Do me a favor, set your cell phone to something like ring.
My cell phone goes off, you know what it sounds like?
It sounds like a phone.
Ring.
Some people get a little wacky with the cell phone rings.
They're being a meeting, a boardroom or something, some guy's phone goes off.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Come on, balls.
Ring.
Then they look at you and go, is that yours or mine?
You know that yours, dummy?
You stayed up till four in the morning, figuring out how to make it play that song.
The more annoying the song, the longer it takes on the finer phone.
You wait for a bus to guy next year, you're halfway through the guitar, solo a free bird.
You're like, will you answer that before I stab you with this pen?
One-fin-day, you're gonna want me for your birthday.
That's one of the groups I'd brother used to play with, the chiffons.
He was, whenever they played at concert on East Coast, he was there.
He was their guitarist, played with the chiffons and tons of groups.
Just talking to him about over the weekend, there were some more groups I've forgotten about that he played with as well.
Yeah, he used to play with the chiffons and concert all of them when they were on East Coast.
I'm Don Rose, and it's 708 at WRGN Radio.
Let's say good morning to Kelly Cruz, Executive Director of the DRC, the Downtown Racine Corporation.
Good morning, Kelly, and again, thank you for waking up.
I, you know, people don't, I don't realize sometimes that if this is early in the morning for a lot of people.
Good morning. This is not early for me, so there's no problem at all.
Okay, because I get, I've been getting up early all my life.
So when I say, when you make it at 6 AM, 6 AM, I'm just getting the bed at 6 AM.
What are you talking about 6 AM?
But thank you for coming in. I do appreciate it.
Downtown just had the big Christmas, the big Christmas rush, the beautiful Christmas tree brand new tree this year.
And all the decorations, the Downtown Christmas parade.
And there's one thing I love about Downtown Racine.
Parade you guys have. Oh, I love, we have the, the next one coming up will be the St. Patrick's parade.
You don't have a Valentine's Day parade. I don't think anybody does.
But St. Patrick's Day Parade.
And one year I went to the St. Patrick's Day Parade.
I was sitting there in my chair and there was a cute little girl sitting next to me,
all dressed up with greens and jam rocks.
And somebody from the newspaper took a picture of her and put it in there.
Now, if you look carefully at the picture, that's my foot.
The right side.
That's my foot. I said to my wife, that's my shoe. That's my foot.
That's her right in the cover of the paper.
Anyway, you had a great Christmas season. It was pretty good.
Yeah, I believe it was pretty good for the merchants.
A lot of people came down to support local small business Saturday was stellar for us.
The Chris Cringle tour was another really great day of shopping.
So, you know, every little bit helped, which is great.
And no, we had over, I want to say, over $20,000 worth of downtown gift certificates purchased by local businesses for their employees,
which really goes a long way because those businesses can turn those into us for 100% reimbursement.
So that'll help them through the January and February slower months, which is really cool.
That's just great. Okay, now coming up real soon,
you've got the state of the downtown and achievement awards.
This will come up on January 18th at 5.30 p.m. at the red onion.
Is this invitation only?
No, this is open to the public. It's a really great event.
Yeah, music at, you know, 150, 200 people there.
And we really just go over, you know, the state of the downtown.
You know, what have we done? Well, what's to come in 2024?
Some of the economic impacts, the business developments that took place.
And then after we go through all that, of course, we honor five individuals for really helping downtown
through multiple efforts because, you know, it does take a village.
That's what I heard to raise it downtown, right?
Yeah, absolutely. So that's always, you know, it's a really nice time to be able to honor those people that have put in the extra work
and given the extra time and resources to, you know, exemplify what the downtown champion is.
You know, there's a Facebook group called Red, not Retro Recene.
Maybe it's Retro Recene. I'm trying to think of what the name of the Facebook group is.
They post a lot of pictures of downtown Racine.
Some from the like the early 1900s, late 1800s.
And it's hard to believe when you look at these pictures, some of the buildings are still there.
I mean, they're not all brand new buildings.
And you see horses pulling carriages down Main Street.
And Main Street doesn't look like it's paved. I'm sure there's some kind of paving, but it doesn't look like it.
But you see these pictures with horses in front.
And some of the buildings are still there from the early 1900s.
Yeah, like Monument Square actually used to be called Haymarket Square.
Right.
Yeah, so Retro Recene is a great Facebook page.
Just quite a few of those, you know, groups that have really helped bring to light the history of downtown.
Which is really fun because I even love the ones that are from the 60s or 70s,
where you can really see the transformation and you see the cool cars.
