A nine block corridor of cream city brick storefronts sloping from the river to the lake bluff, with a footbridge slung beneath the Holton Street Viaduct.
What Brady Street looks like
Brady Street runs nine blocks between the river and the bluff above Lake Michigan, sloping the whole way. Cream city brick and painted brick buildings line both sides, almost all of them two or three storeys, with shopfronts under canvas awnings and flats stacked above. Few buildings anywhere on the corridor top three floors.
At Humboldt Avenue, a tan brick corner building has a tiled bread and wheat mosaic worked into its ground floor wall beside the awning. A block away, rises in yellow brick with arched windows and a steeple that clears the rooflines around it. Farther down, occupies a turreted corner building in cream brick with red trim and arched second floor bays, a BLATZ sign lit over the door.
Behind the storefronts, the side streets carry raised cottages known locally as Milwaukee Polish Flats, set above a semi-basement with a wooden staircase up to the entrance. Near Farwell Avenue, a brick and wood shingled Queen Anne row house sits back behind a hedge and a low stone wall.
At the west end, past the last storefronts, a wood decked footbridge hangs beneath the steel trusses of the . Its planking and handrails sit a level below the roadway, with a second, lower deck running alongside the first on the same trusses.
Shot in Brady Street
The Food Network series Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives filmed an episode at Cempazuchi in 2009. The Mexican restaurant stood at 1205 East Brady Street until 2017, and Kompali Taqueria has the storefront today.
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, 2009
Guy Fieri visited Cempazuchi for the episode Burgers, Tacos & Dogs. The restaurant served mole poblano and handmade tortillas at this address until 2017.
West 18th Street's Italianate and Romanesque Revival storefronts went up across the same decades as Brady Street's own buildings, for a working immigrant population before the neighborhood's makeup changed. Ground floor shops sit under two and three storeys of flats the same way they do on Brady, block after block without a gap. Many of Pilsen's buildings run three or four storeys with heavier stone parapets and carved ornament, so a wide shot should favor its plainer blocks and stay off the most decorated corners to hold the match. Try searching Italianate Romanesque storefronts now.
Findlay Market in Cincinnati, Ohio
The blocks around Findlay Market carry the same painted brick storefronts under two and three storeys of flats that Brady Street has, put up during the same building boom. Awnings and narrow shopfronts continue for blocks without a gap, the same rhythm Brady keeps along its own nine blocks. Cincinnati's district runs taller and denser behind the first few blocks, so keep to single storefronts and street level framing rather than a wide shot that would show the larger scale behind camera. Try searching painted brick storefronts flats now.
Slavic Village in Cleveland, Ohio
Fleet Avenue was Cleveland's own Polish commercial street, built up during the same wave of immigration that filled Brady Street. Its storefronts sit at the same two storey scale under flats, though a 1977 campaign added folk village signage and decorative timberwork to several fronts that Brady's own buildings never carried. That added dressing needs to be framed out or covered for anything set before the 1970s, which limits usable shots to tight storefront inserts rather than a full block. Try searching Polish commercial street storefronts now.
