The sun's frozen, the coffee's broken, the morning we mourned it, we're down to the frozen, WRJN.
Yeah, YMCA. I belong to the YMCA. It's really a great place to belong to. And it, you know, helps a lot of people. There's so much to do there. And we're going to do that.
And we're going to find more about the YMCA that's no longer in Racine. It's the buildings there, but that's about it. I guess it's Charlie Tennyson. He made an excellent documentary.
An hour long documentary on basically the rise and fall of the YMCA. It's called Lakefront, the third YMCA. Now I'm not really from the area, but there were actually two more before the YMCA.
Two more before this one, right? There were two different ones. And by the way, welcome. Thanks for coming.
Yeah, good morning, Don. Thanks so much for having me. And I hope you're doing well in this cold morning. Yeah, the YMCA and Racine is an interesting and long history.
Really in researching the film I found mentions of the YMCA, I think into the 1860s. So way back when, and the current organization was organized in the 1870s, currently celebrating their 150th anniversary.
And it's just been a huge organization, a big impact in the Racine community, beneficial. I'm really doing good stuff for a long, long time in many different ways.
And I've been a part time employee and member of the Y here in Racine since about 2005.
So I watched the Lakefront building close and I just was very struck by how it changed and how its relationship to the community changed.
And also I felt bad that it closed and it was so important for so long, but we didn't have any way to think about it or observe its passing or really mourn for it because it's almost traumatic the way that we've lost it.
Now where were the other two you know in Racine? Yeah, and so the YMCA organization has owned three major buildings downtown over the years and many other ones.
But the first one was built in the 1880s and that building is still there. It's on the corner of Sixth Street in College Avenue. And if you stand on College Avenue and look up high in the freeze, you can see it says YMCA.
That's kind of neat. And if you're on Sixth Street and you look up and it says 18, I think 86 stone quote me that it's I think that's the year was built.
Yeah, a lot of these old buildings still have the original dedication stones in them. Now they make them alone now but back they used to make them high on the buildings.
Right. So the dedication stones just they didn't take them off and good I'm glad they didn't take them off.
Yeah. So that was our first YMCA. And then somewhere in the teens we moved to a building that's still there on Fourth Street.
And that we we occupied until I'm saying we the YMCA until around 1959. That's what the paper is journal times right next to it. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And that building also is more or less empty right now. I don't think there's any use of it for several years.
And in 1960, this building was dedicated on the lake front. And I in your thing had mentioned in your movie, it was the largest YMCA in the world.
Yeah, they're saying per capita. And by that, they mean not only the building that the organization during the middle of the 1970s when they made that claim.
The YMC actually had claimed to have 12 locations around the city doing different different things they had drum and bugle core.
All kinds of different clubs, they supported clubs like the Kiwanis and the rotary and things like that. They were using this space.
Just incredible impact on our community before we get to the sad part. And there's a sad part to this.
It's real sad. And I was it all not from the area. I was here for many, many years and I know the why I've been there exercising and everything.
And you know, the going around the potholes in the parking lot. I was there. I remember that my wife, I told you used to work there at the Y. She did the aerobics. Good.
Swimming aerobics at the Y. So I think everybody's got a link to that YMCA and down on the on the lake front.
Let's talk about some of the fun things about it. And I never knew. I never knew there was a dance club in there.
The yard birds, Tommy James of the shondales. They all played there at that. Who knew that?
Yeah, that that period of the 1950s and 60s.
And you're a rock and roll guy. So you know this, but that's before the stadium era. So where did bands play?
They played in kind of mid size clubs. And the Racine YMCA was one of the stops.
You know, especially because it's between walking Chicago. So if a band had an extra night, they would stop and Racine and do a big show.
And so, and so, yeah, Buffalo Springfield played there.
You know, Buffalo, yeah, Buffalo Springfield. That's with, you mentioned the folks not with Eric Clapton was after Eric Clapton.
Oh, the yard birds were after Jimmy Page was the yard birds of the time.
And that's what kind of floor, man. When I heard Jimmy Page played there, that's kind of when I got the movie.
That's a pretty good one. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, it's just like, what did you guys do?