And yeah, that's really fun.
Yeah, it looks like it looks like a classic car show going down Main Street.
Yes.
It does.
Totally.
They're now classic.
They weren't back then.
Also, the street lights, those, I can't describe, but they were like up the pony hung over.
They were like, they went over Main Street.
I love those lights.
It reminds me of growing up, but I love the way they had those lights on.
They got the Mercury Vapor lights, but these weren't Mercury Vapor lights back then.
And they really lit up the street.
Nice and bright.
But I interrupted you.
Go ahead.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
Now, coming up, some of the things you're going to talk about at your presentation are business
development updates, capital improvements.
What kind of capital improvements are we going to be talking about?
Well, you have to come to the presentation.
Oh, you can't.
No, not a sneak preview.
Okay.
Well, that's, that's all right.
I understand.
All right.
So during, by the way, it's a good thing to have the ice skating ring this year because
it's pretty warm out there.
And the year you had the ice skating ring set up in Monument Square.
And yeah, that was, that was quite difficult to maintain.
And of course, the year we did it, the first year we had it, it was really warm like this
as well.
And then the following year that we had it, there was more snow that year than ever before.
And it was just, you know, Wisconsin is just too unpredictable.
Yeah.
I would never have thought that this would be the winter tempered just highs of 37 today
in January.
And it's not going to, it's going to look like that for the rest of the week too.
But you have something coming up called the Bergpub Crawl.
What's that all about?
Yeah.
This is just a fun way to get people out of their homes in January.
And we've got about 12 businesses participating.
And each place along a way will be handing out a sample of, you know,
one of those, like a hot, warm, spiked drink, right?
So whether it's spiked, hot cocoa or, we've got all sorts of fun names, mold wine,
a cider bush, a moonshine hot toddy, a warm old fashion, Irish coffee.
So it's just a really fun way to sample some of those warm drinks that you wouldn't normally order
at establishments.
And we even have a shuttle so that you can just get dropped off downtown,
take the shuttle around to all of the locations and then get picked up after.
What's that wine you call the mold wine?
Say that again.
Yeah, mold wine is basically just, you know, warmed up wine, like a red wine.
Now, the reason I brought that up was in the movie, it's a wonderful life.
When Clarence is at the bar with George Bailey, he orders a mold wine.
And I'd never heard of mentioned outside that movie till you just mentioned it.
I never, I didn't know what it was.
It's a warmed up wine and that's obviously what he wanted.
It was a cold winter day and it's a wonderful life.
And he just saved George Bailey.
And so yeah, I didn't know what that was.
Now I know it should be fun.
So mold wine, cider bush, moonshine hot toddies,
sounds like something you get in the mountains west Virginia, a warm old fashion,
hot buttered buffalo.
What's that?
I have a feeling that has to do with a buffalo trace bourbon there.
The Pope's rope.
Some of these names.
And of course, what's that?
Yeah.
Yeah, the Pope's rope, I don't know what that is.
I'm not much of a drinker.
So that's why I don't know that.
What are some of the pubs you're going to be crawling to?
Oh, sure.
So, you know, we've got brick house, carriage house, Evelyn's, Blu-Rach,
Foxhole Lounge is participating in the yard arm.
It's participating.
Pub on Wisconsin.
March is on May.
Little Port Brewing.
I even know.
You know, we've been pretty much all of them.
Wow.
That's going to be something crawl.
Yes.
How about hot buttered rum?
I've heard of that.
I've never seen it before.
Hot buttered rum.
I don't even know what it is.
I too much rum, but hot butter in it.
But I've never heard of it before.
I mean, I've heard of it.
I know.
Butterfinger hot chocolate, which is kind of interesting.
Yeah.
I'll take a hot chocolate with something in it.
Not too much.
Butterfinger.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm just not much of a drinker, but yeah, that sounds good.
You know, when you get those flavored drinks, you know, some of it sometimes, you'll say,
get me a scotch.
See, I'm not that kind of person.
But if you give me a sweet drink with something in it, well, now I'm your friend.
Now I want to talk to you.
Let's see.
That is coming up on January 26th.
That's a Saturday.
Oh, that's good.
From 1 to 6 p.m.
It's good.
It's going to be over by as soon as it gets dark.
It's over with.
That's good.
I guess you can hang around all you want.
That's true.
Yeah.
Something fun to do for the day.
All right.
Coming up in the moment, we're going to talk about the Hopperboard, the Fun Shuttle.
This is a party shuttle.
Is this the one we were just talking about?
No, this is something different.
Okay.
