Life in the Village: Another really really really DUMB idea

Dear, Gently tossed Readers,

One of the joys I have experienced in my little visit to the hinterlands has been Mahm's thrift warehouse, which is located in downtown Council Bluffs, on the last block of buildings that actually somewhat resembles a downtown.

So imagine my knuckle-biting attack when I was informed today that THAT ENTIRE SIDE OF THE BLOCK IS TO BE DEMOLISHED!!!!

It seems that the city has bought up all the buildings on that side of the block for a development that is aimed at making it look "just like the Old Market"

The Old Market, for you gentle readers who have been fortunate enough to not visit Omaha, is a tiny little four block space comprised of old buildings that some hippies started vegetarian cafes, head shops and record stores in, back in the 1960's. It's now mostly kitschy restaurants, antique stores, and clothing stores for large women with too much money. It is the one part of downtown Omaha that can be remotely described as "thriving", and even that is generous. Omaha, in a typicaly brilliant stroke of mediocrity, assured that the Old Market will never get any bigger than it currently is by demolishing all the extra old warehouses that were adjacent to it in favor of an incredibly bland "corporate campus" for that manufactuer of everything evil, ConAgra.

So let me recap the sad irony: The city fathers of Council Bluffs are aiming to demoish a bunch of old commercial buildings in the hopes of creating an evironment that was born out of a bunch of old commercial buildings. Are you with me in the big head scratch?

If this were just any city, it would be bad enough - but this is Council Bluffs: The town that gave the world the Midlands Mall: A mall so bad, so ugly, so turned in on itself, that it only existed long enough to kill all the non-mall business around it, before eating itself.

ONE WOULD THINK THAT, after sacrificing FOUR SQUARE BLOCKS of previously thriving small businesses, all in funky old turn-of-the-century commercial buildings, to the abortion that was eventually Midlands Mall, they would have learned their lesson. But no: They did not, and now they want to repeat that hideous experiment on an entire city block. As we used to say back in the kitchen, "What the Fuck?"

And just so you can get a glimpse of what I am talking about here, Here is a view of the mall block back in the early 20th Century. These buildings were still in place in the 70's when they were demolished for the mall.



See in that picture where the cigar sign is? This is what's standing in that space now:


Now maybe you can understand why I have no hope for this ridiculous town.