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'O!' my! An ex-Omahan finds that today his hometown is, yes . . . cool
 BY BRET SCHULTE
FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
I arrive at the Omaha airport and briefly think of that sad old
aphorism: "You can never go home again."
Perhaps it's for the best. After all, I was raised in a place not so
much looked over as overlooked, home to about 740,000 people, but
geographically so nondescript that in a song titled "Omaha," the
Counting Crows simply describe it as "somewhere in Middle America."
Within minutes, I'm making the short trip downtown on Abbott Drive,
which I remember as a shabby highway bordered by a scrap yard, the
overgrown banks of the Missouri River and acres of post-industrial
wasteland.
Except this isn't it.
This Abbott Drive is a lushly landscaped boulevard with sculptural
towers standing like sentinels and art-deco lampposts lighting the way.
To the left is the new Gallup University campus, which appeared so
quickly on the riverbank that it's like a corporate Atlantis washed
ashore. Farther down the river are scenic walkways, a marina and a
restaurant.
On the horizon is the First National Bank Tower, a 635-foot-tall
glass-and-granite skyscraper.
This is home? Omaha today is something I never saw, or felt, or even
suspected in my youth: cool.
Along with the shiny high-rises and swanky waterfront developments are
a $90 million performing arts center, currently under construction; an
ever-expanding bohemian district known as the Old Market; and a
convention center and arena so large it looks as if Omaha borrowed it
from another city. In the financial world, hardly a day goes by without
mention of Warren Buffett, "the Oracle of Omaha" and chairman of
Berkshire Hathaway, one of Omaha's five Fortune 500 companies.
Then there's the "Omaha sound." Indie rock bands like Bright Eyes,
starring boy wonder Conor Oberst; old-school New Wave rockers the
Faint; and emo pioneers Cursive scored the town a headline on the cover
of July's Spin magazine, which dubbed it "America's new indie-rock
capital."
Suddenly, Omaha has a sound. A reputation. Status even. And it's
starting to look the part.
In a series of public-private partnerships, the city has poured more
than $2 billion into an ambitious urban-planning program that includes
parks, trails and boardwalks, as well as a revitalization of the
downtown corporate presence and residential living.
Omaha's face lift is aimed not just at beautification, but also at
attraction. Potential tourists are being courted with rare abandon by
Omaha's typically stolid, cautious leadership.
The mayor's office, the chamber of commerce and the convention and
visitors bureau have launched the city's first-ever fully coordinated
PR campaign, ditching the meaty slogan "Omaha: Rare, Well Done" for
something sleeker and sexier.
It's not even a slogan. It's an exclamation.
"O!"
"We know from talking to people that when visitors come to Omaha,
they're always surprised," says Mayor Mike Fahey. "I think there is a
sense of pride being from Omaha. This is what we're trying to capture
with the 'O!' campaign."
Omaha is also trying to capture the attention of those folks who might
snub Omaha, whose response to the sincere enthusiasm of the "O!"
campaign would be a deflated "oh," who would never think of the
American hinterlands as a source of fine dining, historic districts and
thriving urban landscapes.
In reality, many Midwestern cities fit the bill - St. Louis and Kansas
City, Mo., among them. But while those cities receive millions of
visitors each year, Omaha remains relatively undiscovered country.
Increasingly, it's country worth seeing.
The $290 million Qwest Center opened along the waterfront in September
and already is attracting top-grossing acts like Cher, Fleetwood Mac
and Matchbox Twenty. Just south is the Old Market, about a dozen square
blocks of cobblestone streets and closely huddled historic buildings.
With a multitude of restaurants, taverns and clubs, the Old Market is
the heart of Omaha's artistic and cultural life, much of which revolves
around food.
Omaha is no longer the cow town of yore, but steak still rules these
parts. The famous (and expensive) local brand - imaginatively labeled
Omaha Steaks - is proudly advertised on every meat-bearing menu in
town. In the Old Market, the premier steakhouse is Omaha Prime, which
has long taunted my willpower and wallet. Both are slim, but at $25 to
$40 an entree, the wallet is unrelenting.
Instead, I browse stores replete with retro velour sofas and neon
Schlitz signs; upscale clothiers that sell black turtlenecks at New
York prices; a niche shop laden with obscure objects from the former
Eastern bloc; and the Antiquarian Bookstore, owned by a man who hasn't
worn socks since the Reagan administration - and where I once stumbled
upon a first edition of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" for $3.