No, this is the shuttle is during the bar crawl.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.
So that's that.
Is it that regular bus or is it that street car thing, the street car bus?
No, it's a regular bus.
Obviously it's short.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not sure yet what size the bus will be, but.
All right.
Coming up in just a moment.
Oh, bend and brew.
Sounds like exercise.
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
It seems like I got to get out of the house and do some exercising.
You know, I was just my wife and I went downtown yesterday, right on the lake front there,
to watch the jump in the lake, the polar bear people.
Oh, yeah.
She used to be one of them.
She used to jump in all the time.
And I said, I don't know why you do that.
I mean, the water is freezing today.
Well, yesterday wasn't as bad as normal, but I saw these people jump in.
I was told that if you don't dunk your head, it doesn't count.
Just running in and running out doesn't count.
You got to put your head under water.
That's what I heard.
Kelly Cruz from the DRC executive director you're talking to me this morning here at WRJM,
we're talking about all the fun things happening downtown for January.
And we'll touch upon some of the other things happening this winter as well.
Home town radio refreshed, a civic media station.
WRJM.
WRJM.
WRJM.
You will love me.
You tell me.
You will love me.
You will love me.
WRJM.
You will love me.
You will love me.
You will love me.
Kelly Cruz from the DRC, the downtown racing corporation is here with me this morning talking
about all the fun activities going going on around downtown.
We talked about the burr pub crawl.
Also, bend and brew.
This sounds like some exercising.
It is.
My doctor said I'm allergic to it.
Well, you know, we started this a couple of years back and it's really popular.
In the summertime, we do it over by Reef Quiet Brewhouse overlooking the lake.
And it is amazing.
We do it on Saturdays and Wednesdays.
And we probably get 50, 60 people per session for that.
But in the winter time, we do like to continue it.
So we bring it indoors to Yoga Roots Racing right there on College Avenue.
And you get to do a free yoga session.
It's for all ages, all skill levels.
And then when you're done with that, you'll get a card that you can use that night or the next morning.
And you can treat yourself to a free coffee brew or a free beer brew at one of 10 different downtown locations.
So you get rewarded for doing exercise.
Now, that's every Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Yeah.
I used to watch when I walked my dog along the lake front there right at the oasis.
I used to watch the...
They used to have the jazz or size or whatever the classes were there.
Oh, the Zumba classes, that's right, Zumba.
And there used to be like a hundred people there doing the Zumba exercising.
Yeah.
And I did my part by watching.
You know, it is fun, especially if you're not really comfortable with yoga yet or you just want to try it out.
This is a great time of year to sort of get mentally and physically back to square one.
So I really recommend giving it a try.
I'm at square one.
Now I got to get the square two.
And that's the toughest part.
You got a warm clothing drive coming up perfect for winter.
A lot of people don't have warm clothing.
And I'll tell you, Sherry, in just a second, but warm clothing drive.
Now what's that?
Sure.
So during the bird crawl, we're really hoping that people will bring in a brand new pair of socks or a gently used...
Oh, they...
Or they can bring it on too much.
They don't mean any time leading up to that day.
But we're really...
I mean, brand new socks are a big need for that community.
And so, yeah, we just tried to do our part as well.
Everyone needs to keep in.
And we try to do at least one clothing drive per year.
And so this can be the time of year that we'll do this one.
Now, tell you why it's important.
I was going to the library.
And they weren't open yet.
And there was an elderly man.
And it was cold outside.
It was like 30 degrees.
And he had a shirt on with pants that looked like, you know, exercise pants or, you know, pajama pants.
And he was shaking.
And I saw him.
And I said, you okay?
And he shook his head, yes.
But he was shaking.
And they opened the doors.
He walked in and collapsed on the floor.
And he was just shaking.
Because he wasn't dressed properly.
So we were talking.
He was very coherent.
We said, you need an ambulance.
He said, no, no, no, I'm fine.
I just need to warm up a little bit.
I'm fine.
And we put him in a wheelchair.
And he was, you know, he acted like he was okay.
He was just shaking.
Because he was so cold.
He didn't have any warm clothing.
So when you donate warm clothing, people like this gentleman could probably use it.
Because it was cold out there.
And I felt terribly was shivering.
But the library wasn't open yet.
Nothing you could do.
And it was going to be open just about a minute.
And he got in and fell down as soon as he got in there.
So I hope he was okay.
Yeah, he looked like he was okay.
Just needed to get warm.
But eventually had to go back out there again.
I'll be giving him a coat or something.
All right.
Let's warm up a little bit here.
