These modern gray condominiums tucked along the Milwaukee River were pioneers in Milwaukee’s mission to improve its urban riverscape. The Milwaukee River had endured more than a century of neglect and misuse as Milwaukee’s cesspool and dump ever since the city became a heavy manufacturing center. Developed under Mayor Henry Maier in 1983, a new vision favored a mix of residential, commercial, and public areas along the blighted riverbanks. The condominiums, built the next year, provided compact three-story units with wooden decks offering river views through a grove of trees planted along a greensward. Privacy walls frame each unit, from which a tall chimney shaft reaches through the sloping roof.