Is Brown Deer still safe?

[slamont61]

Brown Deer is safe for the most part and is very nice community. The folks I know that lived there back when I was in Wisconsin, are still there.

[cjreftech]

Brown Deer is always a safe place as I to this day have left doors unlocked with no issues. The Red owl is long gone and last year the entire mall was torn down. Two new buildings went up closer to Bradley Rd, and yes, Jim is still running his Barber shop there. Not much has changed, as housing is still high enough to prevent rift raft from coming in. The village is strong willed and has plenty of smiling faces. I love living here. Remember the A&W?, well it was bought out and a small style food joint moved in, but in these times we are all high with high taxes, so they had to close down 2 weeks ago. Come visit, there is no place like this so close to a large city/

[Jay F]

It's been 16 years since I made this post. Last month I finally visited Brown Deer, where I lived as a child over 50 years ago. Here are my impressions. I visited the house I once lived in and the house and block (Goodrich Lane) looked exactly as I had remembered it. I knocked on the door told my story to the current homeowner and he was very kind and let me take some pictures on the same yard I have pictures of from the early 70s. It was a wonderful experience and I was impressed how well the neighborhood has maintained.

Unfortunately that was my only heartwarming experience. The whole trip reminded me of the old saying "You can't go home again". I thought the surface streets in Brown Deer looked kind of run down and sketchy (although not nearly as bad as the Northwest side of Milwaukee, I was heartbroken at what happened to 76th Street from the old Mill Road theater to Northridge Mall, I have so many fond childhood memories of that area and now it so run down and scary looking). In particular the area of Bradley Road that once had the Red Owl store looked terrible to me. Lots of empty buildings, much more downscale vibe than when I lived in Brown Deer which I realize was a half a.century ago.

I stayed at a nice hotel on Brown Deer Road near the river. Anything west of there seemed to be a bad area, if not downright dangerous. I saw a lot of tough and edgy looking people at the Wal Mart over there, It was a totally different scene from the Treasure Island store in Brown Deer I shopped at in the 70s.

I guess my main question now is has Brown Deer declined since I first wrote this post 16 years ago? Back then everyone was saying it was still basically the same place it ever was. That doesn't seem to be true anymore unless I was being overly sensitive due to my romanticized nostalgic memories.

[Master Jay]

Jay F, I grew up as a North Sider.

The north side changed, as did it's neighboring suburbs, starting in the early 1990s.

That's 30 YEARS of depression cancerous dieing.

You saw the results.

[Jay F]

Originally Posted by Master Jay

Jay F, I grew up as a North Sider.

The north side changed, as did it's neighboring suburbs, starting in the early 1990s.

That's 30 YEARS of depression cancerous dieing.

You saw the results.

Yes I did. At least you got to see it gradually happening.That must be easier to take. It's a shock to the system when you see it for the first time in nearly 50 years. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was a traumatic experience.

[Master Jay]

Jay F..My father lived in the Northridge Lakes condos. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was the cream of the crop.

Then, "things" changed.... And evident is what happens.

[Jay F]

Originally Posted by Master Jay

Jay F..My father lived in the Northridge Lakes condos. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was the cream of the crop.

Then, "things" changed.... And evident is what happens.

I knew two people who lived there when it was brand new. At the time it would have been impossible to believe it would ever be in a bad part of town.

[MortonR]

Originally Posted by Jay F

It's been 16 years since I made this post. Last month I finally visited Brown Deer, where I lived as a child over 50 years ago. Here are my impressions. I visited the house I once lived in and the house and block (Goodrich Lane) looked exactly as I had remembered it. I knocked on the door told my story to the current homeowner and he was very kind and let me take some pictures on the same yard I have pictures of from the early 70s. It was a wonderful experience and I was impressed how well the neighborhood has maintained.

Unfortunately that was my only heartwarming experience. The whole trip reminded me of the old saying "You can't go home again". I thought the surface streets in Brown Deer looked kind of run down and sketchy (although not nearly as bad as the Northwest side of Milwaukee, I was heartbroken at what happened to 76th Street from the old Mill Road theater to Northridge Mall, I have so many fond childhood memories of that area and now it so run down and scary looking). In particular the area of Bradley Road that once had the Red Owl store looked terrible to me. Lots of empty buildings, much more downscale vibe than when I lived in Brown Deer which I realize was a half a.century ago.

