We've got some to big coming up on Saturday. It's the open house at the 16th Street Business
Center to Monsieur. Our good buddy is here and Anna Holiday is here with us. Well, thank
you for coming in. Both of you. Hello. Now, the business center is that building you see
on 16th Street, it says Vaughn Schrader or Vaughn Schrader. Can you pronounce that? I know
we'll do it. We went through that before. I had a knock his glasses off because he challenged
me on the pronunciation last time. Sorry for doing that by the way. I didn't get to go.
And thank you for not pressing charges. That was last. So it's in that building. Now,
people don't realize what's in that building because I've been there a couple of times.
It's it. What would it start as a factory building? Yeah, we can start it with the history
that we've done. It was started by the Racine Wagon and Carriage Company. The manufactured
a line of wagons, buggies, farm wagons, delivery wagons, slays, and whatever. Since the 1870s,
the buildings, some buildings were there prior to that though. 1903, the Racine Wagon
and Carriage Company merged with the Sattley Plough Manufacturing Company of Springfield,
Illinois, becoming the Racine Sattley Company. And there's a lot of old timers who still
refer to that building as the Sattley Building. But by 1910, Automobiles surpassed the Wagon
and Carriage Industry. But Racine Sattley announced that they would not get into producing
automobiles. They wanted to stay with wagons. I don't know why, but by 1914, the company
stopped making wagons entirely. And by 1916, the Sattley Building was renamed the Racine
Industrial Plant and became the first business incubator in the whole country. Now, many
Racine firms got their start there, done, including Modine, Dumor, Midland Container, Webster
Electric, and a lot more. But by 1995, artists discovered that building and they started to
move in. Now known as the Racine Business Center or 16th Street Studios, there's over 100
untrubba newers, artists, merchandisers in this building that they now call home. So, yeah,
and I've been in there. And each little area has got its own artists, its own businesses.
Sure. It had a restaurant there at one time, but the owner passed away. It was a very nice
restaurant. Yeah. Shabobs. Shabobs. And we went there for lunch once. The meatloaf was
meatloaf Thursday. I know that's where we went. Yeah. And you have a place in there. And you
have all this chasarai. It's like all the all the memorabilia. You have some of those baby
buggies in there too, right? Yeah. Yeah. We have a doctor's buggy. And you have that big sign
from Nelson's. Yeah, that's true. You can't even stand it up. It's a way to flat. You got tons
of memorabilia from Racine's history. From my scene, right? We're loaded with Racine memorabilia.
Don, you mentioned the Nelson Dimes store sign. We also have the sign from Daniel Hall.
Many other old Racine signs, including a large pew oil sign. We have 25 old Racine circus posters.
Literally over 100 old political posters from Racine from the 40s and 50s, even earlier.
We have a 1932 pinball machine, which is all mechanical, non-electrical. And it still works.
You can play it on a Saturday, if you'd like. We have six old toy riding horses made by the
Deluxe Woodcraft Company. Phonographs, we have three bland and phonographs that were made there
from the mid 1920s. A lot of memorabilia from Western publishing and gold metal folding furniture
company. A working standing mill, old wooden slay, an old doctor's buggy, many old weary trunks.
You name it, we have it there. With the body still inside her. I've never looked, but you could fit a
body in there very easily. I watch too many date lines. Now, Anna, you have a place in there,
but totally different. You're in the art, and there's a lot of artists in there. And you
aren't a stained glass. That's nice. Yeah, let's talk about it. Okay. Yeah, so I'm right down
the hall, actually. And I am in studio 2323. My business name is All in Birch. And I've been doing
stained glass since 2019. So it's a medium that I found right before COVID. And it actually got me
through that entire time. And it's grown into something so magical and pretty cool. So now,
this is an open house. And it's this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Now, you actually have
business hours there. I would assume weekdays, right? Or do you know, it's been my working studio.
And yeah, I host classes in there. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I typically have classes.
And those are from six to nine-ish. And it's a beginning to advance stained glass. Now,
I have returning students coming to find that once somebody takes a class, they want to continue
to come back. It's not only just learning stained glass. It's also kind of a community that's
being built. And it's wonderful because it's a healing kind of thing. You know, art is healing.
