Center Mall Break!

Since the Crossroads Mall posting was so well-received by our readership (which is climbing into the dozens! Do you think we should have an IPO?) I've decided to do a featurette on the Center Shopping Center in Omaha.

The Center was an odd duck. This was my mom's prefered mall, because it had lots of parking, was close to home, and had a Kilpatrick's, which was her favorite store. It also had a bowling alley on the top floor, a grocery store on the bottom floor, and a dime store (McCrory's?) on a middle floor.

Kilpatrick's was the "nice" department store in Omaha. It had quality housewares, fine china and silver, and even emporia couture! The original downtown location was quite elegant, and this had been their first foray into suburban shopping. It was smallish, compared to the downtown store, but still had most of the nice merchandise. Unfortunately, it was heavily damaged in a fire in the early 70's, and while they were remodelling it, Kilpatrick's was purchased by Des Moines based Younkers, who closed the downtown store, and renamed everything Younker-Kilpatricks. When the Center store reopened, it was a showcase of bad 70's decor. Lot's of lime-green in the women's departments, and dark wood in the men's departments. The rest of the store had lots of lemon yellow.

The toy department was ran by a remarkably disagreeable woman who hated children and looked like the wicked witch of the west. But it also had a great selection of board games and remarkably cool die-cast toys.

Directly across the street was the Veteran's Hospital, which was set back from the street by a wide, immaculately groomed lawn. It was a very handsome building, but it creeped me out because my Mom, with what was undoubtedly patriotic intentions, had told me that it was "full" of guys from wars who were so severely damaged that they had never been outside the walls of the hospital. She also said that some of them had been there since World War One. Since World War One seemed like something from the 12th century, it was very disturbing. As usual, instead of taking the intended message to heart (these men sacrificed for our freedoms) I took it that is was a sinister place, full of crazy old cripples and undoubtedly evil nurses. That's terribly unfair, of course, and I've since learned better, but you know how weird children are.

But back to the Center: Kilpatrick's is now a telemarketing center (telemarketing is one of the "growth industries" in Omaha, which tells you what a grim place it is) and most of the other retail space is now closed. The Center survives, but no one is sure why.

Here's a picture of the Center, undoubtedly taken from the lawn of the VA.