Shouldn’t everyone get one?
Nino Amato wants an apology. So do Betty Mitchell Banks, a children’s TV producer; Richard Harris, author of Growing up Black in S. Madison; and M. Kinney James, Madison’s first black woman police officer. The last three want mea culpas, on behalf of black people uprooted from Madison’s old Greenbush neighborhood. Former alder Amato wants his on behalf of Italians.
This is the America in the 26th year of the 21st Century: Let no ethnicity, race, religion, or culture go without grievance! No statute of limitations necessary!
The four personages have called a news event for Wednesday 10 June 2026. They are demanding “a public apology” from the City of Madison and a “truth and reconciliation hearing for Madison’s systemic racist urban renewal project that destroyed the homes of hundreds of black, Jewish and Italian families.” The four say:
The destruction of Madison’s Greenbush neighborhood became a defining example of institutional racism and discriminatory public policy by the City of Madison.
“The Bush” was Madison’s Ellis Island. Its low-cost and often derelict housing welcomed blacks, Jews from eastern Europe, and other recent immigrants, especially Sicilians. During the roaring 1920s its free-enterprise, anti-government entrepreneurs kept many a thirst slaked, many a gendarme occupied.
Wisconsin Historical Society PH 2853
Progress is over-rated
Social do-gooders hated “slums.” The progressive impulse demanded government interventiuon. In 1962, goosed by federal funding, the City of Madison razed 233 residential and 33 commercial buildings bounded by West Washington, Park and Regent Streets — the triangular area across from Madison General hospital.
Likely instrumental was JFK’s state campaign chairman, Ivan Nestingen. The mayor of Madison left office in 1961 to become JFK’s under-secretary for Health, Education, and Welfare.
Urban renewal replaced blighted housing with soul-crushing, high-rise incubators of crime and dependence like Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis to Cabrini Green in Chicago. All, thankfully, themselves subsequently erased as do-gooders realized their mistakes. Madison’s urban renewal was not as monolithic but remains sterile.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Before we get too nostalgic over temps perdu, let’s acknowledge the old Greenbush was, indeed, the “festering slum” many called it at the time. Its housing, built on the cheap before the turn of the last century, was destined for the landfill well before the present day — but it was a functioning neighborhood.
Thing is, no one defends bulldozing the old Bush today. Like Maple Bluff and the State Capitol, the Bush was built on stolen land. So why an apology? It’s a consensus that government-ordered housing development was a royal screw-up — pretty much like crime-ridden Rethke Terrace and Tree Lane today. For that, the City can apologize!
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