Let's give a preview to the summer.
Because everybody's waiting to get this.
As soon as we get on with Christmas, that's like we start right in with Valentine's Day,
St. Patrick's Day and right to the summer.
So Christmas is over.
New Year's Day is over.
First Fridays actually begins in May, right?
Yeah, we kick off first Fridays in May, which is really fun.
So that's May 3rd.
Yeah, starting in May, we've got something almost every weekend in downtown through, you know,
September.
But yeah, maybe kick off first Fridays.
We're going to have a new theme every month again.
So stay tuned for that as we unveil every month theme.
And then we go into the wine walks in June.
We start up with the Harbor markets again, which is really great.
That's where we've partnered with the Kenosha Harbor market.
And we've created a recene Harbor market.
We've got mini golf, the lighthouse run.
My music starts on Monument Square every Friday and Saturday.
We've got a fashion show in June.
And of course, you know, July is always just jam-packed because we've got to take advantage of our beautiful Wisconsin summers.
Now, the recene Harbor market.
Is that the one on Monument Square?
That is, yes.
Okay.
Last year, this last one you had, we found a guy who sold local honey.
And he's become our new supplier.
He's the supplier.
So I got to meet him for the first time the other day because we couldn't wait until the next Harbor market.
And we got a big one-pound jar of local honey from him.
He's our dealer.
Yes.
It was prioritize Racene County vendors as well.
Yes.
Well, he is.
I mean, there's a really a variety at those markets.
We have live music, plus we have prepared food, packaged foods, food trucks, your honey, your vegetables, your produce.
Of course, you know, in May, there's not quite as much produce, but it's still a great.
I mean, in early June, there's not quite as much produce, but it's still really funny down there and see all the artisan goods.
Yeah.
And so I met the guy.
I called him up and I said, I need some honey.
My wife wanted it for the holidays.
So Christmas.
So that was going to be your gift.
One pound jar.
And I said to him, I have how much is these are $27.
So I couldn't find his house.
He told me exactly where it was.
So I called him.
He said, I'm watching your car right now.
Just come on over.
I'm in the driveway.
And I rolled down the window, handed in the money, handed me the package.
It looked like a drug deal going down.
I expected a SWAT team to come out.
So we got this jar of local honey, which was great.
Yes.
His daughter has the bees, I guess, and he gets them from other place right here in Racine.
It's all done right here locally.
I don't know how people do that with bees.
We petrified them, but they do it.
So he was at the harbor market.
That's when we met him.
We bought the honey there and his phone number and everything was on the jar.
And then now he's our life-long supplier.
He's our dealer.
Okay, so that's coming up in June, the Racine Harbor market, first Friday, of course.
What is a mini golf pub crawl?
How does mini golf fit into all that?
Yeah, mini golf.
It's different stops at retail stores and bars and restaurants.
So it's a combination.
And every location that you stop at, they make their own mini golf hall.
So some of them get really creative.
And some of them are right outside on the sidewalk there.
And they make their little putting green.
And you keep scoring them for some.
It's just really fun.
I guess it is really mini golf, though.
You play mini golf at each location.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, there'll be 18 holes of mini golf.
I mean, what's fun about it is, you know, if you want to do all 18, you can.
If you only want to do 10 and just make a day of it, you can do the 10.
It really doesn't matter.
But some of them, I'm telling you, they go, they go going home and creating these really fun mini golf holes.
Yeah, I could play mini golf.
I can play.
Hold on a second.
Kelly Cruz, executive director of the DRC, the downtown Racine Corporation.
Got some other fun stuff coming up this year.
I want to ask you back because I don't understand it.
But once I understand that I'm sure I'm going to love it.
So that's coming up straight ahead.
I'm Don Rosen, 729 at WRGN Radio.
Martin Clowney, the sun is coming up now.
I see.
Yeah.
That's beautiful.
26 degrees.
Stay where you are.
Home town radio refreshed.
A civic media station.
I hate going to the bank.
I'm always in a rush when I go to the bank.
I'm never prepared either.
I never have one of those checking deposit slips on me.
I have to fill it out there.
You start filling it out.
You see someone else walking the bank?
You have that little anxiety attack.
I hate being the only one in the bank, too.
That sucks.
You still got to walk through the ropes.
How smart do you feel then, right?
Hey!
You better be a hunk of cheese at the end of this maze.
I'll tell you that later.
I didn't realize this either, but there's a line on the floor
at the end of the ropes that you're not allowed to cross
unless the bank teller nods you over.
If you've ever walked right up to him, they freak out.
Right?
