today. Let's start off with the sad news, because yesterday we found out that Alder Molly
Jones from the second district passed away. And you know, when you work with someone
so close and they're not here anymore, it's kind of a sad thing and it's sad for the entire
city of Racine. But the Alders, you and your staff will work closely with her. It's sad because
now you can't say anything to her anymore. It's a huge loss. Molly was really one of the
best public servants have ever had the privilege of serving with. She, you know, she wasn't one
who wanted to be at the front of the line at a press conference and she didn't give the
biggest speeches on the floor of the council. But boy, she worked hard for her constituents.
It seemed like she knew every single one of them by name and you could drive around to her
district with her and she knew, you know, every pothole that she wanted addressed in the
alleys or she knew what was going on with the constituents and they needed a home repair or
was going on at the Bryant Center. I mean, she was just really incredibly active. And we got
to work together to restore some of the bricks on college Avenue. She was really proud of
the work that we did on that. She cared deeply about, you know, her, her chairmanship as
the public works and services committee. And she just also just cared passionately about
voter access, right? As somebody who I remember, I think in the 2020 election, she brought
a woman who lived on Racine Street who'd been voting at that address since Harry Truman
ran in 1948 and wanted to be sure that she could get to the polls. So Molly was just,
she was just one of these wonderful public servants. Not at all about getting the creditor
being in front of boys. She worked hard for her constituents and the second district
really better to fit it from that, but so, so did the whole city. So I, I will feel the
loss of a colleague, but also a dear friend. She's just a sweet kind woman who, who cared
deeply about her community.
But we have a podcast with Molly Jones, the older Jones online. You can hear it. It was
from March 20th of last year. She was running for reelection and she didn't want to do it
because she was nervous about it. And I said, just give me a conversation. Yeah, but I know
maybe you'll ask me something. I'm not going to ask any of that. And after we're done,
she said, Oh, this was fun. We could do this again. So if you want to hear the podcast,
it was an hour long podcast with older Molly Jones. And you can get it at WRJN.com,
civic media. US, the civic media app, Apple podcasts, Spotify, it's everywhere. Just
type in Don Rosen's show, go to March 20th of 2024. And you'll see it right there with
Molly Jones. It's a really interesting interview because she started, well, when she started
talking and got it with the fear of being interviewed, she was, she was very nice and
it was very good. And now the second district where people don't know where is the second
district. Yeah, good question. So over by the Bryant Center, sort of that college avenue
where the historic district is, sort of from the lake. Lake Oaks. Yeah, in that area,
the SCJ campus on Howe Street there to Racine Street. So it was that neighborhood.
That's a nice neighborhood too. Yeah, yeah. So, so, you know, it's got a lot of diversity
in the neighborhood. The neighborhood changes, sort of quickly. But she was also just really,
again, just one of these people who was always like, we do this and what's going on with this
property over here. And that's one of those historic districts. It is. It's right. It's got the
bricks. It does. It does. So some are nice as historic homes, but also some neighborhoods that
could use some wealth. And she was always really interested in trying to figure out what we could
do to lift everybody out. Well, that's good. And she left a good legacy. You know, I mentioned
to you before you on it, we're going on the air on your tombstone. You have the date you were born,
the date you die. And you had a dash. And your entire life is that dash. Yeah. But they're
birth and death. That's one second. But the dash is how you do it. And obviously she had a good
life. And I'm glad I got to meet her that day. Yeah. Life was a great public service. Also,
you know, I mean, her son Terry is retired from her police department. And so a lot of public
service in that family and our hearts go out to, you know, obviously not just her colleagues
in the council, but her family and her friends that will be feeling her loss. So our deepest
sympathy to to Molly Jones's family and, you know, what a loss for the community, what a loss.
It is Black History Month February. And a lot of activities going on all over the country. And
also in Racine. Yeah. What do we have? So one of the things there's lots of things that we try to
do where we acknowledge some of the first in the city of Racine. But we also wanted to do a little
bit to acknowledge some of the African American historical figures that are local, right? And we
often times you hear about Black History Month that you'll hear about a national figure or
national story. So if you go to a city hall right now, there's five posters up there that acknowledge
five local African American leaders that we wanted to point out. And if it's okay, I'll go through
just a couple of them. And so the first of which, and if people don't know this story, they should
really learn that the Joshua Glover story is a great story here locally. He was a runaway slave
who had settled here in Racine and this before the Civil War who just slave act. And he was
taken into custody and taken up to Milwaukee and some abolitionists from Racine,
went up to Milwaukee, broke him out of jail and sent him on his way to freedom to Canada. It's
a really remarkable story of resilience and not only Joshua Glover escaping from slavery, but
the Racine community's efforts to resist slavery and overturn that terrible institution.
