“Aunt Ada,” a handicap accessible swing, which was installed during the 2014 redesign of the Swing Park, sits in front of the remaining benches from the old Media Garden. (Photo by Jabril Faraj) This article is one of an occasional series profiling the finalists for Milwaukee Awards for Neighborhood Development Innovation (MANDIs). The Holton Bridge Swing Park is a finalist for the Brewers Community Foundation Public Space Award, which recognizes a public space that helps build the community. On Sept. 9, 2012, under cover of darkness, a small group of people with an organization called be(in)tween, descended on a little-used, largely forgotten space at the south end of the Marsupial Bridge under Holton Street. The cohort of about a dozen friends and associates installed almost as many swings, made with recycled tires and hung with rope. Willie Fields, who was part of that group and still acts as the city’s eyes and ears at the park, said that although they “knew that it was something we shouldn’t be doing,” the group wasn’t overly worried about getting caught. “Every swing had our name stenciled on it,” he said. “So, we knew that people were going to know who put the swings up.” Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing! “We were thinking, you know, if they stay up for a couple days, we’re fine with that,” Fields said. In that spirit, the swings were simply hung with rope. They took only a few hours to install. But a week went by and nothing happened. After a few more weeks, the swings were still there, said Fields. By then, the rope used to hang them was starting to show signs of wear. So, be(in)tween, which describes itself as “a social + spatial network improv(is)ing spaces to build community,” stepped in again. “We replaced all the ropes with cables — steel cables,” Fields said. “Well, then it was another month and two months and three months and they were still here,” he said. “The cables started to wear so we replaced all the cables with chains.” The “guerrilla act” was praised by some members of the community, while others raised concerns over its unofficial nature. Many also questioned the city’s reaction, either for being too accepting of an idea that didn’t go through the usual channels or for poor communication that, for many, put the future of the park in question. However, despite a process that could have derailed the project, the Swing Park has staked a permanent claim under the Holton Street Bridge and was officially adopted by the city, re-opening at a ribbon-cutting in 2014 Transplant finds “culture” in Milwaukee Keith Hayes, the founder of be(in)tween, is originally from Cleveland and found his way to Milwaukee by way of Chicago, where he was working as an architect while rehabbing and selling bikes on the side. “In Chicago, I could sell bikes like hotcakes,” he said. “I got to Milwaukee [and] every time I tried to sell a bike I’d make a friend, because they wanted to learn how to do it.” “It felt like home,” Hayes said. He developed a particular connection to that space under the Holton Street Bridge — what is now the Swing Park but was once the “Media Garden,” designed in concert with the Marsupial Bridge that was finished in 2006. Through the cycling culture he was immersed in, Hayes spent a lot of time under the bridge and began to see it in a way only familiarity can provide. “This, to me, was such a strong intersection between two neighborhoods,” he said. “I looked at that space from almost every angle you could, every sense you could — under the bridge, over the bridge, socially, physically.” Hayes graduated from the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin’s Graduate School of Architecture in 2012, where he had the opportunity to take a studio class with Grace La. La, who is a partner at Milwaukee-based La Dallman Architects, Inc. was, at the time, a visiting professor at UWM and, Hayes said, “one of the big inspirations in terms of my pursuit of a master’s.” Appointed a tenured professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Architecture in 2013, La is “an incredibly brilliant designer, incredibly successful teacher and, really, was pioneering the way the school (at UWM) was run,” he said. Hayes said La inspired his “iterative” approach to design when she said, quite simply, that the person who drew, re-drew and re-thought a design the most would end up with the best product. “She really cut out this idea that you’re born with it or you have this natural talent,” he said.