Hey, how you doing?
Let's talk it back.
Talk it back.
You can't come up here yet.
I am not ready, sir.
We're busy.
We will nod you over when we are ready to go.
You broke my heart because I couldn't dance.
You didn't even want me around.
And now I'm back to let you know I can really shake them down.
I know you love me.
I can really move.
I know you love me.
I can really move.
I know you love me.
I can be the fool.
I know you love me.
I know you love me.
I know you love me.
Now, I'm the one that I've been there.
Watch me now.
Watch me now.
Watch me.
Yeah.
Watch me now.
At 7.36 at WRJN Radio.
Tomorrow morning at 7.06, we're going to begin our series.
WRJN Historical Markers and tomorrow is number one.
Tony Gassana is going to join me for the hour.
He was one of our owners here for several years.
He was the one who hired me back in 1991, that they did was.
Anyway, so we'll talk to Tony tomorrow.
And during the whole year, we'll be talking to different people
that worked here.
At WRJN, we'll archive what they have to say.
So someday, when Kelly Cruz is about a hundred years old,
she can listen back to what WRJN was back then.
Hey, we're all going to be old someday.
You know, people say, I'm not going to get old.
You're going to get older.
You're going to be dead.
There's only two ways to do that.
So what we're going to do is we're going to archive the programming
at the Racine Public Library.
They said they can archive it for us.
And so someday, you know, somebody want to look back and say,
what was WRJN like back in, you know, back in the 2000s,
the 90s, the 80s.
So we're trying to get as many people as we can before they die
because they aren't dying.
You know, we honest.
We've lost about five people this past couple of years that worked here.
So we want to archive that.
Get that already.
So Tony gets on a historical marker number one.
They'll be here tomorrow morning at 706.
Good guy.
All right.
We'll talk about some of the events happening downtown this year.
There's such a, you can go online at the, what's the website called, by the way?
Yeah, it's Racine Downtown dot com.
Well, that's pretty easy.
Racine downtown dot com.
Kelly Cruz executive director.
And we're talking about some of the events coming up.
And this summer, only because it's, you know, we want to talk about the summer
because it feels good.
What is the candy hop coming up in April, right before, right before Easter?
Yeah, it's a, it's a fun family friendly event in downtown
where the kids are out and about walking around.
And they have a scavenger hunt that they need to complete.
And then they also get to collect candy, of course, from all the businesses.
And we've got space painting going on.
So it's just a really fun family day.
A reason to get out.
Hopefully by then, if we get snow, the snow will be melted.
And, you know, the good reason to get some fresh air.
That's for sure.
How old are the F2B?
You know, I'm, I'm looking at my age and I'm, I don't know,
the age limit is.
Oh, all ages, all ages.
All ages.
I'm in.
I'm in.
I'm always in for candy crawls.
The candy hop.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Okay.
Later that month, I drink a lot of seltzer.
And you have something called a seltzer stroll.
What is that?
So this is actually, there's been a big craze lately with the seltzer industry
as far as heart seltzer, heart seltzer, right?
Yes.
So there's, you know, the topo chico, the white claws, the,
oh gosh, I mean, crook and marker.
And there's a thousand brands, a thousand flavors.
And so this is, this audience views a little younger.
But it's a, where, where they basically walk up and down,
made the six street and get the sample from flavors that they normally wouldn't want to try, you know, all of it.
Because as you know, given the fact that there's just so many out there.
So again, another reason to come downtown.
We try to really have, you know, something for everybody.
So this is just another example.
It's a fun, it's a fun event.
I think this will be our fourth or fifth year doing it.
And it's always, and it's fun because every year we're sampling completely different heart seltzers
because that industry is changing so rapidly.
Hmm.
I drink plain seltzer.
The, you know, leave it to the alcohol industry.
They'll find a reason to put alcohol in everything.
I suppose so.
Yeah.
There's not one thing that hasn't been touched by alcohol.
And they make a lot of money doing because people love it and they buy it.
I want to talk about it July here for a moment.
Because salmonorama is coming back to festival hall.
It's not just a fishing tournament.
This is the whole 10 day festival.
They made a, they used to have a festival out of it for 10 or 11 days.
And it's coming back now.
Yeah.
This is a really fantastic news for downtown.
It's, you know, the first step in getting festival hall reactivated to hopefully to back to where it was.
But yeah, it'll be a 10 day festival again.
Friday through the full Sunday.
They're planning live music every single day down there.
And then there's going to be family days.
There's even going to be fireworks shows.
They're, they're bringing back.