The other is Corinne Reed Owens, who is one of the first African American teachers here in the
community. That's the bus is the transit center. The transit center is named in her honor. Yeah,
absolutely, but she's a long time activist. You know, sometimes people called her
were scenes rows of parks. You know, she was one of the people early on making sure that the
things were getting integrated. I had the pleasure of meeting her when I was in the state assembly
and actually honored her as a hometown hero at one point, but huge legacy of first and making
sure that we were doing everything we could to honor her. Another person I wanted to mention is
a guy named Blue Jenkins. William Blue Jenkins was a local labor leader here who
African American guy and one of the first successful African American leaders within the labor
movement here locally, but even in the country and led integrated sit-down strikes to give
workers rights and a lot of factories on that memorial corridor, the memorial street corridor
that was there and integrated strikes were tough things to do, but he managed to pull it off
and then after he retired from that, spent the remainder of his life trying to get young people
into the skilled trades and and get people into family-sporting wage jobs. So real great person.
Another person I want to mention is Pastor Mark Gates, who was also a city employee who was
unfortunately killed when he was picking up trash on an icy winter day, but a great local pastor
who could bring people together in a great city servant who died in the line of his work for the city.
And the last person that we want to acknowledge that we've acknowledged is a congresswoman
Gwen Moore and people think well, isn't she? Isn't she the congresswoman from Milwaukee? She is,
but she is a Racine native. She grew up here. She's from Racine and talks about growing up
here very fondly. And when she comes back, she always describes Racine as the center of the
universe. So as far as I know, she's the only Racine native who's who's gone on to serve in Congress.
So we're lucky to claim her as part of our legacy as well. So those are five local leaders
throughout history. Some, you know, one in Congress today, some going back more than 150 years ago,
but as we celebrate Black history, it feels like a good thing to acknowledge local historical figures
that I mean, actually when you come in, you're going to have Molly Jones, that list. Yeah, yeah,
absolutely. I heard this. And I don't know if it's true or not. The Underground Railroad
run through Racine. It did. It did. It did. Okay. I heard that and I wasn't sure. So first
Presbyterian Church is the most easily confirmed of those sites. And certainly the, now we've had
the interior department acknowledge that as a site. But yeah, we have several sites here. But if
people haven't had the chance, I mean, I would certainly encourage you to go to the Racine Heritage
Museum that the county runs. They've got a whole story about the Joshua Glover story and the
Underground Railroad. But we have, we have several sites within the city of Racine and
Racine County that were part of the Underground Railroad. And you know, people, I had to explain
this to my kids when they were in elementary school taking social studies. It's like, it's not
literally a railroad underground. It's not like a subway. But it was a network of people who
worked with each other to help people escape. So first Presbyterian Church right downtown is one
of those sites. And there are others as well. And we've worked to put some historical markers out
on where those locations where the old Porter site was, which is now cleared was one of those sites.
What's it really? Yeah. So there's, but we should come, we should talk about that another time.
We've actually go through the different sites. There's several in the city, but then there's
several out in the county as well. Huh. Yeah. We have live and learn when you go maybe. Yeah.
I didn't expect to be in rich my knowledge. He had 720 local news,
timeless hits at WRJN. It is a Friday. February 7th is honor. We're seeing Mayor Corey Mason is with me.
A few weeks ago, I had on Charlie Tennyson. He made the documentary on the YMCA. You have a
non-speaking cameo role in that film because he didn't speak it enough to join the union. So that's
good. Anyway, so you're in there for just a fleeting second. It's a real short cameo role.
And it's about the YMCA and he traces the history to all the YMCA you've ever seen. I didn't
realize how many there were. Yeah. Yeah. And this is the third YMCA we're seeing had. Now there's
a fourth right there on state street. It's a smaller version. But this, this was one of the YMCA.
So if they don't make anymore, what people live there, apartments, they don't, they don't do that
anymore. But at one time they did. I remember though, when I worked at a radio station in Milwaukee at
seven of the Wisconsin, it was a YMCA tower right near us. And I didn't realize people live there.
One of our disc jockeys lived in that building. Anyway, I didn't realize he had a restaurant in
there. They had a nightclub in there. Yeah. Some Tommy James and the chandeliers appeared there.
There are a lot of big groups that appeared in that in that YMCA. I didn't know any of this.
So he gave me a link to watch it. The temporary link. And I watched it because you know,
I'm not from the area, but I do know the YMCA. And I was just shocked to see what went on in this
YMCA. All these things. It was a vibrant building. Everybody thinks of the YMCA.
