43 and is the area's largest park. It was the site of speeches from visiting US presidents in the early 1900s. Beechie Brooks, resident, was the developer who in the early 1980s redeveloped the area from Brown Street north to Garfield Avenue and from 4th Street west to Halyard Street.
Harambee
Main page: Harambee (neighborhood) Harambee is a Swahili word for "pulling together". Since the mid-1970s, it has become the most widely used name for a neighborhood on Milwaukee's north side. There is a strong push to redefine the larger area into the Upper Riverwalk District as the entire area is located between two points in the Milwaukee River and has close proximity to the expanding river walk. Draped across a steep ridge overlooking Downtown, the Harambee area is a community of historic homes, churches, and more than 20,000 people. Its name signifies two things: the African heritage of most residents; and a new spirit of "pulling together" that has taken root in an old neighborhood.
The Harambee community is just north of downtown Milwaukee and is bounded by Keefe Avenue to the north, Holton Street to the east, North Avenue to the south, and I-43 to the west. Harambee includes the highest residential elevation in the city, a tall ridge running along 1st Street. Between 1890 and 1910, well-to-do families built mansions on the North Side. Only a few are genuine mansions; the wealthiest Germans lived on the East and West Sides. Some are picturesque Queen Annes, with corner turrets and rambling floor plans. In 1984, the First Street corridor became an official historic district, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
This area was first settled by German immigrants in the 19th century and served as a key German-American business community for Milwaukee. Daniel Richards, who started Milwaukee's first newspaper, bought a home in 1842 at 2863 N. 1st Street on 160 acres (65 ha) of land that ran from Richards Street west to between 5th and 6th and from Center Street north to Burleigh Street. The home stood until 2002. Richards Hill is located immediately north of Hadley Street between 2nd Street and Palmer, and is the location of the highest natural point in the city. Richards Hill contains thousands of perennials planted by Daniel Richards 160 years ago.
The city limits expanded to the north, reaching Center Street in 1855 and Burleigh a year later. In the 1870s, however, city residents crossed North Avenue and began to develop the former farming district. By 1900, the tide of settlement had reached near Burleigh Street. First, Second and Palmer streets (between North Avenue and Center Street) became the major "gold coast" of the North Side German community. The streets were lined with the homes of merchants, manufacturers, and professionals. Perhaps the best known was Edward Schuster, founder of what was, for decades, Milwaukee's largest department store chain. Wealthy residents organized the Millioki Club and built a lavish clubhouse at First and Wright streets. As the neighborhood filled in, its northeastern corner was developed as a large-scale industrial district.
The neighborhood remained heavily ethnic German through the 1920s, but there were signs of demographic change. Many of the new residents in the northern sections were ethnic Polish and Italian families, immigrants and their descendants who had moved across Holton Street from the Riverwest neighborhood. In the southern sections, scores of German families moved on to new neighborhoods, and the blocks above North Avenue provided homes for a variety of groups, among them African Americans. The first Black families arrived in the 1930s, during the Great Migration from the South. They moved up the Third Street corridor, establishing new churches, opening new businesses, and developing a distinct cultural presence. By 1970, African Americans were the largest group in the neighborhood. A significant number of European residents remained and there was a growing Hispanic community in the blocks just west of Holton Street.
Some sections are thoroughly mixed today, but African Americans are the major influence in the Harambee neighborhood. Juneteenth, the African-American community's largest celebration of emancipation, has been celebrated in the neighborhood on Third Street since 1972. In 1985, at the urging of local residents, the street's name was changed to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. There have been grassroots efforts to preserve and improve the area's quality of life by working to strengthen a sense of community. The oldest grassroots organization is the Central North Community Council, established in 1960. The council's perennial president was Frank Zeidler, former mayor of Milwaukee, the last socialist to run a major U.S. city, and a neighborhood resident from 1946 until his death in 2006.
The focus on citizen involvement broadened in the early 1970s. The Center for Community Leadership Development, began to explore ways to assist the neighborhood. Using a community school as its namesake, they organized the Harambee Revitalization Project. The most novel plan called for an "in-town, new town," linking a revitalized Harambee neighborhood with a new community of transplanted North Siders outside the city.
Bronzeville
Bronzeville is an African-American neighborhood that historically was situated between what is now the Harambee neighborhood and the North Division neighborhood. Specifically, Bronzeville was bordered by North Avenue to the north, 3rd Street to the east, State Street to the south, and 12th Street to the west. Developing and active roughly between 1900 and 1950, much of this former district was centered along Walnut Street (essentially halfway between State Street and North Avenue). It was split up by governmental condemnation and acquisition of land to construct Interstate 43 and other arterial road expansions. These changes displaced much of the community. Today, the Haymarket, Hillside, Halyard Park, and Triangle North neighborhoods make up what used to be Milwaukee's Bronzeville neighborhood.
Today, there is a rebuilding and rebranding of the commercial area of nearby North Avenue and Dr Martin Luther King Jr Drive into "Bronzeville", including many new businesses. The Black Holocaust Museum, founded by James Cameron, who survived a lynching attempt in the South, closed in 2008. After operating online, it re-opened in 2022 in a newly renovated space at the Griot Building at 411 W. North Avenue. It is managed by the Dr. James Cameron Legacy Foundation.