kaszube’s is a pocket park (.15 acres) in milwaukee’s frightfully industrial harbor district. revitalization efforts are underway in different areas, but the concrete and salt and machinery encircle the body and loom over the mind, even as the ingenuity involved does inspire a reluctant awe at our sheer ability to make.

spots here and there are delightful respites though. kaszube’s park being one, it’s a memorial park that calls back to public memory the jones island fishing community (here’s the obligatory mention of the fact that it’s actually on a peninsula now). the kashubian population that inhabited the island in a fishing village came from pomerania and were finally forced out between the 1920-40s for greater industrial exploitation of jones island. today it’s a site of salt processing and storage, waste treatment, and lots of concrete and metal.

the park is built on the site of one of the last residents’ home and tavern, capt. felix struck’s harbor inn. amid all the industrial blight, a few trees (the larger a willow, i think), grass, and a few ornamentals survive here. a small berm just across from the park has longer grass and a small but sturdy representation of the area’s most common city wildflowers. hanging on.

we stopped by on a meander thru the harbor district trying to locate a pile driver.

a.

fisherman shadows

circumscribed

by a sea of salt

b.

the harbor open

to the lake,

willow leaves hanging

if you made it this far: here’s the pile driver we were looking for, so my wife could take a picture of this project’s progress for my father-in-law.