How Milwaukee's Lakefront Kings Built a Wall of Mansions and Then Gave It All Away: Prospect Avenue

There is a garage on Lake Drive in Milwaukee with a number carved into one of its stones. That number is an address that no longer exists, on a street the city erased to build a public park. It is the only reason we can tell this story at all. This is the story of Prospect Avenue and the Milwaukee lakefront, the Gold Coast, where the richest families in Wisconsin built a wall of mansions overlooking Lake Michigan and fought each other over the view. One judge built an entire house out of spite to punish a neighbor who blocked his sightline. And then they lost it. Not to a wrecking ball, and not to a market crash, but to an idea, that the most beautiful land in the city should not belong to the richest men in the city. It should belong to everyone. And in the end, the rich handed it over. The question this video answers is whether they jumped, or whether they were pushed, and what one mansion did to escape. CHAPTERS (added after upload) Subscribe for more lost history like this: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO7M4uoa2OWBA0Wqze0p9yw More Wisconsin stories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnXEYH5CiRE&list=PLS0LhnLfSOZs&pp=sAgC Prospect Avenue Milwaukee, Milwaukee lakefront, Juneau Park, Lincoln Memorial Drive, Field mansion, sewer socialists, Charles Allis museum, Villa Terrace, Milwaukee Gold Coast, Lake Michigan mansions.