Quarry Heights Revives Neighborhood Association After Decade-Long Hiatus

The Wauwatosa map is almost thoroughly covered by active neighborhood associations, but for years there has been a conspicuous gap: The Quarry Heights Neighborhood Association dissolved nearly a decade ago after only a few years of activity, leaving a large and significant section of east-central Tosa unrepresented by a viable neighborhood group.

Now, Quarry Heights is back on the map. A few gung-ho residents decided it was time to revive the idea, and with a core group of about a dozen families, but also with interest in membership and activities from many more, Quarry Heights has returned to the fold.

After a first meeting only in June, the association has already scheduled a block party for Aug. 6, has a website up and active, is recruiting members and planning more activities, and is ready to grow from there.

Quarry Heights stretches east to west from 60th Street to 68th Street and from Milwaukee Avenue to the railroad tracks south of State Street (the Charles Jacobus Park Neighborhood Association claimed the area south of the tracks after the Hart Park Square senior living center was built).

Co-presidents of the renewed Quarry Heights association Vicky Ostry and Deb Fisher are a contrast in continuity, but perhaps not in commitment.

Ostry has lived in Quarry Heights nearly 30 years; Fisher less than two. But they hit it off soon after Fisher arrived, and each seemed to know what the other was thinking.

"It's something that I've wanted to do for years, but not by myself," Ostry said. "Then 18 months ago, this new neighbor moved in, and we got to know each other, and now here we are."

Fisher was that neighbor, and although new to Quarry Heights, she was not new to Tosa. She had lived here many years before and loved it. And she was only too happy to push to promote her newly re-adopted home.

"I am not working full-time, I'm working part-time from home," Fisher said, "and I've always been the sort of person who loves to know the neighbors, and I love events.

"One day I said to Vicky, 'I already know what you're going to ask me.' And I was ready to do it. Peope are really busy these days, but I'm not, so I said 'Sure.'"

On Mother's Day, Ostry and Fisher went out on a two-woman, door-to-door campaign to talk to neighbors about reviving a neighborhood group, and the response was overwhelming. Nobody said no.

"It's just so much fun to see everybody say, 'I'll do that,'" Ostry said.

In one case, that Mother's Day tour produced one of the first initiatives the nascent association plans to undertake.

"One of the families that we went to meet had their young boys on the porch," Ostry said, "and we were talking to the parents, and one of the boys said, 'I want to start a lawn mowing service, can we do that?'

"That's just the sort of thing we want to see: Babysitting, snow shoveling, pet sitting. Anything and everything to get neighbors, families, involved with one another."

The group had its first meeting in June in a driveway, a seemingly inauspicious beginning. But out of that meeting came things many neighborhood groups take many months or years to develop.

"One of the guys who came is real Web-savvy," Ostry said, "and he brought his laptop, and while we were sitting there, as we sat in the driveway, he reserved the domain name. He said, 'OK, it's done, it's ours.'"

Fisher said that among the initiatives the revived group wants to undertake are a revival of the former group's Halloween Trick or Treat, other seasonal affairs and, it is hoped, some kind of charity.

"We want to do some fundraising and be a little philanthropic," Fisher said. "We're not sure what it will be yet, but we're talking about it."

The original Quarry Heights association evaporated for the usual reason: One person, Rosie Bowring, was the guiding light and driving force, and everybody else let her do everything – until she just couldn't do it all anymore.

The new group promises to be more diverse and inclusive.

"Rosie is still here, and she's eager to be involved," Ostry said, "although maybe not yet in the organizing. She'll be active, though."

Along with food and fun and games for the kids, the Aug. 6 block party will feature visits from a Wauwatosa Fire Department fire truck and from the Wauwatosa Police.

Among the greater community involvement Quarry Heights may consider is advocating for the preservation of the historic , an important geologic formation for which, in a sense, the neighborhood is named.

The Schoonmaker Reef, a 425 million-year-old feature, was discovered when the Schoonmake Quarry, one of Wauwatosa's earliest business enterprises, was examined by 19th Century geologists.

Quarry Heights sits literally on top of the famous reef, and now that including the old quarry face, the neighborhood has a heightened awareness of its new place in history.