In the past few days, folks have been asking about a structure recently exposed by the $500 million construction work to add a lane in each direction of I-43 in Milwaukee and Ozaukee Counties.
Jack Rooney posted a photo of it on Facebook’s Historic Milwaukee Architecture group with his query, writing, “Can anybody provide information or context for this recently unearthed concrete bridge/arch remnant in Glendale? I suspect it won’t be there long.”
And Bill Burgardt emailed to ask, “With all the construction going on along I-43 an old bridge has been unearthed. It's on the west side of 43 between Green Tree and Good Hope Roads. Any way you could find out more about this?”
“That structure was previously utilized as part of a private driveway to span a low saturated area,” says Dan Sellers, who is the southeast region communications manager for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
That confirms what some Facebook commenters said, one of whom even identified the home as having been at 616 W. Green Tree Rd. and having been razed.
“The property was acquired for the project,” Sellers confirms.
The driveway remnant is not going to survive the work, he adds.
““The small structure currently is within the proposed grading operations area for the realigned Good Hope Road ramp and is planned to be removed.”
Construction on the expansion project to transform the section of freeway from four to six lanes began in 2021 and it is expected to be completed sometime in 2025.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