That's like having the Beatles. Yeah, Craig told me that Craig. So he said, yeah, and I had to look it up because I didn't believe him.
Okay, so all these bands, how big was the dance club? How could they actively afford these big groups?
Yeah, I mean, you would usually pay a dollar. And when it got big, they would use the gymnasium.
And they were claiming up to 3000 emissions per weekend. So the band would get a couple thousand dollars for coming through.
You know, it's funny you mentioned that because my brother played with the biggest groups of the 1960s. It was guitarist. He played with the charelles, the chiffons, Ruby and the Romantics, Benny King, the Shangri-La.
He played with all those groups. And one group he was working with one night was strawberry alarm clock, remember them?
No, don't have that one. In-sense peppermits, big hit.
Good name. They played a gymnasium. And they had the top song in the country at the time, and they played a gymnasium at a high school.
Yeah. Because they didn't have the stadiums, you're right.
And it's interesting. The scene was actually a team club. So I don't think people in their 20s were even allowed. It was just for the local kids.
And that's the theme that, of course, what does the young, well, young man's Christian association is what it stands for.
But the young stayed for a long time. And by the, of course, by the 60s, it's boys and girls. But young people.
Well, that's the thing I was going to ask you. The time that was built, it was actually built in 1959.
Yeah. The 1960s, the dedication was there. Were women allowed in there in the 1960s?
I don't know. I don't actually not very much. They were there for social activities. But it wasn't, they weren't part of the gym or physical activities at that time.
There wasn't a girls room, for instance. Now they do have YWCA's. But yeah, I don't know if they were any going to receive more there.
We had, we had a YWCA. Yeah. And the last thing that they were running that I know about was what became River Bend Nature Center.
And I think I think the YWCA is still around.
Okay. So they built this one to replace the one that was on 4th Street. Yeah. And one on 4th Street couldn't have been that big.
Now they have one. I don't know if it's still there, but it was state and main where Jimmy Johns is.
Oh, they opened up a smaller version of the Y there. I don't know if it's still open.
Yeah. That's a storefront. Yeah. So that's what's left of the downtown YMCA experience. Well, of course, the brace center too.
But yeah, you can, you can still go work out just next to Jimmy Johns. And it's a, it's a storefront with exercise equipment.
And we're going to talk about some of the people in the documentary and we're going to talk about the fall. Yeah.
Because it's sad. It's, you know, it's always sad when you see something with so vibrant in the community that people depended on.
It was, it was a center of activity and, you know, gathering gone because what's really sad is you, in your, in your documentary, you have all the photographs of when it was vibrant with people enjoying the swimming.
Yeah. Exercising the concerts and just the gathering of people is incredible. And now you take a little graffiti on the inside. It's boarded up.
And you look around and you say, is this the same place? Yeah, we're all this activity. And it was kind of sad watching. We were glued. We put it on our big screen.
And I was glued to this thing. And my wife had to get up for say I pause this thing. You know, yeah, we don't want to miss a second of it.
The documentary is called Lakefront, the third YMCA, the writer, producer, director, Charlie Tennyson. He's our guest here.
More coming up at just a moment at 716 local news and timeless hits here at WRJN.
WRJN.
Our guest is Charlie Tennyson. He wrote and directed and produced his own movie. That's good when you can do that.
The documentary called Lakefront, the third YMCA. And this is the one we're talking about on the Lakefront that's now abandoned.
And you know what's really sad when you see this when they start putting the fencing around it. Yeah, that makes it look good.
It makes it look like it's ready for demolition. And they always put the key people out. And in the movie, you do interviews in front of the building with all the graffiti and the boarding up.
The boarding up is always sad. It is sad. Yeah. And they said, but you did. And you had a live band playing there. Yeah.
You must have had two bands because they were different people. Yeah, two different bands. Yeah.
Two different bands are playing there. Who are they? Yeah. Well, Steven Hall agreed to do the opening song.
And it was spectacular. He played in front of the YMCA. And I wanted to recreate the Jimmy Page dance feeling from the 60s.
That vision just stuck with me. So there's music throughout the film.
