On Teutonia Avenue, just south of Good Hope Road, there’s a sprawling building constructed in the brutalist style of the 1960s. Concrete fins jut out around the windows, creating a repetitive pattern that is only broken by a giant stained-glass window at its entrance.
The stained glass looks like something you’d see in a church. But this building is the Milwaukee fire and police academy.
It’s always struck nearby resident Nancy Proctor as a bit of a mismatch.
"So I look at the building and I say, 'It’s not built to be the fire and police training center.' They do take care of it, but you can tell it’s not really built for that," Proctor says.
She asked Bubbler Talk, what was it built for?
Madonna High School, 1965-1971
"This used to be a private girls’ school named Madonna," says Carol McGuire Bluma, an alum of Madonna High School.
The Catholic high school opened in 1965, run by nuns from an order called the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother.
The distinctive building is one of many brutalist-style structures built in Milwaukee in the 1960s, according to UWM architecture associate professor Whitney Moon. She says it was viewed as a more authentic, unpretentious style of architecture, especially in working-class cities like Milwaukee.
Another Madonna alum, Tracy Spoerl, went to a Catholic grade school in Thiensville that was run by the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother. She remembers them talking up the new Madonna High School.
"I think it was in about our seventh grade, they started pushing this brand new girls’ school that was going to be built," Tracy remembers. "One of the selling points were all the classrooms were carpeted, everything will be new, you’ll get individual attention because you’ll have smaller classes, which was the case."
Tracy’s class of about 60 students was the first at Madonna. The next year, another class was added, and another class the year after that. Carol entered as a freshman in 1968.
"There was such energy at this school," Carol says. "The enthusiasm, the smiles, the chatter, camaraderie. I loved it."
But the students didn’t know, behind the scenes, the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother were struggling financially. Madonna was built for 800 students, but it never even reached 300. Another problem was that in the 1960s, fewer nuns were available to staff teaching positions, which meant paying for lay teachers. Just six years after it opened, Madonna closed its doors.
The Milwaukee Journal reported on Feb. 26, 1971 about the planned closure: “Sister Regina [Madonna principal] said plans for the school were made in the 1960s, at a time when ‘Catholic secondary education was flourishing.’” The paper reported that Madonna had an operating deficit of $104,696.
Madonna closed in 1971. Carol’s class, the class of 1972, wasn’t able to graduate.
"I was so stunned, as we all were, like the carpet had been taken out from under you," Carol remembers.
At the time Madonna was closing, two other Catholic girls’ schools — Divine Savior and Holy Angels — were merging. Carol says lots of her Madonna classmates transferred there. She finished her remaining credits at her local MPS high school, Custer.
"It was an odd last year of high school for people," she says.
Some of the Madonna alumni who had graduated from the school before it closed didn’t even know it had shut down. That was the case for Kathy McEwen, who graduated in 1970. She didn’t find out about Madonna’s fate until about 50 years later.
"So to me it was just heartbreaking when I found out, but happy that it turned into the police and fire training academy," Kathy says. "So it’s very important to me that it’s continuing on."
Police and fire training academy, 1972-present
The building has continued on, and it’s still being used for education — just a very different kind.
The City of Milwaukee bought Madonna High School for $3 million in 1972 and relocated its police and fire academies there. According to newspaper articles from the time, it was a big upgrade. The police had been using a cramped floor in the city’s safety building for training, and the fire department had been using an old elementary school.
Milwaukee Police training director Captain Timothy Gauerke remembers when he found out that the building he was training in used to be a girls’ high school.
"They told us when we were newer to the building, and it kind of made sense," Gauerke says. "Some of the facilities are more geared toward shorter people that may be middle-school age. For example, the [locker room] showers that are downstairs, the shower head is about mid-chest level for me."
But the first responders have found ways to adapt the space. The basement now houses a firing range and mock street, tavern and apartment scenes where police trainees practice their responses to different scenarios.
The street scene has storefronts and pedestrians painted on the walls, and there are props like mailboxes, cars and garbage cans.
"What’s cool about having this is that it allows us to do training in a controlled environment where we’re not out in the public with distractions or people observing our techniques," Gauerke says. "It’s really just a sterile environment where we know that it’s safe."
Although areas like the basement have been altered for police and fire training, some of the rooms, like the auditorium, are like time capsules from the 1960s. They look like they haven’t changed at all.
There’s also a small chapel from the Madonna days, that is now used as a classroom for police trainees.
"It’s just interesting that they used it as a worship space but we use it as a scenario [training] space," Gauerke says. "Same building but very different purpose."
Milwaukee Fire Department Deputy Chief James Ziech says his department uses a lot of space outside of the former high school building for its training, including a “burn building” where rooms are set on fire for practice, and a firehouse called the Forge.
He says overall, there have not been many major renovations to the former Madonna school.
"I wish the Catholic school would have been able to flourish as it was planned to, but I think it was definitely a benefit for both MPD and MFD. It’s a great building, great location, good bones," Ziech says. "And it fits most of the things that we need. Obviously it’s outdated, but yes, we are making do with what we can."
Ziech says, there have been discussions about whether the building still fits MPD and MFD’s needs, but it comes down to budget.
Madonna alumni return
In recent years, Madonna alumni, who are now in their 70s, have started coming back to their former school for reunions. Kathy McEwen helped organize the most recent one, earlier this year. All alumni were invited, even those who weren't able to graduate because of Madonna's unexpected closure.
"It was a big success and I even borrowed a uniform — which I still have to give back — that I borrowed to be able to walk down the halls with my uniform on," she says.
Kathy also organizes informal reunions on an almost monthly basis at an Uno’s Pizzeria in Menomonee Falls.
"Whoever wants to come for lunch and chitchat and look at pictures, we can," Kathy says. "To me, that’s important, to keep the spirit of Madonna in our hearts and alive."
I met with Kathy and two other Madonna alumni — Carol and Tracy, at their former school.
"You can remember the other bodies milling through the halls and the bell ringing and taking the pathway to the next class," Carol says.
The alumni shared some of their memories with Bubbler Talk question asker Nancy Proctor.
"I think that’s really nice," Nancy says. "And I’m so glad it wasn’t destroyed, because there’s so many buildings that have this kind of distinctive architecture that people can’t repurpose. So that’s really nice to find out what it was."
"We’re so glad you asked," Carol responds.
Since it was only open for six years, there aren’t many people who can keep the memory of Madonna alive. So, the alumni are happy to share their stories about the short-lived high school that had a lasting impact on their lives.
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