New Year’s Eve + Snowed In + Hometown Hero, read on!

For those of you still trying to decide what to do for New Year’s Eve, there are lots of choices…here’s a short list of what’s going on at some of the clubs on and near Brady Street.

Balzac (1716 N Arlington Pl.) - Napa New Year celebration with sparkling wine toast at midnight.

Club Brady (1339 E. Brady St.) – $40 open bar.

Hi-Hat (1701 N. Arlington Pl.) – Live DJ, food buffet, party favors and a midnight champagne toast.

Lakefront Brewery (1872 N. Commerce St.) – Live music by King Solomon.

Nomad (1401 E. Brady St.) – Midnight champagne toast.

Trocadero (1758 N. Water St.) - Hawaiian New Year with a luau, $10 cover charge from 10pm-2am, dinner and bottle of wine for couples for $70.

Up & Under (1216 E. Brady St.) - The Cocksmiths plus special guests perform, midnight toast plus party favors.

Vucciria (1332 E. Brady St.) – 4-course steak and seafood dinner for $40.

Waterford Wine Company (1327 E. Brady St.) is well stocked for your New Year’s parties, with an emphasis on quality smaller-winery champagnes…

Congratulations to Regano’s Roman Coin on its 40-year anniversary. Teri Regano received a resolution from the Milwaukee Common Council, presented by Ald. Mike D’Amato at the celebration party in December.

The space formerly home to Au Bon Appetit Mediterranean Restaurant (1016 E. Brady St.) has signs in the window saying there will be a “unique pizza and sub restaurant coming soon.”

Astor Street Performing Arts Center along with Pink Banana Theatre and Insurgent Theatre present the Mis-Directed Holiday Film Festival. The film festival’s intention is to illustrate and satirize the abuse and commercialization of the holidays and to encourage filmmakers and songwriters to create short films and songs based on this theme. Application forms may be picked up at the Brady Street Pharmacy or online at www. pinkbananatheatre.org or www. insurgenttheatre.org. The competition will begin around the holidays and will wrap up in Spring with an award ceremony at The Times Cinema on March 25. $200 prizes will be awarded in various categories. For more information, stop by or call Jim at the Pharmacy at 272-4384.

Anomaly Design Shop is now open at 814 E. Brady Street. The new design shop offers unique home décor items, accessories and gifts in the front and design and printing in the back. Carrie Kudronowicz, Sara Schumacher and Dan Petry are all MIAD grads and coowners of Anomaly. “The space was perfect for what we do,” says Carrie. Upon entering you will find everything from greeting cards, candy, jewelry and knick-knacks to home furnishings like clocks and furniture. In the back room, you will see a couple of loaded Macs ready to take on graphic design jobs, such as invitations, stationery etc. They have also been doing some floral design and have experience in painting and silk-screening as well.

December gave us a blast of winter’s fury and Brady Street, like the rest of the city, was blanketed with snow.

There were problems on Brady Street because some business owners didn’t do a very good job of shoveling and salting their sidewalks. It is the responsibility of the storeowners to keep their sidewalks cleared.

They are also responsible for digging out fire hydrants in front of their store. Digging out fire hydrants is imperative to firefighters who lose valuable time having to do it themselves when they arrive at an emergency. It could be a matter of life and death, maybe your own.

It is important to shovel crosswalks and handicapped ramps as well.

Any businesses not following snow removal laws are subject to tickets and fines.

It’s also important to remember that if someone falls and is hurt on an unshoveled sidewalk in front of your business, your insurance won’t cover it, since you were negligent in following snow-removal laws.

Lt. Frank Alioto, firefighter and Brady Street area resident, will remember December 6 for a long time.

Less than four minutes after it happened, he was one of the first responders on the scene at the Falk explosion.

Alioto is usually at the station on 64th & Fairview, but he had traded with another firefighter that day to work at the station on 30th & Clybourn.

They heard the explosion at the firehouse. The whole building shook and the garage door was sucked in and out again. They quickly headed in the direction of the Falk Co. on 31st & Canal – just a few blocks away.

In his 23 years with the Milwaukee Fire Department, he had never seen anything like it. Alioto says that they were able to work quickly and efficiently due to a lot of extra training with mass casualty and hazardous materials incidents since 9/11.

Their first concern was to get the dozens walking around in shock to a safe area. Alioto also called in a second alarm and requested extra paramedics and equipment as the fire turned into a fivealarm emergency. They were so focused on what needed to be done that they didn’t realize until much later how much danger they were in. While the fire took only about an hour to put out, some small pocket fires did flare up in the following days.

Milwaukee is fortunate to have such welltrained teams of firefighters serving our community. Due to their quick response and experience, there is no doubt that lives were saved.