Just a lot of the traditions that we remember that salmonorama had down there.
They're bringing those back.
So, you know, to me, this is, this is exciting because really, you know,
where she was known for the salmonorama and then, you know, as a kid,
I remember going down and with my dad and watching the fish get weighed at the station.
Yeah.
You know, you grab some lunch and you watch them get weighed.
It was just really fun and I'm excited that it's coming back to that sort of,
rather than just being more of like a fishing tournament and one day festival,
this is, you know, gung ho.
Well, we used to broadcast from there at WRJN for the full festival.
Every day we, we set up our stuff.
The first year I was there, they actually had a boat sitting on land.
He was right by the, where the ice skating rink used to be.
He was right over there.
And we used to broadcast from the boat.
It was a sponsor brought the boat in.
And we climbed into this thing with all our broadcast equipment,
which was not comfortable because it wasn't a, a yacht we were talking about.
It was like a robot, but it was a big one.
And we sat there with all our equipment in this robot broadcasting for 10 days.
And that was the only, I think there's only here we did it from the boat.
I said, this isn't going to work.
That's not, you get it.
First of all, it's going to tip over me getting in and out.
We couldn't bring guests into it because it's a robot.
So that it was fun.
We later had a regular set up there with a table and chairs.
And when congressman Paul Ryan was just starting off, I think it was a rookie congressman, brand new freshman congressman.
He came down to sat with us during one of the broadcasts the whole time.
I have a picture of it to prove it.
And we had a lot of big people stopping by and just sitting there with us and broadcasting.
We did it every night.
And on weekends, we did it during the day.
But at week nights, we did it when, you know, festivals really happen.
That was kind of neat.
I really had a good time there.
And then they stopped it.
They just went to the fishing festival.
Isn't there a new company that took over all the events at festival halls?
5K or something like that?
Is that what they're called?
Yeah.
So that will start on March 1st at 5K events.org is the company name that we'll be taking over festival hall.
And I'm sure they're going to do a great job in working hand in hand with them to make sure that we are working together.
Making sure that we're giving people a reason to not only go to whatever festival or event is happening down there.
But then to actually walk up, you know, Sam Johnson Parkway and visit downtown, right?
Because we've had so much to offer.
So we're excited for the new chapter of festival hall looking towards the future of, you know, it being activated on weekends.
That would be just fantastic.
Now let's talk about the new hotel right downtown.
And my surprise is it's not for Don.
How do you say it?
It's called Hotel Verdant.
Verdant.
Everybody says Verdant.
And I said, no, that's not the way Kelly said it last time she was with me.
Verdant.
They made sure, yeah.
They're very, the owners are very clear.
That's really Verdant.
I always want to say Verdant as well.
Maybe I like to sound fancy or something.
I wish they hadn't got the whole deal for Don.
So we've got the whole ring and the whole family in.
Yeah, no, it's Verdant.
I heard it's gorgeous on the inside.
Oh, it is amazing.
If you have in fact in, you definitely show they've got like a living wall of just all plants.
They've got a great Italian restaurant called Margarita on the first floor there.
Just phenomenal food, great service.
And then you can take the elevator to the fifth floor.
And it's a rooftop lounge.
And it's open in the winter months as well.
So, you know, it's all floor to ceiling windows.
So you can watch the sunset and great staff.
They're very friendly.
They've got some really cool mold cocktails.
Really nice appetizers and things.
So it's just, it's a great environment of phenomenal addition to our downtown.
We couldn't be happier with them.
Do they have mold wine and the Pope's rope and hot butter buffalo?
Do they have that?
I don't know about that.
But they have some very unique, very mold cocktails that they're sort of built for.
And interesting like apps as well.
So you can get fancy olives as an appetizer or a double day.
Things that you maybe would normally think about ordering.
You can kind of go off your, try something different.
I'm not asking you, you don't know on the hotel.
Did anybody rooms there are in that hotel?
I think it's 83.
Really?
Wow.
You wouldn't think it looking at the building.
But I guess it's bigger than it looks.
You know, it used to be a department store at one time.
Yeah.
So yes.
They have weddings in there.
And they have different events happening as well right inside there.
That's it.
Well, that sounds great.
I mean, I got to stop in there.
But you can stop in just for dinner.
You don't have to stay there, right?
Oh, yeah.
It's always open to the public.
You can stop in just to check out their lobby.
And they, they're, they're very open about that.
Absolutely.
At the Verdant.
Verdant.
Yes.
Verdant, not the Verdant.
Okay.
Verdant.
Because I, I've talked to people that have been in there.
