Omaha freaked me out because there wasn’t anyone in the downtown area when I was there. It was a Saturday afternoon and it became foggy. Felt like I was in silent hill walking around
This was only for a day in 2015, it was cheaper to fly out of there than another nearby city.
When I heard about the population size I was anticipating it to be more bustling but didn’t realize how spread out the population is. Also nothing was open except for a jimmy johns? Uncanny vibes, would go back
Must’ve been a bad day! I lived right outside of downtown from 2012-2015 and downtown always had a lot going on, especially the Old Market area. Omaha also has a lot less suburbanization and sprawl than comparable cities.
One thing that may have thrown you off, though, is that the city of Omaha takes up a large percentage of the metro area population compared to comparable metro areas. This is due to annexation policy that has allowed the city to annex more suburbs than cities in other states. So if you look at city sizes, Omaha appears larger than it does if you look at metropolitan statistical area sizes.
I lived there 2016 to be 2019 and downtown was plenty busy?
Like there's the commercial side of town and that was kind of dead outside of business hours, but the area in/around the old market was always busy in my experience.
I was in Omaha for only one day, a Fall Sunday in 2017, and I had the same experience. We drove around downtown for 30 minutes until we found a restaurant that was open for lunch. The city was completely desolate. I figured it was because it was a Sunday afternoon.
Downtown area used to be kinda shit. Not “no one ever goes there” bad, old market has always been busy. But pretty much any other part wasn’t very popular. Tons of new expansion and improvements, plus population increasing, it’s busy every single day, year round, even with a ton of snow lol
That place is LIMINAL. Every time I've visited, which granted was about 5 years ago now, and about 2 years in between for the visits before, it's felt like an almost abandoned town. Nobody walking their dogs, using sidewalks or anything. Only about one car would drive through the area each hour. My great grandmother used to live out there, and her house felt like it was as haunted as the town, complete with very old and aged decor.
The only place that I can remember was open, was a Denny's where all the people in the corner stared at us while we had a family breakfast with my uncle's family and my extended older family. They weren't even being discrete about it, I just remember them looking at us on either disgust or pure judgement, with a couple of them not looking away at all. It was super unsettling.
I kinda want to visit again and see if I can't get proof of this, because I'm half convinced it's a town full of people who seem human, but are actually a government experiment to see if we can identify them from real people.
For the College World Series, the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, and families drive from surrounding states for the Zoo. I know it sounds like BS if you’ve never experienced it.
Oh I’ve been there— my aunt and uncle live in Omaha. I was just shocked other people go there without an explicit reason. Didn’t know about the college World Series.
The CWS basically make downtown pretty inaccessible to the locals for a good chunk of June. Couples in the area often avoid having their weddings during that time because it's difficult for traveling family members to find lodging.
You were there on Sunday, not Saturday. I was born and raised in Omaha, and everything closes early (or doesnt open at all) on Sunday downtown except fast food places.
Thank you for the link to Nebraska local media, because I ended up going down a rabbit hole about the time the Nebraska government approved a law that allowed parents to abandon their children and one guy abandoned all 9 of his kids at different places all over Omaha
It was a completely insane law. Apparently it was intended so that people with newborn babies could give them up at firehouses, hospitals, etc. without being punished. But they forgot to put an age limit in, so people came from all over the country to abandon their teenage kids in Nebraska for almost 2 straight years
I’ve always lived in the nyc vicinity so maybe this is why, but lots of cities seem to be like this which freaks me out. Same thing happened to me in Providence of all places — totally dead on an autumn Saturday
This is how I felt as a New Yorker driving from my borough to Manhattan for the first time during COVID. It’s still the only time I’ve ever seen the city empty. So unnerving
I work in downtown Omaha and it’s crazy how not busy downtown is during the work day. Apparently a lot of places suffered with covid. Being from Lincoln downtown is right next to the college, so downtown is often busy.
I’ve only been there once and had the same experience. I was there for work and we walked from our hotel to a bar about 15 minutes away. It was a perfect pink sunset in August and we did not see a single person outside. Big difference from the northeast. It wasn’t a sketchy area I think everyone just drives everywhere even it it’s nice out.
Depends on the day/time. Even these days downtown can be eerily quiet at certain times of the week, but it also gets crazy busy at times (especially Friday and Saturday evenings)
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u/idkrandomusername1 26d ago
Omaha freaked me out because there wasn’t anyone in the downtown area when I was there. It was a Saturday afternoon and it became foggy. Felt like I was in silent hill walking around