New Museum Coming Without a Popular Exhibit

The Milwaukee Public Museum is a popular destination for families and school field trips. It is about enjoying and learning about the dinosaurs, Native American life, and other exhibits in the building. Changes are coming when the museum moves into a new building in the future.

The most popular exhibit will not be going with the new building. The Old Streets of Milwaukee exhibit have been around since 1965. It is about how Europeans used to live in Milwaukee. Everywhere is within walking distance for the families. Milwaukee visitors enjoyed walking around the exhibit and sometimes being able to walk into a house, giving people a European experience.

In 2026, Milwaukee Public Museum will have a new building with primary concrete and glass structure. It has four levels with new exhibits. The new location will be West McKinley Avenue and North Sixth Street near the McKinley neighborhood and north of Fiserv Forum.

According to the museum, The organization has a time travel galley with current exhibits like the T-rex exhibit. Instead, the T-rex attacks the triceraptor but waits behind the bend lurking to get the injured triceratops from the battle. The museum says it is reinventing an old exhibit for the new location. The future of the Streets of Old Milwaukee is unknown.

 \“I get messages daily and read hundreds of comments from people that state it’s their favorite part of the museum,” said Alexandra Hahnfeld. “It’s an exhibit that is loved by all ages, young and old.”

Alexandra Hanfeld helped made a petition to save the exhibit from being destroyed. She believes it is important history how immigrant Europeans were the building blocks for Milwaukee. She is also the granddaughter of the curator and director of the exhibit.

Dr. Lazar Brkich was the creator of the old streets of Milwaukee exhibit. He was a Serbian immigrant hired by the museum to create an exhibit on how some European used to live in Milwaukee.

“He wanted to show real artifacts from these countries and the museum even paid him to travel to some countries to get real artifacts,” said Hahnfeld.

“Other artifacts were donations directly from Milwaukee families, including mine.”

This popular exhibit was created by Dr. Brkich to give visitors a chance to experience how Milwaukee started from immigrant Europeans living their life like in Europe, showing visitors to learn about how Milwaukee was built by immigrants. 

“I feel the museum is minimizing the importance of the European Village and erasing European culture,” said Hahnfeld.

She is worried about the organization is erasing the importance of European culture for the city of Milwaukee.

Media Milwaukee tried to reach out to Madeline Anderson, Director of Earned Media but she told the student journalist to look at  Januray 10 statement on their Facebook page and will not be giving interviews or answering questions further until April 14.

“Let’s first address our recent statement that “entire exhibits won’t be moving over” to the Future Museum. What does that mean? “Most of our exhibits, like the Streets of Old Milwaukee, have elements that are built into the current facility. Deconstructing those in a way that won’t damage them and using those exact same materials to reconstruct them in a differently shaped building would be nearly impossible, not to mention excessively expensive and time-consuming,” the museum wrote. “What we can do is construct new built-ins that create the same immersive, engaging experience you know and love at MPM.”

“It will not be called ‘Streets of Old Milwaukee,’ as all exhibits are getting new names.”

Since the Streets of Old Milwaukee exhibit is connected to the old building, it would be impossible to take it out without damage and having room for a differently shaped building. The Future Museum is a taller building with four floors than a big building with three floors.

The MPM will be revealing the plans for a similar exhibit to the old streets of Milwaukee on April  14. All exhibits will be getting new names.

Right now, Hahnfeld said she has no trust in the future museum, and the changes are still up in the air. There are three more years until the future museum opens. The organization hinted the Streets of Old Milwaukee will be a different exhibit in the new building.