Lainey Seyler

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

In 2000, anyone who drove the once elevated Park East Freeway from West Town to East Town saw it — the words "Sydney Hih" in red on the top of a building at the corner of Old World Third Street and West Juneau Avenue.

The four-foot-tall letters were on two sides of the building. The building was constructed in 1876 and lived many lives until it was torn down in 2012.

It was home to a bank for a long time, and a pioneering doctor performed surgeries in the basement.

Sydney Eisenberg added the letters in the 1970s when he bought the building. He gave it quite the paint job and added the letters in red. Eisenberg drew artist types as tenants, and they established studios in the building. There was a rock club and one of the city's first gay nightclubs. In 1986, a grunge club called the Unicorn opened. Nirvana played there before they were big. So did the Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam and others.

Eisenburgh wanted it to be a countercultural hub, and it was.

ARCHIVE:Goodbye, Sydney Hih; demolition is underway

ARCHIVE:Sydney Hih faded but not forgotten

In 2000, the building was sold, the exterior was painted beige and the letters olive green. In 2012, the building was condemned, and after some back and forth, the demo crew came. The only things that remain are the letters.

The letters traveled around the city, changing hands as things do. But this summer, Fred Gillich started tracking down those letters, and of last week he had enough to spell "Sydney Hih."

And you can see them, just a few blocks from their original home.

The letters are on display inside the Tavern at Turner Hall, which opens today in time for the Bucks preseason start against the Chicago Bulls at the Fiserv Forum.

You can see the sign at the Tavern until the end of the year. Mike Eitel, who is running the Tavern, saw a photo of the letters on social media and reached out to see if Gillich was interested in displaying them.

Gillich is still hunting for four more letters. He has some leads but hasn't found them yet.

Gillich regularly went to shows at the Unicorn in the late '80s and early '90s. In 2000, he started Too Much Metal For One Hand, a company that creates graphics that go on T-shirts and memorabilia. He's basically living his punk rock dreams. A dream that started at the Sydney Hih.

"I feel like it’s part of the city’s DNA. You can't forget that," Gillich said.

Some of the letters are in rough shape. Gillich wants to restore them, and paint them the red of the Sydney Hih's glory days. He'd like to install LED lights in them so it looks like the Moulin Rouge sign but in a bunch of colors, reminiscent of the Sydney Hih's once colorful exterior.

He'd like to turn the letters over to the Bucks ownership or another developer who could display them. Through it all, he hopes the Sydney Hih's legacy endures.

"I get these ideas and I can’t always communicate it so I just do it, and the Sydney Hih is that," Gillich said. "There were great photographers that came out of there, there were musicians, artists. All kinds of crazy (expletive). It was before everything got cleaned up. Eventually, it got torn down. My goal is that whoever develops it has that vision.

"I'm just a dude with an idea."