Just west of downtown, Avenues West runs from 11th to 27th Streets, Highland Avenue to Clybourn Street — or, using the most obvious landmark, it is the northwest quadrant of the Marquette Interchange. This neighborhood has been a study in contrasts since its inception in the late 1800s. Milwaukee’s elite gravitated west along Spring Street in the 1870s, so many that by 1876 the thoroughfare was renamed “Grand Avenue.” Mansions owned by Cudahy, Plankington, and Pabst contrasted with the Tory Hill homes of the primarily Irish workers of the Menomonee Valley. The city experienced a population boom, money started moving outside the city, and mansions became apartments or multi-family dwellings. The Gothic parish Church, Gesu, arrived in 1894; Marquette became a university in 1907; the Irish began moving to Merrill Park and other residents took their place: Eastern Europeans first, then Latinos and African Americans. When the city expanded farther west during the first part of the century and Grand Avenue became “Wisconsin Avenue,” new institutions like the Ambassador Hotel and the Eagles Club helped keep up appearances, unwittingly or not emphasizing the contrasts. The 1960s construction of the Marquette Interchange cemented Avenues West as a distinct neighborhood, where contrasts co-existed and still do so. Today, Avenues West is the urban setting of its most well-known institution, Marquette University, which continues to expand its footprint well beyond its original 1881 building at 1004 W. State Street. The new, 750-bed Robert A. Wild, S.J. Commons (pictured) is slated to open this fall. It follows on the heels of an almost two-decade building boom: the School of Dentistry, the John P. Raynor, S.J. Library, the Al McGuire Center, Eckstein Hall’s Law School, Engineering Hall and the Dr. E.J. O’Brien Jesuit Residence. An inflatable dome recently transformed Marquette’s Valley Field into a year-round facility and a new athletic performance research center is planned just east of campus in Westown. Additional plans include a BioDiscovery District and Innovation Alley for the new business school and new recreation facility. Even with all the new additions for their over 11,000 students, Marquette University remains rooted — physically and philosophically — in its urban location, balancing its ability to build a new $96 million dollar residence hall in less than a year and foster in its students an understanding of the community and a dedication to service. In the surrounding community, residents experiencing poverty or even homelessness are able to find assistance at various organizations. The Milwaukee Rescue Mission provides approximately 300,000 meals, 40,000 items of clothing and over 100,000 nights of shelter each year. Casa Maria Hospitality House currently provides short-term housing for women and children, as well as refugees and asylum seekers. City On a Hill (pictured) works to combat the cycle of poverty with programs targeting the physical, social and spiritual health of youth and families. Finally, Neighborhood House provides a safe space for youth and families, seniors and immigrants, reaching over 4,000 individuals a year with programs as varied as outdoor and environmental education, after-school support, safe sex and personal responsibility and citizenship training for refugees. Together with the Aurora Sinai Medical Center — the last of five major hospitals that congregated in the area during the early 1900s — these organizations are helping alleviate the very real struggles of people in Avenues West. Where: 2000 W. Wisconsin Ave. Over a century after the Irish settled at nearby Tory Hill, the Irish community’s culture and arts are still alive in Avenues West. Located in the Grand Avenue Congregational Church building, built the same year as Marquette College and the host church for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s first Milwaukee visit, the Irish Cultural Heritage Center of Wisconsin is a hub for Irish culture, arts and genealogical research. Meeting and entertainment spaces in its striking stained glass, wood-beamed interior are available for rent. Where: 2000 W. Wisconsin Ave. The most well-known remnant of the grandeur of Grand Avenue, the Pabst Mansion became the home of beer baron Captain Frederick Pabst in 1890. Boasting three floors, a full attic and basement, ten bathrooms, fourteen fireplaces, plus a carriage house and greenhouse, the over 20,000-square-foot dwelling still sits atop a little hill, now squeezed between Marquette’s Mashuda residence hall and The Marq luxury student apartments. In 1908, the mansion changed its identity, becoming the archbishop’s residence and the center of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee for the next sixty years.