Poor stupid naive Omaha......
One thing is to be said for Council Bluffs. It never thought it was anything it wasn't: A small midwestern manufacturing town.
The same cannot be said for Omaha.
Omaha refuses to admit that it's in the middle of nowhere, and that it's main industry is death (life insurance) and dying (the medical centers). It's a silly, provincial place full of people too naive to leave or itching for that promotion that will finally get them out of there.
As part of that, they continue to tear down anything interesting or unique, and call it progress. The prime example is the only thing that can even remotely be called a tourist draw: an area called the Old Market, which consists of some old brick warehouses that have been rehabbed into cutesy shops and restaurants with salad bars.
Adjacent to the Old Market was an area called "jobber's canyon" that was filled with more, and bigger, brick warehouses along the Missouri River. Prime for loft living and expansion of the successful, but small neighborhood. You'd think the city would shelter and encourage that little bit of growth in the dead downtown, right?
Wrong. ConAgra, the big scary carcenogenic "food" company, got it in their head they needed a new "corporate campus", and that they needed it to be where Jobber's Canyon sat. They threatened to leave town (even though, as a failsafe, they bought some land out west) and the city caved. Down went Jobber's Canyon, and up went the typical suburban office complex, as generic as anything you might see from New Jersey to California. Goodbye, expansion of a unique neighborhood. Hello, banality.
And now they are tearing down the Union Pacific building. They propose to replace it with - get this - a 32 storey condo building.
The UP headquarters was built in 1906. It is one of seminal buildings of Omaha - one of the places where, in a much more interesting time for the city, important decisions were made. It's a handome building of grey brick with tan accents, and built like the proverbial brick shithouse.
Other, more important cities, cities populated with intelligent, forward looking people, have saved similar structures: The Santa Fe building in Chicago is sought after office space. Same for the old Burlington Northern Building in St. Paul. The New York Central building in NYC is one of the cities most posh addresses. The Southern Pacific building in San Francisco is a hot property. But in Omaha, the UP building is being demolished in favor of a 32 story condo tower that, in all liklihood, will never be built.
The housing market is crashing nationwide. Condos are overbuilt. It's bad enough in towns where people actually want to live, but in Omaha, it will be a disaster. I predict now that once the UP building is gone, it will become like the sites of the Omaha Theatre, the Fontenelle Hotel, and the original Woodmen of the World building: A parking lot. A parking lot for those who are stuck in Omaha to park their cars during the day, and where they will leave from at night, to return to the banality of their west Omaha homes, where they will spend the evening watching TV and dreaming about living someplace other than that nowhere on the plains, Omaha.
RIP, Union Pacific building. It's probably just as well. You're a symbol of a much more sophisticated era. You don't belong in Hooterville.
The same cannot be said for Omaha.
Omaha refuses to admit that it's in the middle of nowhere, and that it's main industry is death (life insurance) and dying (the medical centers). It's a silly, provincial place full of people too naive to leave or itching for that promotion that will finally get them out of there.
As part of that, they continue to tear down anything interesting or unique, and call it progress. The prime example is the only thing that can even remotely be called a tourist draw: an area called the Old Market, which consists of some old brick warehouses that have been rehabbed into cutesy shops and restaurants with salad bars.
Adjacent to the Old Market was an area called "jobber's canyon" that was filled with more, and bigger, brick warehouses along the Missouri River. Prime for loft living and expansion of the successful, but small neighborhood. You'd think the city would shelter and encourage that little bit of growth in the dead downtown, right?
Wrong. ConAgra, the big scary carcenogenic "food" company, got it in their head they needed a new "corporate campus", and that they needed it to be where Jobber's Canyon sat. They threatened to leave town (even though, as a failsafe, they bought some land out west) and the city caved. Down went Jobber's Canyon, and up went the typical suburban office complex, as generic as anything you might see from New Jersey to California. Goodbye, expansion of a unique neighborhood. Hello, banality.
And now they are tearing down the Union Pacific building. They propose to replace it with - get this - a 32 storey condo building.
The UP headquarters was built in 1906. It is one of seminal buildings of Omaha - one of the places where, in a much more interesting time for the city, important decisions were made. It's a handome building of grey brick with tan accents, and built like the proverbial brick shithouse.
Other, more important cities, cities populated with intelligent, forward looking people, have saved similar structures: The Santa Fe building in Chicago is sought after office space. Same for the old Burlington Northern Building in St. Paul. The New York Central building in NYC is one of the cities most posh addresses. The Southern Pacific building in San Francisco is a hot property. But in Omaha, the UP building is being demolished in favor of a 32 story condo tower that, in all liklihood, will never be built.
The housing market is crashing nationwide. Condos are overbuilt. It's bad enough in towns where people actually want to live, but in Omaha, it will be a disaster. I predict now that once the UP building is gone, it will become like the sites of the Omaha Theatre, the Fontenelle Hotel, and the original Woodmen of the World building: A parking lot. A parking lot for those who are stuck in Omaha to park their cars during the day, and where they will leave from at night, to return to the banality of their west Omaha homes, where they will spend the evening watching TV and dreaming about living someplace other than that nowhere on the plains, Omaha.
RIP, Union Pacific building. It's probably just as well. You're a symbol of a much more sophisticated era. You don't belong in Hooterville.
posted by Catalina Vel-DuRay @ Thursday, March 15, 2007
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