And they say Verdant.
I said, I don't think that's the way.
Oh, yeah.
That's the way you pronounce it.
No.
Kelly said no.
Whatever Kelly says I go with.
She said no.
The lighthouse run.
Now, it used to come past my house at one time.
I used to, I used to sit up a shower outside in the street.
I took a hose and I put it on a stick on a ladder.
So on these hot days when they're running, I used to put it on,
there's a setting on the hose where you can like a mist.
And I missed station I built in front of my house.
So.
Oh, my goodness.
Yes.
I've done some of those runners that appreciate it.
Because I did the 10 mile a couple of years.
I've done the four mile a couple of years.
So I've done several quite a few of the lighthouse runs.
And those of you that put those hoses out are very grateful for that.
It was a mystery.
Yeah.
I don't know if they're running through the, through Main Street again this year.
I don't think I'm going to skip that again.
But if they, if they decide to, I will put the mister out in front of our,
kind of our house.
So people can get cooled off when they go by.
Kids love it too, because they'd like to stand there and get soaking wet.
Yeah.
There used to be an old man that used to, my, my daughter is a runner.
And she's running marathon.
She's running everything.
And she ran that one year.
And there was an old man in the race.
And he, he had to be up there near 80.
He had to be.
But he was running.
And I kind of made fun of him.
My daughter and I said, you know, we're making fun of this guy.
Meanwhile, he just ran 10K.
And I'm sitting here on my stoop.
And this guy, it's just ran it.
So who am I making fun of?
And he was in a couple of them.
He just had to be up there and age doing it.
But he was just chugging along and not huffing him puffing.
And then here I am sitting around watching him run.
Well, I should have been running myself.
Anyway, so the lighthouse runs coming up June 15th.
Same time it usually is every year.
I got music on the monument.
Now at the end of June, you have a fashion show coming to monument square, huh?
Yeah, yes.
We did this one one year.
We're bringing it back.
It was actually it won one of the best cooperative marketing events of the year through WDC, through the state.
And we're bringing it back.
We'll have about 12 to 15 different downtown businesses that will participate.
So whether it's, you know, clothing, jewelry, accessories.
It's really, it's a fun way to see all of the offerings that these downtown businesses have.
Because they really do have a lot of items that you may not recognize that they have.
So yeah, it is, it's a show for all ages.
The models will be from kids to adults.
And yeah, it's really cool.
Hi, Kelly Cruz, executive director of the DRC, the downtown nursing corporation.
We're going to talk about August and September coming up in just a moment here.
I'm looking at some of the on things coming up downtown Racine, where it's all happening, folks.
749 at WRGN Radio, hometown radio refreshed.
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Sun is shining.
It's 26 degrees.
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And let your arrow fly straight to my lover's heart.
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Enjoy it while you can.
It's 26 degrees, but it's a crisp cold.
It's not that there's no wind out there.
So it's just a very nice crisp morning in Racine.
And Kelly Cruz, executive director of the DRC, downtown Racine corporations here.
We're talking about some of the events coming up this year.
Starting in August, the Harbor Light Yacht Club, a cardboard boat race.
Don't carve, doesn't cardboard get wet and sink?
I mean, unless it's coated with something, I guess.
Yeah, this is a fun, very popular event where they have to cross the river and they have so much time to create a boat made out of only cardboard and duct tape.
And they actually have to sit in the boat and row across.
Oh, it's oh, you got to sit in it.
Oh, yeah, I thought they were like toy things.
Oh, this is pretty incredible.
Oh, I didn't know that.
You have to be down there for that.
Yeah, I'm not that far away.
I can walk down there.
Let's talk about all the music on the monument throughout the summer.
There's music on the monument.
Any particular days, weekends or just random.
It's every Friday and Saturday throughout the summer.
Just towards the end of June, all the way through the end of August.
We'll have live music on the square from four to seven.
And it really spans all genres.
We really try to use all local bands.
Because I think that's, you know, we're a hometown.
That is a part local.
And we have everything from blues to jazz, to country, to rock, to cover bands, to 80s bands.
Everything in between, you know, find something for everybody.
And it's a great time.
So if you're, you know, you can go downtown, listen to the music.
You could grab food to go and sit at one of the tables and eat it while you enjoy the music.
Or you could grab dinner and then listen to some music after dinner.
You know, to kind of make it your own.
But it's, it's really a great community.
It really activates our downtown in the summer months.
When people drive by, when they're leaving work on Fridays.
To see that downtown is active is really important.
And you're going to put the chairs back out, right?
Oh, yeah.