And then the local Kenosha band called the Spirit Shakers do the outro. And you can guess what song they play.
Yes. And they nail it. It's just absolutely incredible.
You also do an acoustic version of that song. Yeah, Steven does a very sad acoustic version.
I know. Yeah. And it was wonderful that he did that. He was kind of improvising. Steven's a blues musician.
And I asked him to play YMCA. And it was probably the last song he would have played.
But he's a very generous, amazing musician. And he agreed to do it. And he played it beautifully. It's just incredible.
And you got permission to be on the grounds of the Y, right? Yes, we did. Okay. We took people to know he just ripped down the fence and get in there. Yeah.
So, but it is sad to see it. Now you have a lot of people you're interviewing one of them. I recognize Jim Messier.
He's a regular here. He comes in regular. We talk about the history of receiving. Oh, good. Yeah.
Now, I noticed the guy was the guy at the end. He had the keys hanging from him. And he said,
you got to pay attention to the dash 1960 to 20, whatever it paid. Who was that guy? Van Van Carson. Yeah. Who is he?
For the YMCA for a while. And now works for the city. I think with the same program like
I forgot the exact program. Yeah. I can listen to him forever. Yeah. Beautiful. I think he might moonlight as a preacher or something like that. He's good.
That's probably why. Now I noticed you were in one of the meetings with the mayor. Yes.
So, the mayor comes in here all the time every month. We have the mayor in here. And I'm going to say that you had a
You had a cameo role, a non-speaking non-star making role in the documentary because he is on screen, but he doesn't say anything.
Yeah. Yeah. And who is that speaking there at the meeting? Do you remember?
I think one of the assistants there. You know, I don't name the people in the documentary. I noticed you didn't have any names on them.
I'm very grateful to everyone who appeared. I find because because it's sad. And I think I think it didn't end the way everyone wanted it to.
A lot of people haven't said anything about it. And I think like I said, I'm going back to the trauma in the community. The more we talk about it, the better.
I wanted to. So I don't name people. And I did ask the mayor to appear in the film and he play the decline. But he was in it. Yeah. That's true.
The speaking role. And he's not. I don't think the. I don't think it's really Academy Award nominations for the role. But he was good. You know, he was on
training. You look good. Yeah, he looked good. And he was a look concerned. And that's good. That's that's important. You need that.
Okay. The fall of the Y. We're going to do on the other side of Paul Harvey. We'll have to talk about the rest of it. But get the rest of the story as they say.
When did the fall start? Now it was built. It was dedicated and open 1960. When did it start to go downhill where everybody knew eventually this is it.
That's a good question. I don't know that I'm going to punt on that. It's been in decline for 10 or 15 years. If you look closely, you can see the seeds of its own destruction in 1960 because the building was so big and grand.
It's no longer fitting the mission today. For instance, it had 100 room dormitory in it. And you know, that's empty space that has to be maintained. And nobody wants to run a dormitory at a YMCA anymore. I don't think any YMCA is do that anymore.
So it's it's almost like they're. The current organization inherits this building that costs a lot of money to keep open.
And yet the way that the donor pool is and the membership has drifted west of the city that they just can't keep it running anymore.
So it's hard to pin that to me. You know, what are the reasons that the YMCA closed? Well, give me a sheet of paper number from one to 25 and I'll start telling you what the reasons are.
And things change. Things change. Not everything's forever. When I worked downtown Milwaukee to radio station at seventh in Wisconsin Avenue right across the street was the YMCA.
Yes. Big giant building. And one of our one of our announcers lived there. It was kind of a flaky guy. You didn't want to be able to. He came in at night and it was like everybody out of the building.
But he lived at the Y and swore lived. He lived in that giant building now. Now is that. I don't think that's the why anymore. Is it? I think I think Marquette bought that.
Marquette bought over dorms. Yeah. Yeah. So they repurposed it. Yeah. So you're right. So there's no more dormitory YMCA. There's no money in it. Yeah.
And one of the themes I really wanted to tell is just how much hard work it is to maintain communities and things that are important to communities.
