Omaha - Tumblr Posts
80 years ago on June 6, 1944, D-day began.
Wounded soldiers of the U.S. 3rd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division on a smoke break after capturing Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Drawn in 2021.
Omaha Craftsman Dining Room A large image of a great room with a medium-toned wood floor, white walls, and no fireplace
Powder Room (Omaha)
Bathroom Sauna Example of a large trendy brown tile and porcelain tile porcelain tile bathroom design with an undermount sink, recessed-panel cabinets, medium tone wood cabinets, quartz countertops, a one-piece toilet and beige walls
Contemporary Powder Room - Bathroom
Example of a trendy powder room design
Omaha Music Room Living Room
Living room - large transitional enclosed light wood floor and beige floor living room idea with a music area, brown walls, a standard fireplace, a stone fireplace and no tv
Alternate US
Eclectic Powder Room - Powder Room
Eclectic powder room photo
Kitchen Dining - Modern Dining Room
Sauna in Omaha Large trendy brown tile and porcelain tile porcelain tile bathroom photo with an undermount sink, recessed-panel cabinets, medium tone wood cabinets, quartz countertops, a one-piece toilet and beige walls
Bathroom Powder Room in Omaha An illustration of a modern powder room design
Contemporary Bathroom - Bathroom Huge trendy kids' gray tile and porcelain tile slate floor doorless shower photo with an undermount sink, flat-panel cabinets, light wood cabinets, granite countertops, an undermount tub, a one-piece toilet and beige walls
The Age of American Cities
I spent the last two weeks in Omaha and the surrounding area, and I was constantly struck by the newness of every human thing, and even of so many of the green spaces. There was hardly anywhere in the region that looked like it hadn't been sculpted by the actions of people within the last 120 years.
It was almost disorienting for me, even coming from a city barely 100 years older than that, but Pittsburgh and its outlying areas are still built on the skeleton of the 19th century, and on earlier bones than that, too.
My house, and many of the neighborhoods I see every time I leave it, are older by decades than anything I saw in Omaha, and they _feel_ older in ways beyond just architectural style. It's old trees hanging over streets, and a century of renovations juxtaposing old with new.
The roads here weren't made for cars; they were adapted to them. The rare wide boulevard here was carved out for trolleys to run beside horse-drawn carriages and wagons, for pedestrians and market stalls to fill the gutters and the roadway. Only in the 20th century were they overtaken by automobiles, pedestrians relegated to sidewalks and crossings, most street vendors banished until they finally reappeared as food trucks in automobiles of their own.
But Omaha was made for the car, it's neighborhoods made BY the car. A grid of broad, flat, 4-lane divided roadways connecting perfectly-contained and neat little neighborhoods, built each in a single architectural style, no house too close to its neighbors or too distinct.
Everywhere accessible by car in 30 minutes or less, nowhere accessible by foot.
I am a frequent user of the parks in my area, and of State and National Parks when I leave my immediate area. In Pittsburgh, many of the parks are old enough, or were carved out of places already old and untouched, that they feel timeless. There, manicured public spaces run aground on seas of wild and ancient forest, timeless meadows and fields of stone.
Even the neighborhood playground near me is only a fence away from a cliff dropping 10 meters down into a forested ravine whose trees yet tower over the slides and swings of the park above. Some trees as old as the oldest houses in the neighborhood bear silent witness to the nearly dozen generations of children playing and shouting down the streets that went from feet to horses to trolleys to cars.
The parks I explored in Omaha, by contrast, feel human and manicured in every way that matters. Each plot of ground has been designated to a purpose, and each plant selected for its spot. Trees only grow where they are permitted, and only to the size allowed by the landscapers. Carefully cut grass covers every uniformly-measured square of earth, and the only dirt allowed to expose itself to the people of Nebraska lives on the baselines of the sports fields cut into each park.
By contrast to Pittsburgh, Omaha is filled with intentional green spaces. Pittsburgh realized too late in its life that it needed parks and green spaces, and only carved them out of wilderness, wealthy estates, and farms as it expanded outward. As industrial sites and rail lines mouldered and decayed, the spaces were reclaimed into trails and wild spaces.
In some ways, this informs the feel of these parks and green spaces; wild and ancient, or full of life pouring through gaps in the concrete.
Omaha built parks and common spaces into the plans of its neighborhoods in ways the early residents of Pittsburgh should envy, but at the price of a uniformity of look and feel and a loss of wildness. Perhaps in another century, some of these places can be left to grow as wild as the parks of Pittsburgh, and freshly-abandoned spaces can be reclaimed into wilderness that links the manicured parks together.
Sound up! The ash trees drop their leaves all at once. This magic is in Omaha.
Scarlet ibis (Eudocimus ruber), Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium, 2021, Jey Schroeder