First ‘Greenbush Day’ celebration planned

The first of what organizers hope will become the annual Greenbush Day celebration will be held from 4-6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 21, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s new Welcome Center, 21 N. Park St.

The event is free and open to the public. Limited metered parking will be available in the parking ramp at the Welcome Center (Area 29).

“This event will celebrate the neighborhood’s past, present and future,” says Ruth Olson of UW–Madison Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures, one of the organizers. “It will provide an opportunity to learn about the rich history of the area, experience its current vitality and see some of the prospective plans for future development.”

The Welcome Center is situated in the historic neighborhood known as “the Bush,” an area in which Madison’s Italian and Sicilian immigrants, Jews and African Americans lived side by side until urban renewal displaced them in the early 1960s.

The Triangle in the center of Greenbush remains a culturally diverse, close-knit neighborhood today — a mix of primarily Hmong and other recent immigrants, as well as elderly residents and persons with disabilities.

“We will be welcoming current residents as well as former ones to this celebration,” says Olson.

The event will also welcome the Welcome Center and other university buildings new to the neighborhood, says Margaret Nellis of University Health Services, who also helped plan the event.

“We hope that students living in [Newell] Smith Hall and university employees who work in the area will stop by to get acquainted with their neighbors and learn about ways they can get involved with Greenbush in the future,” says Nellis.

The event will feature storytelling, musical performances and exhibits, including an exhibit of historical photos depicting life in the Bush. Light refreshments will be served.

The public will be invited to play an early version of an augmented reality game being created by Randall Elementary School students and the university’s Local Games Lab. As they walk around contemporary Greenbush with a handheld computer and a GPS device, players will encounter people and places from the period before urban renewal.

“This day of celebration is the culmination of a lot of work done by teachers, staff and particularly the students at Randall about an area that had a big impact on Madison — and is starting to have an impact again,” says Frank Alfano, president of the Italian Workmen’s Club.

Greenbush Day was unanimously approved by the Madison Common Council last June. The resolution was drafted by a class of fifth-graders from Randall after a two-year project in which the students did extensive research on the neighborhood.

Many groups and organizations are co-sponsors of Greenbush Day