The Wisconsin Gas Building (originally Milwaukee Gas Light Building) is a classic stepped Art Deco tower located in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin at 626 East Wisconsin Avenue. It was designed by architects Eschweiler & Eschweiler and completed in 1930 using differing materials on the exterior to graduate from dark to light.
Locally distinct light colored brick called Cream City brick crowns the high-rise. Copper panels adorn the spandrels, while organic foliage patterns and terracotta designs decorate the façade. The building stands 250 feet tall and has 20 floors. Demolished to make room for the building in 1930, a Prohibition-era speakeasy was formerly on the site. [1]
Wisconsin Gas was purchased by Wisconsin Energy in 2001. During the consolidation of Wisconsin Gas into Wisconsin Energy's neighboring downtown corporate headquarters, the Wisconsin Gas Building was sold to a developer in 2004 who converted it into leased office space.
A weather beacon shaped as a natural gas flame was added to the top of the Wisconsin Gas Building in 1956. It indicates the weather forecast by its color and flicker. The flame was turned off in 1973 because of that year's energy crisis. It was turned on again in 1985. The flame stands 21 feet tall and weighs four tons. In 2013, the neon tube lighting system was replaced with an LED lighting system. The new LED system allows millions of colors and various other lighting schemes outside the traditional red-gold-blue system, including charity efforts and sports team colors. [2]
There is a rhyme created to help remember the colors. Most of the rhyme is consistent, with variations in the final line:
and
The light has been used as a harbor marker and navigation aid by mariners in Lake Michigan over the years.
A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave ultraviolet light that then causes a phosphor coating on the inside of the lamp to glow. A fluorescent lamp converts electrical energy into useful light much more efficiently than an incandescent lamp. The typical luminous efficacy of fluorescent lighting systems is 50–100 lumens per watt, several times the efficacy of incandescent bulbs with comparable light output. For comparison, the luminous efficacy of an incandescent bulb may only be 16 lumens per watt.
Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylight. Daylighting is sometimes used as the main source of light during daytime in buildings. This can save energy in place of using artificial lighting, which represents a major component of energy consumption in buildings. Proper lighting can enhance task performance, improve the appearance of an area, or have positive psychological effects on occupants.
A strobe light or stroboscopic lamp, commonly called a strobe, is a device used to produce regular flashes of light. It is one of a number of devices that can be used as a stroboscope. The word originated from the Ancient Greek στρόβος (stróbos), meaning "act of whirling".
WISN-TV is a television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Hearst Television, it is the second-oldest television station to remain with the company in all of its various iterations behind flagship WBAL-TV in Baltimore. WISN-TV's studios are located on North 19th Street on the west end of the Marquette University campus, and its transmitter is located at Lincoln Park in the northeastern part of Milwaukee.
The WITI TV Tower is a lattice communications tower located in Shorewood, Wisconsin, which transmits the signal of several television and radio stations in the Milwaukee area, including its namesake, Fox owned-and-operated station WITI, along with cellular and wireless communications. The structure is owned by WITI's parent company, Fox Television Stations. The 1,081 feet (329 m) tower built in 1962 was for many years the tallest free-standing tower in the United States until the Stratosphere Tower was built in 1996. It remains the tallest lattice tower in the country and the tallest 3-side lattice tower in the world.
Emergency vehicle lighting is one or more visual warning lights fitted to a vehicle for use when the driver wishes to convey to other road users the urgency of their journey, to provide additional warning of a hazard when stationary, or in the case of law enforcement as a means of signalling another driver to stop for interaction with an officer. These lights may be dedicated emergency lights, such as a beacon or a light bar, or may be modified stock lighting, such as a wig-wag or hide-away light, and are additional to any standard lighting on the car such as hazard lights. Often, they are used along with a siren in order to increase their effectiveness.
Gas-discharge lamps are a family of artificial light sources that generate light by sending an electric discharge through an ionized gas, a plasma.
SS Milwaukee was a train ferry that served on Lake Michigan. It was launched in 1902 and sank with all hands off Milwaukee on October 22, 1929. Fifty-two men were lost with the vessel.
WISN is an AM talk radio station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc., and is the home of local afternoon radio host Mark Belling. Its studios are located on Howard Avenue in the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield and its nine-tower antenna is located at 21423 Bennett Road in Dover. WISN operates at the maximum power for AM stations of 50,000 watts in the daytime and reduces power to 10,000 watts at night, when it must protect other stations on the 1130 kHz frequency. WISN can also be heard on the HD 2 channel of its FM sister station 97.3 WRNW.
WMSE is a non-commercial radio station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, playing a wide-ranging eclectic music format run by volunteer DJs. The station is part of the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE).
WEC Energy Group is an American company based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that provides electricity and natural gas to 4.4 million customers across four states.
A weather beacon is a beacon that indicates the local weather forecast in a code of colored or flashing lights. Often, a short poem or jingle accompanies the code to make it easier to remember.
Cathedral Square Park is a small urban Milwaukee County Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, located to the west of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. The park only takes the name of the nearby cathedral, with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee holding no ownership of the site.
John Irvin Beggs was an American businessman. He was associated closely with the electric utility boom under Thomas Edison. He was also associated with Milwaukee, St. Louis, Missouri and other regional rail and interurban trolley systems. Beggs is also known for developing modern depreciation techniques for business accounting and for being one of the early directors of what became General Electric.
An LED lamp or LED light bulb is an electric light that produces light using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LED lamps are significantly more energy-efficient than equivalent incandescent lamps and can be significantly more efficient than most fluorescent lamps. The most efficient commercially available LED lamps have efficiencies of 200 lumens per watt (Lm/W). Commercial LED lamps have a lifespan many times longer than incandescent lamps.
Alexander Chadbourne Eschweiler was an American architect with a practice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He designed both residences and commercial structures. His eye-catching Japonist pagoda design for filling stations for Wadham's Oil and Grease Company of Milwaukee were repeated over a hundred times, though only a very few survive. His substantial turn-of-the-20th-century residences for the Milwaukee business elite, in conservative Jacobethan or neo-Georgian idioms, have preserved their cachet in the city.
The Milwaukee Athletic Club, is Milwaukee's only private social and full-service athletic club. It was once known as Milwaukee's premier destination for social, networking and athletics. In 2018, a plan was made to redevelop the building and re-energize the building and restore its reputation. A $61 million investment is underway which will offer premium social, business and athletics gathering spot with 54 high-end apartments featuring best-in-class amenities. The redesign will also open the ground floor to street level to be more welcoming to club members, guests, residents and the public.
The Central Library is the headquarters for the Milwaukee Public Library System as well as for the Milwaukee County Federated Library System. Designated a Milwaukee Landmark in 1969, the building remains one of Milwaukee's most monumental public structures.
The Couture is a planned high-rise apartment building in Downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The 507-foot, 44-story high-rise will become the state of Wisconsin's tallest residential building when it is completed, and will feature 312 high-end apartments, 50,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, and an 1,100-space parking structure with hundreds of public parking spaces. On June 26, 2020, the developer, Barrett Lo Visionary Development, announced equity funding had been secured earlier in the month and they had resubmitted the project for HUD funding. Construction began May 5, 2021.
The Blue Flame Building or the El Paso Natural Gas CompanyBuilding is a skyscraper in El Paso, Texas. It was briefly the tallest building in El Paso upon its completion in 1954. The building housed the El Paso Natural Gas Company until 1996 when the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) housed employees there for a few years. The Housing Authority of the City of El Paso (HACEP) recently completed a $52 million major renovation in 2021 that includes retail spaces, offices, and low-income apartments.