Well, one guy in there said he paid 200 something a month to live there. That's unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can't live in a bad hotel for that kind of money. Right.
With a lake view. It was incredible. He said, yeah. Do I have one of the street view of the lake? I'm looking at the lake every morning for 200 someone dollars a month.
Yeah. That's back in the 90s, I think. Now do they have they had no made service housekeeping service? I don't know. I mean 200 someone dollars. I'll move in there for 200 somebody.
Hold in there. Charlie Tennyson. He is the director producer, writer of Lakefront, the third YMCA. And if you were a member of the Y or you went to the Y downtown, listen up.
It even gets better. So keep it right here.
Charlie Tennyson is here. He's the director, writer, producer. You probably carried your own equipment, too, right? Yeah, I did.
He's a little help. See did everything. Okay. The movie is called the document. Just called Lakefront, the third YMCA. Now we're talking about it.
And how do people see this because it doesn't have any release yet? How are you going to get this out to the public? Yeah, we're going to do local showings.
It's very important to me that it be presented to the community and that we can see the movie and then experience our member remembrances of the YMCA together as a group.
So it will stream eventually, but not right now. Two showings are scheduled right now at George's encore.
Yeah, yeah, right now. I live on Thursday, January 23rd at 7 p.m.
And also at the Racine Heritage Museum. We'll show it Thursday, February 6th at 5 p.m.
Okay, we got to write this down because I got to keep repeating. Oh, there you got it. Can I have this? Okay.
At George's encore right there on Main Street by near the Jane School. And that'll be Thursday, January 23rd.
That's like next week, right? Yep. We can this Thursday, 7 p.m.
And if they're seen Heritage Museum Thursday, February 6th at 5 p.m.
That's how I get your name from Chris Paulson over there. Yeah, Chris in the museum have been great.
And those are free showings by the way. And we're going to do one at the library, but that has not been scheduled yet. So that's great.
You got to get it out there. That's a good way of doing it. Yeah, I want it's for the community and it's for us to.
I would feel terrible. I think it's a tragedy, how it closed and that it is closed, but it would be more of a tragedy if we didn't learn anything from it.
Well, you know what, while I'm watching this, I said to my wife, this is an historical, historical document.
You can't get rid of these things because once you do, people don't remember them anymore.
They'll say, yeah, that was a building down there. I don't know what it was. Why am I seeing anything about it?
This will keep it in people's minds forever. We do a program here on WRJ and called historical markers, the historical markers.
And I'm getting people who used to work here years ago because you know, we're not going to live forever.
So I'm getting to do one hour with all the memories they can of the radio station. We're going to save them.
The library I spoke to that we're seeing they're going to try to save it in their archives.
Good. And we're trying to figure out how to save this because it was the 70s who would be on cassette in the 80s of the on CD.
In the 90s and beyond, it would be on a memory stick. What do you save it on for the future?
So we put it on the cloud for now and they could do whatever they want with it for the future.
And I spoke to Chris Paul some are going to do a hundredth year and we have hundredth year and two years from now.
But WRJ I'm going to do a whole big thing there because you've got to preserve these things because the people forget it's gone forever.
And I think your documentary is an historical marker. This will be remembered because that building's not going to be there for it.
They're going to knock it down one of these days and build condos or whatever there.
And so let's talk about that.
The fall of the downtown Y because there's a new one in Mount Pleasant.
Yeah. And it's beautiful.
Beautiful.
No dormitories. It's just working out.
That's it.
Did they have a pool in that one?
They got a beautiful spectacular pool.
Because I've been there. I just from the summer programs camp for the kids.
A lot of kids stuff after hours.
It's become the tickleball couple of Mount Pleasant during the day.
The gym. There's nothing like pickleball players.
I've never heard it. Never seen it.
Don't know what it is. Never played it.
It's a great place.
I don't like the I don't like pickles.
So anything with the word pickles and it turns me off.
I get that smell in my head.
Let's talk about the downtown YMCA.
There's this one.
Is it accessible?
Because this one is very accessible downtown.
Buses.
People out of people live there.
Is it accessible?
The new one?
Yeah.
If you have a car.
Yeah.
