But it is out of character for a theater company to start the village. Yet that is an accomplishment the Boulevard, which has been celebrating its 20th anniversary this season, can claim for itself.

Bucher, who doesn't drive a car, was hiking around a depressed part of the Bay View neighborhood on a summer night in 1986, cooling down from a family tiff. He had produced three small stage productions at St. Michael's Waiting Room and Café in Riverwest the previous fall and winter, and he didn't expect to return to the venue for his company's second season.

"I saw this lonesome, sad storefront with a bare light bulb in it," he recently recalled. "It was empty and it looked so forlorn, it cried out to me."

Bucher says he wasn't thinking far enough ahead to seek a storefront for his fledgling troupe, which was mostly financed from his job waiting tables at Mader's. But after seeing it, Bucher knew the former porn shop in the 2200 block of S. Kinnickinnic Ave. had potential as a tiny theater.

"I had never rented anything," recalls Bucher, who was living at home with his mother at the time. "My mom called the landlord, and she negotiated him down a bit. She was good at that."

Doing Moliere and Shakespeare in a space that had previously inspired only heavy breathing was an early sign of a turnaround for the Kinnickinnic Ave. neighborhood, but things had not yet hit bottom for that stretch of street.

Within a few years, it expanded into an adjacent storefront, giving the company a lobby as well as an intimate performance space that seats 45. But the neighborhood remained grungy and dreary. And the theater company's founder felt a certain sense of responsibility.

Annie Bucher was a large presence at the Boulevard until her death in 1995. She served as house manager, telephone reservation taker, occasional lights operator and the baker of the brownies the company sold at intermission.

Follow Bucher's 1986 footsteps down Kinnickinnic today, and that pie is being served at Café Lulu, a briskly successful restaurant and lounge that moved into the space vacated by George Webb's.

The arrival of Lulu in 2001 proved to be a seminal event in the renaissance of the long 2200 block of Kinnickinnic, and Bucher had a hand in co-owners Cameryne Roberts and Sarah Jonas locating their new business across the street from his theater.

The artistic director had worked with Jonas when she was the bar manager at Mader's, and he encouraged the two young women to consider his block.

"The Boulevard's presence on the street was definitely a factor when we were looking at the space," Roberts recently said. "Mark encourages others to take a risk, just as he did."

Like the theater company, Lulu expanded by taking over an adjacent storefront, and the business partners bought the building they had been renting a few years after the Boulevard did the same. An upscale lounge with a bar occupies the added space.

Bucher began plugging Café Lulu as soon as it opened, encouraging theater-goers during his curtain-raising speeches to patronize the new restaurant.

The crown jewel of the redeveloped Kinnickinnic Ave. is the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop that opened across the street from the restaurant and two doors from the Boulevard last July.

Schwartz vice president and chief operating officer Mary McCarthy said her company had been considering a Bay View store for some time, and Café Lulu attracted the firm to the 2200 block of Kinnickinnic.

"That restaurant has become such a landmark," she recently said. "It is such a touch point. When we told people we were opening across the street from Lulu, they immediately knew our location."

"We knew it (the theater) was critical to the vitality of the neighborhood, but I don't think we realized how it would affect us," she said. "Since we moved in, the Boulevard has been our best partner. Mark sends us customers at his intermissions, and comes into the store to announce when the next act is starting.

"It is his mission to rebuild that whole neighborhood. His personality is such that he wants to support the other businesses. Mark is so selfless. He is in there pitching for us all the time.

Founded by three young women, it specializes in left-leaning and radical feminist books, cards, buttons and bumper stickers, but also has a sizable inventory of children's literature.

"We looked at the east side and the rent over there was obscene for opening a new business," said Amy Daroszeski, one of the three owners. "We saw the potential in this area. A lot of people who go to the theater (Boulevard) come here before the show. We didn't move here specifically for that, but we knew they were across the street."

The relationship between the 79-year-old Schwartz Bookshops, which has five stores, and the upstart Broad Vocabulary reflects the friendly village atmosphere that has developed on Kinnickinnic.

It was Schwartz's first day of business, and both bookstores had lines out the door. Schwartz offered to lend Broad Vocabulary copies of the novel if the smaller shop sold out.

Wild Flour Bakery, which had opened a bakery, deli and restaurant around the corner on Lincoln Ave., made special Harry Potter cookies and sent them to Broad Vocabulary, where they were distributed free.

The neighborhood redevelopment has begun to spread to Howell Ave., which dead-ends into Kinnickinnic at the Boulevard Theatre, and the Paper Boat Boutique and Gallery, located at 2367 S. Howell Ave., shipped some Harry Potter owls over to Broad Vocabulary for sale that night.

She noted that when the Boulevard has a sold-out performance, Bucher warns the restaurant to be prepared for extra customers. The two bookstores alert each other when a shoplifter is spotted.

The store was surviving, but Ward closed it three years later to give full-time care to her dying mother-in-law. She has since become the Boulevard's business manager.

Ward describes Kinnickinnic Ave. as being populated by "parasitic businesses" - secondhand stores, liquor stores, dingy bars - when Bucher moved his theater company into its storefront.

"And there was crazy Mark Bucher sweeping the sidewalk with his mom," she said. "Mark and the Boulevard have anchored the street, feeding into the other businesses that have sprung up.

Among the other businesses that have opened in recent years on Boulevard's block: The Soup Market, which sells a selection of soups, stews and chilis for carrying out and dining in, and Babe's, a small ice cream scoop shop three doors away from the theater.

"We think we probably opened the second location too soon, and we spread our customers too thin," he said recently. "The (Kinnickinnic) neighborhood has been great. It has given us tremendous support."

Perhaps most surprising of all, the first conversion of apartments to condominiums has occurred in the neighborhood, on Allis St., the old "Punk Alley."

"It is so advantageous for businesses to be near a cultural or arts group," says Lori Lutzka, who represented the area on the County Board for seven years.

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