Milwaukee Film festival will add new technology to its virtual film festivals while continuing ahead on renovations to the Oriental Theatre on Milwaukee's east side. Milwaukee Film expanded the second annual Minority Health Film Festival to 15 days from Sept. 10-24. It was previously just a four-day festival.

More than 100 artists entered a competition to add murals to the East Side's Black Cat Alley this month and a community jury selected a pair of Milwaukee artists and another from Stevens Point to paint new works in the city's best permanent outdoor art gallery.

Found at 1915 E. North Ave. in between Beans & Barley and Von Trier, the East Side Art Lot turns a flat, unassuming space for parked cars into a vibrant meeting ground and lunch spot, enlivened by ten picnic tables each uniquely hand-painted by local artists.

Ma Fischer's opened at its current location, 2214 N. Farwell Ave., as Fischer Sandwiches in 1932. Ma Fischer's is also known as a place to go at bar-time. And after almost 90 years of business, for the first time ever, Ma's has a patio.

The East Side Business Improvement District is creating carryout dining space for nearby restaurants on a sparsely used city-owned parking lot at 1915 E. North Ave. Known as the East Side Art Lot, it will help support neighborhood restaurants that have been required to reduce their indoor seating capacity to help combat the coronavirus pandemic.

Buying CBD products in Milwaukee no longer has to be intimidating and confusing. “From the beginning, we’ve been dually-focused: to provide premium yet affordable CBD, and create an inviting space for our community to learn about, experience and purchase these goods." says Salem Kashou, the owner of the Eastside’s newest CBD store, Kind Oasis™

The East Side Business Improvement District (BID) is finding new ways to add extended outdoor seating for businesses and residents to use safely. For example, the BID is transforming an underutilized city-owned parking lot at 1915 East North Ave.

Milwaukee Film, the nonprofit owner and operator of the Oriental, offered a behind-the-scenes look of the project construction on Wednesday. Crews on Wednesday were painting and cleaning the plaster on the ceiling and walls of the main theater. Milwaukee Film expects to complete the current phase of the project by the end of October.