That's it.
No bus routes or anything.
I don't think so.
It might be out of bus.
I don't take the buses.
It doesn't serve the original urban community.
The YMCA was started in 1874.
No movie theaters are downtown anymore.
The last ones are gone.
Downtowns are different.
They've changed.
We're going to talk about that in a few weeks with Jim Messier.
Okay.
So it closed down.
Who made the decision to shut it down?
I think the board in the CEO at the time made the decision.
I actually don't get into that in the film.
Yeah.
It was the doors closed in 2019.
Now, over the end, over the end of the film, you mentioned it was sold to the city.
A city bought it for $12,500.
Yeah.
Now, you might say, what a bargain.
Like from property.
It's going to cost them a fortune to take it down.
I heard a couple of millions.
Yeah.
So when you hear, oh, they bought it for $12,000.
I wouldn't want it for $12,000.
Yeah.
Do you have a couple of millions to remove it?
Yeah.
So the cost of the property was nothing.
The cost of cleaning it up and getting rid of everything.
Did you ever hear and mention of what they want to do with it?
Does that ever come across your?
Yeah.
I mean, the city purchased it with the intention of tearing it down and repurposing the property.
And I think that was done because the YMC organization didn't have the capacity to do that themselves.
And it was for sale forever.
And they never got a taker.
So.
Chris of the cost to getting rid of it.
I suppose.
And now if it was all gone, it was levied land.
You sold it for $12,000.
I'd buy it.
Yeah.
You'd think.
I'll tell you what.
I'll make it $13,000.
Yeah.
It's okay.
You have some asking price.
Okay.
Now, there was at one time an artist conception to rebuild it.
Rebuild the whole building there.
And I saw the, you have it in the film.
The artist grew drawing and it's spectacular.
Modern sleek.
It looks great.
And you mentioned in the film at the last second boom.
They stopped it.
It was just a few minutes to go.
They put the kibas on it.
Yeah.
The YMC had a plan to sell it to a developer.
And the developer was going to own the new property.
But then lease the first floor as a YMC back to the organization.
And the property would be primarily a condo's or apartments that kind of a thing.
And beautiful.
Yeah.
Right out right on the lake.
And that deal fell through for reasons unknown.
Literally minutes.
Yeah.
And it's going to be signed.
But we don't know why it fell through, do we?
Yeah.
I mean, business deals are business deals.
And really, and when I think about it, I think about longer term.
Because these things take place over, over, you know, decades and years.
And somehow, unfortunately, this building found itself just in a corner that it couldn't get out of.
You know, there were, there were no good options left.
And I think those organizations and our institutions that we need to think a long term.
To try to avoid things like this in the future.
How long did it take you to make the documentary?
About a year, year and a half.
It takes that long, yeah.
Yeah.
It was a situation where I was so struck by the story.
And I talked to every filmmaker that I knew and were seeing.
And I said, hey, you got to make this documentary.
And no one was interested.
And then I realized I had to do it.
Because I was the only one who wanted to do it.
So I didn't, I wasn't unable to raise any money.
So I just worked alone with a couple of cameras.
And I just asked everyone that I could think of to tell me a story about the YMCA.
I interviewed maybe 20, 25 people.
And I didn't count.
But I think maybe ten of them made the cut for the, for the actual interviews and the fact.
I recognize some of them.
Yeah, yeah.
I can't think of their names, but I recognize the faces.
Yeah, when you come, you will recognize some faces.
And they're, they're, they're us.
They're, they're the community.
Can I talk about in the film, you mentioned it, about the death of the character guy who lived around there.
They called him Captain Kirk, his name was Kirk.
Yeah.
And you mentioned, I guess they found his dead body there.
Was it inside or outside the Y?
Just on the door, on the steps.
Yeah.
He was, he was living many, many folks in the last few years, you know, have been squatting in and out of the, in and around the YMCA.
And this is after it closed.
After it closed, yeah.
Yeah.
Although I believe they were sneaking in there even while it was still open.
It's a huge building.
Well, you mentioned the, the doors were pride open.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mentioned that in the film.
They pride the doors open to the Y.
