A flat industrial floor of rail track and brick sheds under four road viaducts, and the ballpark scenes from Mr. 3000.
What Menomonee Valley looks like
Four road viaducts cross the valley floor end to end, concrete and steel decks running high above the yard tracks between two wooded bluffs. The , built in 1895 as the 16th Street Viaduct, spans the valley on riveted steel trusses. Chain link fencing runs along its deck toward the buildings below.
Amtrak's Empire Builder still runs the tracks past a four storey red brick shop building with an old rooftop sign, one of several brick industrial walls still standing along the floor. keeps a dark metal warehouse along the elevated freeway edge on 12th Street, its name painted in block letters across the wall with tall smokestacks rising behind it down the valley.
The 's black metal galleries sit along the Menomonee River at Canal Street, a giant 1903 lettered wall facing the water and an orange steel water tower on the bank beside it. Downtown's towers rise across the river. The Potawatomi Hotel's glass tower, its red rooftop letters visible for miles, stands a few blocks west.
's lawns and pond sit on the bluff above the south side of the valley, shaded by mature trees. The runs along Canal Street below, crossing under one of the viaducts on its way through the valley floor.
Shot in Menomonee Valley
Mr. 3000 filmed baseball scenes at the ballpark on the valley's west end, using real innings from the 2003 Milwaukee Brewers season rather than a built set. Bernie Mac's fictional slugger plays out his comeback on the same field the Brewers use today.
Mr. 3000, 2004
The production shot between innings of real Brewers games in 2003, when the ballpark was still called Miller Park. Real crowds and real game action fill the stands rather than extras. Street View
What Menomonee Valley can double for
West Bottoms in Kansas City, Missouri
West Bottoms sits on the same kind of flat river bottom floor, packed with brick warehouses from the 1880s through the 1920s and crossed by its own overhead viaducts, the Lewis and Clark Viaduct and the 12th Street Bridge. West Bottoms' warehouses are three feet thick in limestone and brick, with cast iron columns, heavier than the Menomonee Valley's mostly one storey sheds. A wider shot works better than a tight one on a single wall. Try searching brick river bottom warehouses now.
The Flats sits in the same kind of low industrial valley along the Cuyahoga River, with brick warehouses lining both banks and steel bridges crossing overhead, the Superior Avenue Viaduct among them. The river itself runs wider and busier with barge traffic than the Menomonee, so a shot that keeps the water out of frame holds the comparison better. Try searching industrial river valley warehouses now.
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