I stayed at a nice hotel on Brown Deer Road near the river. Anything west of there seemed to be a bad area, if not downright dangerous. I saw a lot of tough and edgy looking people at the Wal Mart over there, It was a totally different scene from the Treasure Island store in Brown Deer I shopped at in the 70s.

I guess my main question now is has Brown Deer declined since I first wrote this post 16 years ago? Back then everyone was saying it was still basically the same place it ever was. That doesn't seem to be true anymore unless I was being overly sensitive due to my romanticized nostalgic memories.

You can go back, but you're often disappointed, that's all. It's sort of like having a favorite candy or food from when you were a kid. It doesn't taste the same...

I have two childhood homes split between my birth and a move when I was nine years old. The first I visited some years ago, and the "Leave It to Beaver" sort of existence we had there (truly, I walked to school, cut my teacher's grass in the summer, etc., etc.) was clearly long gone. Security doors on the houses, streets and sidewalks deteriorated, just run down and "tired". Nothing like the place I recall.

The second, and later childhood home, is still intact and looks much the same as it did when I was growing up in it. Same with the neighborhood. Some of the families living there are the same as when I was growing up! It's an older, very stable suburban area that has changed little until you get onto the surrounding arterial streets, where a great deal of development has taken place over the years.

I'm amazed whenever I visit the area, as it's hard to comprehend that someplace like this would remain "locked in time" as it were.

Sorry your visit was a disappointment. I suspect that's more common than my second home experience.

RM

[Jay F]

Originally Posted by MortonR

You can go back, but you're often disappointed, that's all. It's sort of like having a favorite candy or food from when you were a kid. It doesn't taste the same...

I have two childhood homes split between my birth and a move when I was nine years old. The first I visited some years ago, and the "Leave It to Beaver" sort of existence we had there (truly, I walked to school, cut my teacher's grass in the summer, etc., etc.) was clearly long gone. Security doors on the houses, streets and sidewalks deteriorated, just run down and "tired". Nothing like the place I recall.

The second, and later childhood home, is still intact and looks much the same as it did when I was growing up in it. Same with the neighborhood. Some of the families living there are the same as when I was growing up! It's an older, very stable suburban area that has changed little until you get onto the surrounding arterial streets, where a great deal of development has taken place over the years.

I'm amazed whenever I visit the area, as it's hard to comprehend that someplace like this would remain "locked in time" as it were.

Sorry your visit was a disappointment. I suspect that's more common than my second home experience.

RM

Good points. Disappointments are probably the norm in cases like this. I realized after posting this that this goes far beyond neighborhoods becoming more run down or ghetto..it is something personal that is not the fault of any city or neighborhood..

I also lived in Fox Point and visited the two homes (well one was a condo)..That area did not decline as much but it was still kind of a traumatic experience, which I didn't expect. Once again the streets I lived in looked exactly the same. The one huge difference is in the 70s there seemed to always be people outside, kids playing and adults in their yards. In 2023 I didn't see a single soul outside in any of my three previous neighborhoods, nobody at all! This would be true anywhere these days I guess.

Anyway, what was a soul crushing experience to me was driving on Port Washington road from Glendale to Fox Point. It looked 1000X times different than when I lived there. It was so much more built up, hundreds of new shopping centers and restaurants. The way the Bayshore mall looked upset me to the core, almost brought me to tears as overdramatic as that sounds. The single most surprising thing is when I saw buildings I did recognize I didn't feel a sense of joy or nostalgia. Instead my brain had a difficult time processing it. Here were buildings/places that are really special to me, some of my first memories of life itself but now they are surrounded by new unfamiliar buildings. It's like seeing a hybrid of a past life and a current life , like I said hard to process. Also seeing a closed down gas station on Port Washington and Bradley was difficult to look at because it was brand new when I lived there. I saw the beginning and the end with nothing in-between and it felt symbolic for the beginning and end of life itself.

Some reading this might think I overreacted to all of this. Believe me I know the world changes in a half a century. That's normal. Going so long between visits though is unusual. I didn't see the gradual changes, I saw it all at once and believe me it's a shocker.

[Milwaukee City]

It's okay but there is no way I would want to live there now, we looked at houses in BD and I am so glad we didn't find anything. One is taxes are terrible and spill over crime is way to great.