And they would live in there.
Even when it was functioning, they used to sneak in.
I think a little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Is there any security in that building?
You think there would be at the front door when people are.
Right.
I guess there wasn't.
It's just a big building.
And with a small staff, it was hard to police.
So.
Wow.
So this guy Kirk, one of the guys mentioned the overdose.
I don't know what happened to him.
But I heard one of the people who he were talking to said he overdosed.
Whether he did or not.
I don't know.
But it made the papers.
Yep.
It made all the news that this guy just died on the doorstep of the YMCA.
Yeah.
And it's a very sad part of the story.
And I hope I told that part respectfully.
You did.
You did.
Yeah.
And you showed a nice picture of him at the end.
Yeah.
He was, he was a real person.
And I, of course, the thing you go to is, would he have died if the Y was still open?
Could he have helped him or not?
But it wasn't no longer there.
Yeah.
To me, he's kind of symbolic of the, the people that we can't serve, the YMCA can't serve
anymore because their mission is diminished and moved and not as, not as big as it once
was.
Not the living dorms anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hold on there.
We're talking to Charlie Tennyson.
His movie is Lakefront, the third YMCA.
We're going to review where it's going to be shown.
We'll, we'll talk about that.
Plus, I have some other things I wanted to discuss.
You made some other documentaries as well.
Yes, they did.
I really talk about those as well.
That's all coming up right here at WRJN, local news, timeless, it's WRJN.
We're talking to Charlie Tennyson, whose documentary Lakefront, the third YMCA is going to
be viewed at.
You got a couple of viewing parties here.
George is on core.
That's at 1201 North Main Street.
That'll be Thursday, January 23rd at 7 p.m.
Also, the Racine Heritage Museum.
We know that is 701 Main Street in Racine.
That'll be Thursday, February 6th at 5 p.m.
You have to get tickets in advance.
How does that work?
No, first come first serve.
Show up.
First show up.
Show up.
Show up.
It's a little over an hour.
Yeah.
Yeah, but it's very good.
I mean, you'll be, it seems like 10 minutes when you watch it.
When you see a good move.
You know, you go to a three hour movie.
I don't know if I can watch this for three hours.
But you're doing say, that was three hours.
Yeah.
But then you watch an hour and a half movie.
Oh, is that four hours?
It's a bad movie.
Yeah.
I think for local people who are interested in the story, this is.
It is good.
Goes down very easy.
Yeah.
It's all fascinating.
My wife loved it and it made her angry at the end.
Yeah.
When she saw the demise of it.
Because she worked there.
Yeah.
But you made other documentaries.
Yeah.
Just talking about some of those.
Yeah.
My first documentary is called 25 Weeks Wisconsin Pizza Harvest.
And it was about the process of making a pizza from a plant from a bag of grain.
So at the beginning of the movie, I plant the grain in my field.
I'm a farmer, a wheat farmer.
And then we watch it grow.
And some of it doesn't grow.
And we talk about that.
And then at the end, it's, it is a reasonably successful harvest.
And I grind it into flour and make a pizza and we end with a pizza.
I love it.
So where's that hanging around that documentary?
It's available on YouTube.
If you search for 25 weeks of Wisconsin pizza harvest.
25 weeks.
Okay.
Yeah.
What else?
And then the second movie I made, it's called Night of the Living Harvest.
And that's more about my, the homestead that I live on.
I live on four acres.
And I, most of the food that I eat, I grow.
And most of the power on the farm comes from the three donkeys that I keep.
So they, they plow my field and just get in things like that.
I know where you said you live.
I'm going to tell anybody.
But you told me where you live.
You have three donkeys there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's incredible.
I'm on four acres.
And when I bought the place, they said, well, you have four acres.
You can have four horses.
Because it's one acre per horse.
So it's a lovely little spot.
Lovely little spot.
So an agricultural.
And I've been very, very happy there.
It's a one great, great community.
I kind of drive by there and listen to me.
Aww.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're pretty quiet.
But you can, you can come to the house sometime.
I saw a video somebody posted on the Reels on Facebook.
It's a baby donkey.
It's their pet.