And I think the whole building kind of emanates that. You know, it's got this wonderful feeling
about it of creativity and stuff. But in my studio, I do stained glass. So I particularly do
commission work when I'm working on my stuff. I will have a few things for sale this weekend.
But mainly, it's just to come and see the studio. There's a bookstore there. I was
grooms when I go in there. They've got tons of old books and so forth. It's down our hall too.
Yeah. I bought my brother a civil war book for me because it's a big civil war fan.
It loved it. It was a huge book. You know, it was a big hernia edition to be a trust to carry
down the hallway. Yeah. My mother was not an artist by any stretch of the imagination.
Never even picked up a pencil to draw a circle or whatever. One day, she said, I'm going to paint.
She bought an easel, bought some canvases, bought some paints, got a book, look through it,
and painted only two paintings. I have one in my house. My brother's got the other one.
People who look at it think it's like museum art. No, really. So she painted two times and said,
I'm done. She said, I just wanted to paint these two pictures. And people look at it and say,
I can't believe it. It's so lifelike. One's an old Chinese man and one is a little girl.
And they're beautiful to look at. I can't. I said, why did you stop? Because I only wanted to
paint those two. And then she packed up all her stuff and get rid of it and never paint it again.
Oh, wow. We had him framed and they're hanging once, hanging in my house once, hanging in my
brother's house. That's some image she carried with her that she had to get out on a canvas.
That's pretty great. She took a lesson in her life. She just wanted to go in the
rec room one day when I was a little kid and just started painting. And wow, she when they
drive, she was, I'm done. Did that pass on to you? That the ability to paint? No, no, no, no,
I'm still in the stick figures. That's not even good. We're talking to Jim and Sierra and
Anna Holiday. We're talking about the big open house coming up this Saturday at the 16th
street business center, the old von Schrader building or von Schrader building. What's the
cross street there? Is it memorial? No, what is it? 16th and junction. Junction. Junction.
Yeah, Junction. Jim, Sierra and Anna Holiday are with me and we're talking about the open house
this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the 16th street, 16th street business center or the
see, when I looked at it, I said art in business center. And you're telling me something else.
This is how an official name this building. We've seen business center. We've seen business center
on 16th street, but in and junction. Yeah. And that's, it's got a big von Schrader or von Schrader.
We're still up in the side of the, on the side of the building. When you walk in there,
the creaky wood floors, the elevator, you don't think is going to work and you think you're
plummeting to your death. Old freight elevators, yes. But they work, they work this fine. They do.
Okay. So, and we talked about the state. You got your stained glass studio there,
mainly for you, you have lessons and so forth, the Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Can I do commissions? Yep. Now, how big do you go with the stained glass?
Oh my gosh. So right now, the one I'm working on, no, I'm not that big yet. Yeah. So I say,
I am taking commissions, by the way. Right now, I'm working on a five foot by one foot.
That's big. Yeah. Yeah. The biggest one I've done is seven foot by two.
Well, it's a church sizes. Yeah. I mean, it's, it was a false transome. My partner made the,
the frame for it. And then we installed it into an old house, which is really cool. It's
that mean street. Wow. So yeah. And with all your stuff, what do you do with it someday? I mean,
I mean, we're, we're all not going to be here forever. Does anybody in your family want to take
it over? You know what I'm not really, but, uh, yeah, it's hard to say. I just plan on living
until, you know, for a long time. Well, people say to me, what are you going to do with your stuff?
When in the ground, I really won't care what's going to happen. Yeah. It doesn't bother me. Do
whatever you want with it. I have all these, I have, like, let it be by the Beatles on D.B.
I'm VHS. Uh-huh. It was put out by United Artists. And then the Beatles Corporation,
you know, go with it. Stop it. You don't have the rights to the music. So they pulled it. And
only a couple of thousand copies were made. I have one of them with the original box cover,
the United Artists logo on it. And it's worth about 20 bucks. No, I said to my son,
said to me, what are you going to do with that? I said, you could do whatever you want with it.
It doesn't matter to me. I won't be here. Yeah. Yeah. But you'd like to know what it's going
to continue on because you've got some great pieces in your place. Well, yeah, yeah,
some of your political posters. Yeah. Yeah. All these crooked, excuse me, all these politicians.
Yeah. Some of them too. I'm here. Yeah. I'm speaking of studios, uh, uh, and a studio,
I think is the only one in the whole building with her own private bathroom. Oh, yes. I do.