We're going to do push ups and pull ups now. And I got to work on the weight machine.
And yes, that was there. But there was so much more and people live there. Yeah. And then it fell
on hard times. And the way it is now, all the windows have broken this graffiti all over the building.
And he did this documentary and the people he interviewed were done right in front of the building.
I know he got permission to go behind the fences and film them right in front of the graffiti
and the broken windows. It was kind of sad. I heard and he mentioned the film, the city bought it
for 12 and a half thousand dollars. And people said, well, that's cheap. I could have done that. Yes.
Could you afford the millions to get rid of it? That's right. The cheap part is buying it.
You got to get rid of this thing. What is a plan for that? It's a major building on the lake
front. I don't know how you take something like that down. Yeah. And it's even harder than it
looks. So I mean, it's coming down now. And so there's actually demolition going on inside.
They're doing the asbestos removal, which is always a large expense. And expenses, yes.
There's an underground oil tank that needs to be taken out.
Oh, underground storage tanks are the worst. They are. They are. But it is one of these things,
once the Y really closed down there, they weren't able to secure the building or sustain it.
And we kept having code violations and whatnot that we were getting to. And it just became clear
that the Y wasn't going to have the capacity to maintain that building or even secure the building.
And we got a notice from the fire chief at one point saying the buildings didn't such just
repair. If there's a fire, we will extinguish it from the exterior, but we're not sending personnel
inside that building anymore. It's just not safe. And so at that point, you realize, okay,
we can't just let this continue. So the city acquired it and waived the fees and fines at the
Y would have normally paid if there were a different entity and allowed them to not have to deal
with the liability of it. And then we will spend about a million dollars this year taking that
building down and getting it to what they will call a clean site, which basically means that it
can be redeveloped. But it is, it is on a bluff. As I think people know, there's sort of a
two-tiered parking space back there, one of which is sort of, you know, tilting towards the lake.
And so it's a space that needs a lot of work before it could be redeveloped. But if we can get
it to a place where it's at that point, you know, you'd love to see it have a second act as a site
because it's such a great site. But just back to the why itself. I mean, yeah, it was, I mean,
you know, the building was built in 63. I was born in 73. I learned to swim in that pool, you know.
I went that worked out there. Yeah. I remember seeing Dave Mack on the bicycle there.
I talked to my kids just to swim at that pool because the one pool was kind of the smaller warmer pool
that you go on as nice to being in the winter, did a lot of activities growing up there. So it
really served the community very well for about a half a century. You know, White House run would
always start from, and that's right. So, you know, there's a lot of legacy to that space. And so,
you know, we hate to see the why downsize to such a smaller footprint over on State Street. We're
glad there's still here. But yeah, it would have been great if they could have preserved that
building and continued. But I think once they built the newer one out in Mount Pleasant,
the days of them maintaining two buildings of that size were unfortunately numbered.
And it's sad to see it. I don't know how the windows on the top floor get broken. I can
understand people throwing rocks at the lower ones. We're talking. If you can throw a rock at that
upper window, you're working for the brewers. Yeah, I don't think it's happening from the outside.
I think it's happening from the inside. No, no, they don't have people in there. People break in
all. So, yeah, so part of the, again, part of the decision about demolition for it is, and there
was a drug, there was a drug user had they died there on the side. Yeah, I may mention that in the film.
So it just became unsafe to have the building continue. And so the city had to step in and
provide some leadership there and take over the site. And my prediction is by the 4th of July,
if I'm walking past you on the parade route, if you're going to be on the route, my prediction is by
then the building should be completely down by then. Prime real estate for somebody. Yeah,
I mean, conceivably, again, we have to do the environmental, make sure it's a clean site that
it's a stable site. Again, people sort of, oh, my gosh, the views are amazing. And they are,
but you got to get through the liability of taking that building down and getting a clean site
together before it's available. Wow, watch the documentary. If you get a chance, I don't know where
it's going to be shown next. It was at the historical society yesterday of his shadow showing,
and they had one at Georgia's on court too. And he'll get it around. It's a point about an hour.
It's very good. I worked out there a few times, but I never knew the history of it. I just showed
up there. The parking lot was just horrendous. It was just nothing but potholes. It was like,
it was like a video game course trying to get your car around without breaking an axle in there.
It's not a receding mayor, Corey Mason, you're going to hang in for our movie segment for a few minutes.
I'll listen for a few minutes. Yeah, with, uh, I mean, I said bread markets with bread Hoffman
from markets theaters.
