Here’s the text of a letter from Harley-Davidson to Story Hill residents regarding the 105th Harley anniversary celebration that runs from Aug. 28-30 (with a couple typos corrected):
August, 2008
Dear Resident/Business Owner:
As you may know Harley-Davidson Motor Company is celebrating its 105th Anniversary this year with a number of exciting events. We would like to make you aware of specific activities that will be taking place in your neighborhood over Labor Day weekend.
On Thursday. August 28, Harley Owners Group (H.O.G.) members from all over the world will help celebrate 25 great years of riding together at an all-day CLUB H.O.G, 25 event on the Miller Park grounds.
This event will be exclusive to one H.O.G. member and a guest. The event will begin at 11:00 a.m. and conclude by 11:00 p.m. The event will feature live musical entertainment, comedians, a motorcycle Ride-In Show (motorcycling styling contest), stunt riding and Muscular Dystrophy fundraising activities.
Then, on Saturday morning, August 30, the Harley-Davidson 105th Anniversary Parade, led by the Parade of MDA (Muscular Dystrophy Association) Heroes, will make its way from Milwaukee’s Miller Park, up Story Parkway to Bluemound. Riders will continue east on Wisconsin Avenue, turn south on Milwaukee Street, then turn east on Erie Street to the parking lots of the Henry Maier Festival Park.
The parade will begin staging at 6:00 a.m. Riders will be advised to enter Miller Park from Interstates 94 and 41. The parade will depart from Miller Park at 9:a.m., with an anticipated completion time of 12:00 noon.
The parade will be led by the MDA Heroes, who are those individual, who have raised at least $6,400 each, that is equivalent to sending eight kids to MDA Summer Camp. Since 1980, the Harley-Davidson family of customers, dealers, suppliers and employees has raised more than $65 million to fight muscular dystrophy.
The parade traveling through Story Hill during the 100th Anniversary was one of the highlights of the event and we hope you will once again come out to welcome riders from all over the world to Milwaukee. We are very proud to be a Milwaukee-based company and we sincerely appreciate the fantastic support we have always received from our community.
Harley-Davidson hopes to make the 105th Anniversary activities a great experience for everyone. We have had several meetings with your neighborhood association and we continue to work with law enforcement and city officials to manage traffic flow issues and safety. We also continue to communicate to our riders about safe and respectable riding practices while participating in our celebration.
For more information on Harley-Davidson 105th Anniversary events, please visit us at www.harlev-davidson.com.
I would also be happy to answer any of your questions. Feel free to drop me an email at tony.shields@harley-davidson.com.
Thank you and we look forward to once again working with your neighborhood.
Almost impossible-to-read yard signs urging Harley participants to keep their bikes’ volume down also have been distributed in the neighborhood.
Why such a negative overtone to this whole event? The sarcastic typos comment and the negative sign comment.
We as Milwaukeean’s should be proud of one of the only larger Milwaukee based companies that are left. This is bringing much needed revenue to our city and may I add we live in a city…cities are loud.
It post isn’t negative at all. Harley had some misspellings in its flyer. I was noting that I changed the content of the document to fix the errors. No sarcasm involved at all.
I also notified Harley of the errors so they could be avoided in the future and sent along a link to the post.
As for the yard signs — they are difficult to read. That’s not negative, that’s a fact. I just hope the bikers aren’t distracted from the tasks of driving trying to figure out what they say.
Yup. Bring it on. I hope that the 105th goes as well as the 100th did.
Pingback: Themeless Randoms
Glad to see no negativity in these posts. Was a bit concerned my neighbors would be less than welcoming to those attending this event. You cannot live in a location near a stadium and not expect noise, tourists or other special events. Would much rather host a Harley event than a Hip Hop/Rap concert!!!! Keep it light neighbors, you live in an urban environment!! Wave and have fun!
As a Story Hill resident living on 50th street I can say that for the most part the Harley celebration has been tolerable. The daily 18 hour rumbling and occasional full throttle roar took some time to get used to but that’s the price we pay for living in this area. I did have a problem with some of the motorcycles cutting through our neighborhood at full throttle after 11:00 p.m.. I can’t imagine what it must be like for our residents on Bluemound. What concerns me the most was the blatant disregard for our parking restrictions during a Miller Park event. I say this because parking on both sides of our streets poses a safety concern for our residents. Emergency vehicles would have a very difficult time getting down our streets. Apparently the DPW decided that the parking restrictions would be ignored. These were not motorcycles but automobiles. Calls to parking enforcement on Thursday night revealed that they were not informed of the parking restriction change. In fact, one operator said he heard nothing about the parking rules being disregarded and sent checkers out to investigate. Some checkers arrived but just looked at the signs and left. In the future, it would be nice to see our parking restrictions enforced so that our resident’s safety is not put at risk. Put up some no parking signs on streets that are too narrow for parking on both sides of the street. North and south of Bluemound on 50th street and along Woodland Court are real safety concerns when cars are parked on both sides of the street.
I do agree the yard signs reminded me of the pictures your eye doctor shows you to see if your color blind! Red on black is not very effective at night either.
As far as lifting the parking restrictions (cars or motorcycles), I believe this was discussed at several neighborhood meetings. Residents should have voiced concerns then, not the night of the event. Either way, I took it as a 1 night inconvenience.
If we want to address safety at the intersection of 50th and Woodland, residents should talk to the people who park directly in the intersection on a regular basis. It’s not only dangerous but illegal.
Parking indeed was discussed at neighborhood meetings, where residents were assured the restrictions would be in effect. People were concerned on the night of the event because that is when they found out the restrictions would not be enforced. My issue is less with the decision not to enforce the restrictions than the really bad job DPW did of communicating that decision.