Magically, the wallet produced.
Perhaps the district's most venerable institution is Homer's Music, the
retailer of choice for Omaha's growing population of urban hipsters -
more and more of whom are filling up the area's loft apartments.
Already, the nostalgia-fueled denizens are riding around downtown in
green-and-white public buses, restored originals from the 1950s.
The price of a trip down memory lane: 25 cents.
The money, the public-private partnerships, the iconic "O!" and the
sudden, almost jarring, construction boom are as much about local
self-esteem as they are about corralling visitors. Midwestern cities,
as with those of the East Coast, are acutely aware of one another.
Omaha feels Kansas City's superior shopping just as it felt, until
recently, Des Moines's superior skyline.
One of Omaha's most significant efforts at self-improvement (and
bragging rights) came with the Lied Jungle, constructed in the early
1990s as part of its long-established Henry Doorly Zoo. Today, the zoo
is the state's No. 1 tourist attraction. This has been accomplished by
collecting that which is most coveted by zoos: the rare, the elusive,
the profitable "world's largest" (well, at least according to the zoo).
The famed Lied Jungle is the world's largest indoor rain forest, where
monkeys rope between the flora of South America and Africa. Nearby is
the recently completed Desert Dome, the world's largest indoor desert,
which happens to be kept under the world's largest "glazed geodesic
dome."The two-story structure contains a sandfall, a hummingbird
canyon, live pumas and a monolith rock that is - you'll never guess -
the world's largest. Directly beneath the desert dome? The world's
largest indoor nocturnal exhibit.
Up next: a $13.5 million gorilla habitat to be completed next year.
Alas, it won't be the world's largest. Nevertheless, it will put Omaha
at the forefront of gorilla conservation - in no small part because of
the zoo's gorilla sperm bank. The world's largest.
Sharing the zoo's parking lot is Rosenblatt Stadium, which for the past
50-plus years has been the home of the NCAA College World Series. Every
June, thousands of baseball fans from across the country meet to create
a temporary baseball utopia here, among them hordes of RV dwellers with
a communal belief in beer and bratwursts.
Equally expressive is the Joslyn Art Museum, west of downtown.
Constructed in 1931 with an exterior of Georgian pink marble, this
art-deco building is itself a work of art, reflecting the Plains
influence of Frank Lloyd Wright. Inside are courtyards, fountains and
gallerias created with 38 types of marble from around the world.
My favorite place in Omaha, the Joslyn holds a permanent collection of
10,000 works dating to antiquity. European and American paintings from
the 19th and 20th centuries receive special interest; the Joslyn
holdings include Monet, Renoir, Grant Wood and El Greco, among others.
Perhaps the greatest symbol of Omaha society rests just a few blocks
from where I grew up: Boys Town, the most famous and revered
institution in the state, if you don't count Husker football.
Opened in 1917 by Father Edward Flanagan, the famous home for troubled
boys originated when Flanagan found that he was reaching many wayward
men too late in life. Flanagan eventually moved his operation - founded
on the idea that "there are no bad boys" - to a large farm 10 miles
west of town, where the boys grew their own food, learned employable
trades and were taught the value of religious faith.
Omaha has long since caught up to Boys Town and moved well beyond, but
the "village," situated on 900 acres, remains self-sufficient and
operates its own fire department, police station, post office, two
churches and two schools. Several hundred children live in
"family-style" homes under the care of family-teacher couples, who must
be married and pass a rigorous exam and training period.
Renamed Girls and Boys Town in 2000, the campus is open to visitors,
who can tour its churches, gardens and attractive multimedia Hall of
History.
Boys Town is a vestige of Omaha as I've always known it. A solid place.
A place for families and good ol' American values and what some would
say is the naive belief in essential human goodness. Omaha lacks the
cynicism of the East Coast and for that reason will never be all that
hip, despite the rock scene and the Old Market and the new skyscrapers.
But that's fine. Omaha has its own identity, and in a distinctly
Midwestern way, an unfaltering belief in the future.
I don't stay for long. But it's good to go home again.
©2003 Omaha World-Herald. All rights reserved.
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