THE WONDER BAR

 PRESERVING HISTORY

Major cities that are successful in growth and stature find a way to both honor their history and produce a vision for their future. To become and remain an architecturally significant city a city needs to honor what was important in its past but also needs to create structures that will become the icons of their future. 

Nowhere was this more evident than in New York City, a city in 1963 that was rushing to expand at the expense of its past. Penn Station, designed by McKim, Mead and White when completed in 1910, was considered a masterpiece of engineering and one of the best examples of Beaux-Arts architecture in the world.

In 1963 the station was torn down and replaced with a non-descript utilitarian replacement. It was the catalyst that gave birth to the historic preservation movement. A lesson learned. In 2021, New York is one of the most vibrant cities in the world.

It has wrapped its arms around its past protecting its architectural history while building a future of iconic buildings that live in harmony with each other. 

Madison, as a city, can barely manage a passing grade with its preservation history.  It currently finds itself with an opportunity to up its grade level. The Wonder Bar is not only historically important to the city but architecturally significant as well and it is on the chopping block.

Historically the Wonder Bar is forever tied to the prohibition era and the Chicago mafia. Built by Roger "The Terrible" Touhy's brother Eddie. In the thirties the bar provided a haven for members of the mafia to get out of Chicago and away from the law.

It became the thing of movie legends. Architecturally the turret design has been attributed to the mafia's need for look outs to be able to survey the area for hundred and eighty degrees from approaching law enforcement.  It would be a shame to lose one of Madison's significant historical and architectural buildings when so few remain.

The plan is to tear down the Wonder Bar and its neighbor the Coliseum Bar and replace it with an eighteen store residential building of little architectural appeal or significance. The new building is a clone of so many of the residential buildings now dotting the Madison metropolitan area built for profit and a wrecking ball down history's path.  It would be a shame to see this insignificant run-of-the-mill building go up in place of the Wonder Bar. I feel there's a solution. Madison has the opportunity to stop its Penn Station. If housing is a priority make it memorable.

Find a way to integrate the new design by incorporating the Wonder Bar into the design. That doesn't mean the new structure has to repeat the design of the past only that it should work with it in harmony or counterpoint. Madison: start respecting your past and find a way to make an architectural future that pulls the city into the ranks of distinction.

THE GALLERY

Barber Confesses to Murder, 1937, Weegee photographer, represented by Michael Hoppen Gallery