Avenues West is the largely residential extension of two West Side neighborhoods, Merrill Park and Concordia, that also reflects the industrial heritage of the adjacent Menomonee Valley. The neighborhood is most visibly a college campus--the school-year home of more than 11,000 Marquette University students who come from every state and dozens of countries. Beginning with a single building on Wisconsin Avenue in 1907, Marquette has grown to become a major Milwaukee institution, but it exists in the context of this urban neighborhood, which in the 1870s was a haven for the wealthy.