I have a bathroom in sweet. That was one of the things that we said to Tim when we were
looking at a place was we need a bathroom music. Well, I actually have one that just came available.
So yeah, we were lucky enough to get that one. And it's pretty great. And I, you know,
saying some things are what to do with things. Um, I just wanted to mention that the open house has
so many artists. There's about 60 artists right now that are going to be in the building and
participating in. It's the one chance or the second chance in the year that you can actually
tour through that building and see all these wonderful studios and all the nooks and crannies of
the building. And it's kind of your peak behind the curtain. It is. It's very, it's interesting
to go back in time through this building. Yes. It's so cool. And there are still manufacturers in
there. I see Lays. I see equipment and everything. Yeah. So there's still it's still working
factory. Oh, yeah. Businesses you think are in there. I'm not sure. Another 60 artists.
Are there 60 artists? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then you got people like him who just like
squirrel away. You can find him or say. There's the Adam D's, which is a vintage clothing shop.
She's on our on our block, if you will, in the building. Yep. Um, yeah. And there's, uh,
Jen and Jude's pottery. That's over in the artist area. So there's a lot of really cool places
in there. And you can do some holiday shopping because they know a lot of artists will have things
for sale. Sure. So that's right. Yeah. Speaking of elevators, I think you can get up to the Empire
State Building quicker than you can get up one four. That's what he's elevators over there.
Yes. There will be elevator operators. Don't worry about that. Well, I've got a picture on my phone.
I'm looking forward to, of course, I can't find it because there are thousands of pictures on
here. We were at the, um, on the Taylor, Taylor Avenue home for orphans. Oh, yeah. And, um,
there is a plaque. And I found it. Ooh. The orphanage bell. What you read it, Anna.
Yeah. Loan by Jim Mercer. What's the plan? Notice it says on loan, not donate. It's on loan,
which means I want to back some big. It's actually back. It's nice. And when did you get that bell?
Um, I advertised for a recene memorabilia and somebody had it. And, uh, I didn't know what's
authentic, though. Uh, he sort of proved that it was. Uh, he used to work there and, uh, he got it
when they closed down. It was in his family for years and years. He said, hot and stolen or
I know you're trafficking and stolen bells. That's right. That's my list of crimes, right?
Well, that, and I saw that we were out there. We were taking a walk around the grounds. Uh-huh.
And we were sitting there. There's two benches there. And we were just sitting and I said,
whoa, look at this. I know this guy donated this, it didn't donate. He blown it down. Loan. Loan.
It means he wants it back. You're not going to take it back. No, no. Just in case something happens,
you know, uh, to the whole complex or whatever, you know, but you'll be there forever. Yeah. Yeah.
You'll outlive me. I'm sure. Well, that's very nice of you to do that. Uh-huh. But when you go
up to, um, Jim's place on Saturday, you, you, it's such you can spend hours in there looking around.
There's even a couch when you get tired, you can sit down. Yes. Yeah. And but just walking around,
looking at the history of these signs, the, the actual units like the old, um,
controllers, the controller, maybe like that name. And uh, how far are you way from his place? Uh,
but I don't know. Not, we're just right down the road. I always say road, but it's the hallway.
It seems like a road. Like a creaky wooden hallway. The same hallway. Yes. Right. So you're
going to pass Shabob, which Chichat is providing the food for. Yeah. So that's me good. I think
Esperanza coffee is going to be there too. Um, but then we are, if you go north, which is
really hard to orient yourself in there. But if you go directly away from Jim's place,
you're going to run into Shabob. And then just shortly past that is my studio.
Well, that's great. We have somebody to celebrate. Please do 23 23. Alan Birch just says
Sean Meiser and Alan Birch. I don't think I'm doing anything sad because I'm a very busy guy.
And I mean, uh, the date line episodes, 2020s, I got to catch up on, uh,
which are movies on TCM. I got to catch up on. Come support the arts. There's so many great artists.
And you'll be so surprised at how many people you'll see that are in that building and the creative
that we all are kind of in their nestled in throughout the year. Okay. The recene business center.
Yeah. It's on 16th Street. Yeah. Missed the Von Shradder building. Yeah. This Saturday,
December 6th, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Jim Anna. Thanks for coming by. Thanks for having us.
Appreciate it.
