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If these Walls could talk …Two buildings tell the tales of lives withinBy Dustin Block
Lorraine Hoffman doesn’t think this is much of a story. It’s the first thing she told me after I stopped in her office unannounced to ask about the history of her building. What I saw was a shabby, aluminum exterior on an old brick building next door to one of those multimillion-dollar commercial and condominium developments that have taken over Milwaukee’s Third Ward. Just about every other old factory building in the neighborhood has been gutted and redesigned into law offices, architecture firms or condos. So what was this building? “It’s a factory,” Hoffman said, her suspicions growing by the minute. Her answer made sense given a sign on the building’s front that reads Harri Hoffman Co. and another huge sign painted on the building’s southern exterior that reads, “Home of Hoffco Shoe Polish.” I figured those were holdovers from a business long gone. After all, who makes shoe polish these days? It turns out, Hoffco does. The company was started by Hoffman’s parents, Harri and Herta Hoffman, in a small shop on Murray Avenue in Milwaukee. While Herta stayed home cooking up different shoe-polish formulas, Harri hit the road making sales. Their breakthrough came with a baby-shoe polish that wouldn’t rub off on clothing. Sales took off, the company grew, and in 1963 they moved into the former Joy Brothers sail and awning factory at 125 N. Water St. Forty-four years later, I walked in the door thinking the company was no longer in business, only to learn it’s one of the largest shoe-polish producers in the world. Lorraine reluctantly handed over her business card and agreed I could call her in a few days.
“But I really don’t see the story here,” she said, “not for some builder magazine.” I went back on a December day to scout the exterior of the handsome neighboring building, which shares a wall with the Hoffco factory. The seven-story Riverwalk Plaza Condos are polished and fresh, with the hip-looking Moda salon on the ground level and, above, what I could only imagine are spectacular views of the Milwaukee River. A plaque on the side of the building reads, “Bradley & Metcalf Shoe Co.,” which seemed appropriate given the shoe-polish factory next door. But the factory feel of the RiverWalk Condos, like the working-class feel of much of the Third Ward, is scrubbed gone. In the past decade, the Third Ward has become one of the trendiest spots in Milwaukee for people and businesses with enough money. Property values have quadrupled to nearly $240 million over the past two decades, and 400 businesses have opened in the neighborhood. The area has clearly gentrified, with the average condo selling for $418,000, compared to $149,000 for the city as a whole. It’s impressive, considering that about 200 people lived in the neighborhood 12 years ago. Carrie Diener was one of the first people to put money down on a condo at the Riverwalk Plaza. She was living in downtown Milwaukee in 1998 when she saw a sign for condos on the river and decided to make an investment.
“There was absolutely nothing down here at the time,” she said, noting that most people didn’t even realize Milwaukee extended south of Interstate 794. “People know about the Third Ward now.” There have been a few bumps along the way, like dealing with Summerfest the first few years after moving in. Diener said she once got the rare treat of sitting on her balcony and watching festival-goers urinate on her building. One issue that never came up for condo owners was living next door to a working factory. Diener, who is secretary of the condo association, said she never heard a complaint about the company. “Personally, I didn’t even know it was a factory,” she said. “I thought it was an office building and storage.” Hoffman has few complaints about the condos. Sure, there’s pressure on her to move out of the factory to make way for the newest residential development along Water Street. The rising property values are cutting into Hoffco’s profits, and Hoffman said she knows she’ll eventually sell and move the company to a more tax-friendly location. But not any time soon, she insists. “I’ve had real-estate people through here,” she said. “I point to our equipment and ask, ‘How do you move this?’ You don’t move a business like ours. This is not a law office.” I pointed out that most businesses left the Third Ward, though. Hoffco and Charter Wire Co. are the last remnants of manufacturing in the neighborhood.
“The loss of manufacturing is something the city has to look at,” Hoffman said, pointing out that decent-paying manufacturing jobs are a dwindling commodity these days. “Companies are being forced out to the suburbs, or they’re outsourcing their stuff off shores. That gets us business because we actually make our products. “And what will help us even more is if I stop giving interviews and get back to making sales.” I took the hint. We’d already talked for nearly a half hour about her parents working hard to make the company succeed, relying on each other to avoid hiring someone who would steal their formula and sell it to a competitor. When I called back to fact-check a few points, Hoffman told how she would ride the city bus from elementary school to have lunch with her mother while she cooked up the shoe polish. After visiting a few minutes, Hoffman would hop back on the bus to school. Like Hoffman said at the beginning, this isn’t much of a story about building, but that’s the story. A couple of old buildings go through change, a company presses on, a neighborhood remakes itself with the certainty that one day it will be remade again. Buildings are more than construction materials fit together to form structures. They’re the places where lives unfold.
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