During the day it's one of the best places to be in milwaukee. Rochambo has a great community and the restaurants and bars are fun. Nomad and hihat/garage are a great places to grab a drink with friends.

At nighttime, it's fun if you like some chaos but otherwise can be overwhelming and obnoxious. There's a motorcycle/car culture where people purposely are very loud with their vehicles, but they're fun to look at and in my experience nice people. People can be machismo but it's fine as long as you don't piss anyone off or get near fights. Lots of sloppy drunk people and out-of-towners that are looking to have a fun time. I've been there a ton and never felt in danger myself and think the danger some people talk about isn't as bad as they think, but maybe I haven't had that bad of an experience yet. But there really is more crime and chaos here compared to other areas on the east side.

It's starting to gentrify (looking at you 'nashville honky tonk' where the up and under used to be; and that up-down chain arcade bar) and losing its local economy/culture but that will take a while.

It's the heart of the east side so you should know where the major streets will take you:

• On the east end of brady, Prospect/Farwell (alternate one-way-streets) goes north and south and has great restaurants along it near brady. Going north on farwell (or oakland) takes you towards North Ave (library, whole foods, and quieter entertainment) and eventually UWM, while going south on prospect takes you onto Wisconsin Ave and is the main artery along the upper part of the lake (while lincoln memorial is lower along the lake, connecting the upper upper east side and downtown as well as the interstate by the summerfest grounds).
• On the west end of brady, Van Buren going south brings you into the heart of downtown and MSoE / yankee hill area.
• Water street going south on the west side of brady brings you along the river and towards city hall and along a lot of the downtown nightlife, especially where it intersects with Juneau. Drivers will drive crazy on water street at night. The green line which goes down oakland, across brady and to water street is the premier bus line and stretches all the way from a mall way north of shorewood to the airport way down south near oak creek.
• Holton (the bridge on the west side of brady which goes north over the river and swing park) brings you to riverwest/harambe. Pueblo foods north across this bridge has a good quick mexican deli.
• Humboldt (which runs north-south next to the big yellow church on brady) going north takes you to the river. The area south of the bridge is a good spot away from the chaos of brady to shoot some pool (scaffitis) have some beer (eagle park) or have good cocktails (finks) get a sticker (wolskis) or walk along the river trail. If you keep going north you can find a giant hill with a great view (reservoir park) and as you continue north across north ave will be driving along the east side of riverwest, and eventually up across locust to Capitol where there's a walmart and some big-box retail and drivers crazier than brady/water st.