Bay View has experienced considerable changes in recent years. Between new apartment complexes, a steady stream of incoming businesses, and ostentatious mansions built and then quickly flipped by a former alderman, the neighborhood on Milwaukee’s south shore looks a lot different than it used to. Amid all the development taking place in Bay View, one structure has remained an ever-present and mostly unchanged fixture that’s towered over the rest of the neighborhood for close to 60 years.
Back in the spring of 1964, ground broke on Bay View Terrace. The ambitious construction project for the 25-story, 148-unit apartment building at 2525 S. Shore Drive cost a whopping $3.5 million (which, when adjusted for inflation, would come to approximately $29.8 million in 2021). Miraculously, construction would be completed before the end of that same year.
Recently, Mark Osmak converted the a 16mm video he was given by Tony Groh, lead consultant on the project, before Groh passed away in 2018 at the age of 94. Osmak uploaded the video to YouTube in January, but posted it on the Old Milwaukee Facebook page last weekend. Even though there isn’t any sound, the 24-minute video gives an interesting look at the gigantic building’s construction process and grants a rare glimpse of the neighborhood in the early ’60s. Go back to a time before Bay View Terrace was part of Milwaukee’s skyline and watch the video below.