And the baby donkeys cradle it in her arms and goes to the house.
It's a baby donkey.
It's a pet.
And the baby donkeys cradle it in her arms and goes to sleep in her arms.
And they said, aw, that is so adorable.
You know, they're wonderful animals.
Just wonderful.
All animals.
There was one where, um, I know it was a baby gorilla or, I think it was a baby gorilla.
He was trying to show off the camera and he's like waving or any falls.
But he falls like a few inches into hay.
Yeah.
The mother jerks up for what she was doing runs over to him.
Really?
The babies are the same.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Their babies are in trouble and they run.
We don't think about animals like that.
But they are.
They're just like the instinct is the same for sure.
Yeah.
Not fathers for some reason.
The father's never run over to help their babies.
It's always the mother's.
I said.
I know.
It's always the mother's.
But do it.
Okay.
So those three.
Now.
You did this all out of your own money out of your own pocket.
Yeah.
The first two movies I was able to raise some money.
The third one I didn't like tried.
But nobody's.
Nobody went.
There were no takers.
Who's the main corporation that used to live in this?
Is it that is expensive to make it?
Because I noticed you're equipment.
I could see you had multiple cameras set up.
Yeah.
So for this film I did buy a second camera because then when I'm
doing a sit down interview, I've got different cameras to pop
to and it makes a little bit more interesting.
Yeah, the costs, I mean, once you own the equipment it's
fairly minimal and we live in an amazing age of digital
filmmaking because.
You know, for a couple thousand dollars, you can have a
did editing station that would have cost a million dollars.
You know,
and plus day.
And the film stock would have cost a fortune.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So time doesn't cost anything.
It just fills up a space on the card.
And the cameras used on eBay or a couple thousand bucks a
piece.
So it's a matter of the expensive hobby.
Doesn't look like it on film though.
Well, your movie doesn't look like it was there.
Oh, it's incredible.
Yeah.
Doesn't look like it was made on the cheap at all.
Yeah, the quality that you can achieve just by being
meticulous and I'm a lifelong photographer.
So I know how to expose things and frame things.
How did you get?
Did you use drones to get some of these shots?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So how did you get?
Did you use drones to get some of these shots?
Yeah.
The opening and closing our drone shots.
And again, that's like an $800 drone.
Yeah.
So an observer would have noticed that I was walking around
downtown for the whole summer because I wanted the sun to be
just right.
It's a two minute shot in the film.
But to do it, I think I flew the drone 10 or 15 times to just
because we fly around downtown showing the three YMCA's.
And kind of setting up the story.
Not to watch it again.
Yeah.
Not knowing some of this.
Also, all the photographs here, you have a million historical
photographs.
Oh, they're incredible.
They're incredible.
Which animal?
Yeah.
The, our wonderful library, our wonderful museum, and also
from the YMCA archives.
So.
That's got to be time consuming.
Yeah.
I think I scanned about a thousand.
And again, you go through them.
And I suppose 75 made the cut in the actual film.
But it's funny.
You could see from the people, the haircuts, the styles,
the bathing suits.
You know, what you're they're talking about.
Exactly.
A lot of 70s stuff in there.
I said to them, I could, I smell the 70s.
You could see just the hairstyles and everything else in there.
Yeah.
It was great.
And I hope that no matter what we generate out of the film,
that we can remember, that the building was a rousing success.
I mean, what it was built for, it succeeded.
And it just stopped for some reason.
But for what it was, it was 60 years of, well, 50 years of
amazement, you know, just amazing, amazing stuff.
I'm only going to take that building down.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I mean, there's stuff around it.
It's not like in Vegas, where they implode these hotels.
Yeah.
And they have a big thing where God pushes a button and implodes in.
I mean, you're downtown.
You can't have all this dust and debris.
And who knows what's in that?
It was 1960s.
It could be a spethus in there.
Probably.
Yeah.
Who knows.
I mean, how do you, I got to see how they, that's another documentary.
Yeah.
This is going to do that.
I'm going to be on to another project.
I wish the next future, Doc.
What do you, can you tell us what's on the agenda?