The tables, the tables and chairs will come back out.
So well, you can sit and relax and dance if you want.
Or not if you don't want to.
We've always got a couple of dancers that never group.
Now, what is it?
It's not rain or shine.
Is it?
No.
If it's going to rain, we just, we do cancel it.
But we make that kind of, we had really good luck this past year.
We did not have to cancel that music.
I don't think it all, which is great.
Well, you know, and talk about that.
I, I'm the MC for all the recene concert band concert
to the zoo every Sunday night during the summer.
And I don't think we had one weather event
where we had to cancel anything this past year.
So we were pretty lucky.
I mean, you know, Sunday night should take a chance.
But no, I don't think we had one weather event
that we had to cancel it.
It was pretty nice weather the entire summer.
Let's hope for it again.
I hope so.
Yeah.
It's always a bummer when we have to cancel anything.
And we try not to.
But we've always, you know, we've got to keep an eye out for it.
That band equipment can be very expensive.
And sometimes, you know, we have to make a decision early in the day.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, same thing with the, at the zoo,
when they do the band concerts, they get, they got, you know,
50 or 60 people in that band.
They can't take it.
Yeah.
And so, I think I know a lot of people schlepping out there
and going, you know, sitting at the zoo.
Here's one.
It's my favorite event because I always hit the very first one
and several of them, when we were broadcasting their party
on the pavement.
And I love the history of it.
They dug up the entire main street and put a new concrete road down.
They spent the entire summer putting it down.
They got it all done.
And it was a pain of the neck to get around of the road
and everything while they were tearing it up.
The first thing they did when they got it complete
was close it down to traffic.
And just wanted only people to walk on it.
I always thought that was kind of ironic.
You got a brand new road.
No cars on it.
Just people.
And that was the beginning and October of party on the pavement.
That's where it started.
A brand new road.
We had a party on it.
Yeah.
And it's been, what a really great tradition that has been able to happen
every year, minus one year.
But every year, it seems to become bigger or better.
It's really a great reflection of our community.
We bring in tons of vendors, dance groups, performers,
all local.
I mean, if this is really, you know,
what race scene comes together.
And if you put all the people in race scene
into downtown one day,
I mean, that's what you get.
And what a phenomenal event it really has become.
And also, rides.
Many, many Ferris wheel and rides for the kids.
That's generally where,
at the corner of, what's it?
It's not six.
It's Highway 20.
It's Highway 20 and Main Street right around there.
And is it Highway 20?
Yeah.
It's main insects.
Yeah.
We've been trying to look at that.
It's a lot of stuff for kids.
I mean, again, just family friendly.
All ages welcome.
Completely free events.
Five stages of live music throughout the day.
Hundreds of vendors.
All of the shops are open.
And, you know, excited to have you.
Some of them put their stuff right out on the sidewalk,
or the streets.
But it is just a phenomenal day.
And we had great weather last year.
Great, it was our biggest attendance last year
that we've ever had.
Just a beautiful day out.
So fingers crossed.
That is always a big factor of mine.
Just one more I want to talk to you about.
Only because it's interesting when you hear it.
Bearing bacon.
Bearing bacon walk next November.
Oh, boy.
Yeah.
How does the bacon fit into all that?
Yeah.
So we work with all of the local restaurants.
And they put together a different bacon appetizers.
So we have chocolate covered bacon.
You know, bacon chestnuts.
Bacon potato skin.
Bacon moonshine wrap.
Bacon sausages.
I mean, these bacon cookies.
Bacon crumbled doughnuts.
I could go on and on every year.
It's something different.
But we use all local vendors.
And so you get to basically try 20 different bacon items throughout the day.
How about bacon wrapped bacon?
Oh, that would be the ultimate.
Bacon wrapped in bacon and more bacon.
Oh, my goodness.
It's fun because every year they get, you know, more creative with what they're going to make.
And you become more of the bum.
Hey, give the website out again.
We're seeing downtown.com.
We're seeing downtown.com.
The complete calendar we've been talking about.
And so many more events are right on there.
The whole year is planned out.
Print it out.
Start making your plans right now.
Start using a pencil to highlight the days that you want to partake in all the fun.
Kelly Cruz, executive director of the downtown Racine Corporation.
Always welcome here.
And each month we'll bring you back.
Talk about that month's events.
It should be a lot of fun.
Kelly, hold on the line.
Don't go anywhere.
Stay right where you are.
Thank you very much, Kelly.
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year.
Thanks, Dad.
All right.
I'm Don Rose and WRJN Radio.
Keep it right here.