Construction completed in 1968
Photos by Retiring Guy
Isthmus, 6/5/2014
Steve Brown Apartments, which owns the Highlander, had proposed tearing it down and replacing it with three modern apartment buildings. But the Landmarks Commission rejected the new buildings as being too large for the neighborhood. An appeal in April to the Common Council was unsuccessful in overturning the decision. Steve Brown Apartments has said it won't do anything with the building until the city revises its regulations for the historic district.
Eby isn't alone in disliking the Highlander. Many who have never set foot inside deride the building as one of the city's "big uglies."
Definitions vary, but the term generally refers to the large student apartment buildings constructed out of concrete, cinder block or brick in the '60s and '70s. The buildings are dispersed around the Mansion Hill, Langdon Street, Regent Street, Mifflin and Bassett neighborhoods. They dwarf the smaller homes and older brick apartment buildings around them. Some are high-rises, while others are horizontal big uglies -- three- or four-story buildings that stretch out as much as a half-block. [emphasis added]
Ald. Scott Resnick calls the 13-story apartment building where he lives -- "The Surf" at 661 Mendota Court -- a big ugly.
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Madison Wisconsin Streamline Moderne: Quisling Towers Apartments at 1 East Gilman Street. (5/12/2025)Giant mural on side of Henry Gilman Apartments in downtown Madison Wisconsin. (5/8/2025)
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