I've been haunting open mics.
Music really has become interesting.
I might do a documentary about the local open mic scene.
So that's one I'm thinking about hard a lot.
I had an author in here.
Her name is Rory Graves.
Okay.
And she wrote a book called Haunted Racine.
And you don't know what's going on in its town.
Yeah.
I'll tell you one of them real briefly.
It is.
It's, you know where ascension is on.
Is it 14th Street or it's.
It's right off Main Street.
Okay.
It's, it is.
It's an ascension building right across from there's an old school.
Yeah.
And it was built.
An old cemetery.
Really.
And they didn't, it's like poltergeist.
They didn't get all the bodies out.
Wow.
So when the school opened kids were finding bones and pieces of people.
So much to make that movie.
That's what I'm talking to you about.
That's why you're here.
And she has so many stories like that.
Yeah.
About things.
And her cover picture is that school.
Now she put the light on in the building.
You know what?
A haunted look.
But she's got a book of haunted stories.
Even on six street things went on.
It's all over town.
Wow.
And these, they're true stories.
And they did find the bones.
These kids were.
Yeah.
Got a FEMA.
You know, you find these bones there.
Yeah.
I want to see that movie.
And the school.
Well, it's going to be a Charlie Tennyson film.
I don't want to go for that.
We can hope.
Yeah.
It's like a real life poltergeist.
Wow.
But there's so many other stories in the book.
Yeah.
Haunted Racine by Rory.
Racine is awesome.
And we, we, the more we invest in it, we more, more we get out of it.
So I hope everyone that is think is listening to this.
This interview this morning.
It's just, it's a great place.
And so I think it's, it's a great place to meet community,
community requires continuous efforts and investment and work.
And when it works, it's amazing.
So I played Tommy James of the Shondales.
This is one of the Hanki Panky.
The first thing that caught thought to mind was they played at the YMC.
They hit the YMC.
But you're right.
There were no big stadiums.
And there were no big arenas.
Yep.
Because I saw the Beatles in 1965, a Chase stadium in New York.
And they were not ready for that concert because they used these skinny column speakers.
And you couldn't hear anything.
Yeah.
And they were incredible.
Right.
Because nobody plays Beatles will probably be one of the first groups to play a stadium.
And they just weren't ready for it.
They didn't know how to do it.
And now they do, but they didn't know back then.
Well, this is a great film.
And we watched it yesterday.
He gave me a special little thing I can watch it on.
I brought it on my big TV.
And the quality is impeccable on that.
Yeah.
HD is incredible.
It looks amazing.
I'm glad you did.
It is an historical document.
And I'm glad you did it because it'll be preserved forever.
And I know the people at the scene heritage museum will probably store it there somehow.
I know.
So, yeah, there's ways to do it now.
Charlie, thank you very much for coming in.
Thank you, Don.
You're such a pro.
This is so much fun.
Okay.
So let me just quick review.
It's called Lakefront, the third YMCA.
It's going to be played at George.
Now, this is just the first two places.
It's going to be a lot of other places.
George is on core.
That's right there at 1201 Main Street.
Thursday, January 23rd at 7 p.m.
Also with the scene heritage museum downtown at 701 Main.
And that'll be Thursday, February 6th at 5 p.
I mean, you can have more places eventually.
Yeah.
Got to see it, folks.
Yeah.
It was ever part of your life.
I see it.
And it was part of it.
It's hard to find somebody who's an adult.
And it wasn't part of their lives.
It tests everyone in the community.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's why I said, I said, didn't you work there?
Yeah.
I was a swimming robot, a robot, a robot instructor.
Everybody has a connection.
Everyone's got a story.
Yep.
And I worked there.
I think I once went in there and complained about the potholes
in the parking lot.
I remember that.
And the lady at the front desk said, oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I just lost an axle in your parking lot.
You got to fix it.
Thank you, Charlie Tennyson.
Thank you, Dad.
Again, the film is Lakefront, the third YMCA.
Get a chance.
You got to see it, right?
See it at clock on the Noggin.
Let's get news.
There's a timeless hits.
W-R-G-N.
We'll see you in don't show.