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A Bridge Connecting Two Cities

The result of two years and $22 million of construction is the longest pedestrian bridge to link two states. The Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge, named for the former Nebraska governor and U.S. Senator, opened officially Sept. 28, 2008. Two weeks earlier, a crowd estimated at 10,000 watched as the twin 210-foot bridge towers were illuminated for the first time–accompanied by fireworks.

The bridge connects 150 miles of bicycle and pedestrian trails on each side of the river, extending the options for outdoor enthusiasts. As an attraction, it complements the new baseball stadium under construction nearby, as well as the up-and-coming North Downtown urban area.

Gallup, whose expansive Gallup University campus is nearby, along with the Suzanne and Walter Scott Foundation, helped make it a 24-hour landmark through their contributions to light the cable and top of the bridge towers. HNTB of Kansas City designed the bridge, and APAC Kansas Inc. built it.

Cables stretch down diagonally from each of the towers to the bridge deck for strength, support and flexibility, as well as visual appeal. The 3,000-foot-long, 15-foot-wide curved walkway symbolizes the meandering river below. At the center of the bridge, people stand about 60 feet above the Missouri River.

The bridge lands in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Playland Park; the Omaha landing features a plaza with playground equipment, “fiber-wave” sculptures, 26 dancing water jets and a small amphitheater for concerts and other events.

While serving as a U.S. Senator, Kerrey obtained a $19 million federal earmark to fund the bridge. The Nebraska Department of Roads, Iowa Department of Transportation, Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District, the Iowa West Foundation and the Peter Kiewit Foundation provided additional funds.

Always Pioneering, Always Innovating

From inside the Hot Shops Art Center comes some of Omaha’s most cutting-edge ideas, including those of architect Eddy Santamaria.

Santamaria’s life began in Santiago, Chile, raised by a bus-driving grandfather and a seamstress grandmother. His grandmother used the family dining room table to cut and make clothing. From an early age, he was surrounded by pins and needles, and often wore a measuring tape around his neck as he followed his grandmother, studying the art and science of assembling pieces of cloth into something new.

At 13, he left Chile to go to school in America. He found passage into the culture and language of his new country through soccer.

He returned to Santiago for the summers, and with one of his grandmother’s sisters, a literature teacher, and another a nun who taught history, his time was filled with education, including lessons on Greek, Roman and Renaissance painting, and lots of book reading. “My two passions were helping my grandmother with her seamstress work and the arts,” said Santamaria.

But there was enough time for soccer, too. His playing skills earned him a scholarship as a walk-on at Duke University.

While in graduate school, Santamaria worked at a local architect’s office where he learned of an opportunity to be part of the design team for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.

As he consulted with local firms to construct the Park City freestyle and alpine courses, Santamaria also helped draw up plans for temporary seating, addressed safety issues and even devised transportation for Olympic fans to navigate venues. But he found more in Utah than just an outlet for his creative architecture. He found his wife, an Omaha native who was finishing her neurology residency.

The couple moved here after the Olympics. Eventually, Santamaria established Contrivium, a successful urban design firm.

Santamaria also is passing on his experience and knowledge to a new generation of budding architects, teaching part-time at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the University of Nebraska Lincoln.

OMAHA—Via Dublin, Paris and New York City

Shane Bainbridge, art director at Omaha’s OBI Creative, thought he wanted to teach history...but then his older brother introduced him to Picasso.

“I remember Shawn taking me to London where I spent hours looking at a Picasso painting at a museum. Everything else was irrelevant after that,” said Bainbridge. “Art you just fall in love with; it’s like a first girlfriend or the woman you marry.”

A graduate of the University of Iowa, Bainbridge took an indirect route from Iowa City to Omaha. He stopped first for years at a time, in Dublin, Paris and New York City.

“I stayed in Ireland for about three years, painting and selling art on the streets,” said Bainbridge. “In Dublin, I ran into a couple of artists who took me to Paris. Everyday I’d pack up a bunch of paintings and work the streets trying to sell them.”

In 2001, Bainbridge returned to New York City just after 9/11. He lived there until Shawn introduced him to something bold – the prospect of coming to Omaha to join him and the rest of the OBI team.

In Ireland and France, Bainbridge sold his own ideas. Now, as art director, he’s responsible for creatively selling the ideas of companies like Gateway, Gift Certificates.com and ViewSonic.

“As an artist, you understand that you’re the ultimate authority. As an art director, you understand that you’re a negotiator. You’re taking existing ideas and adapting them to an audience in a way that they can digest.”

It isn’t all commercial art for Bainbridge these days. He still finds time for his personal pursuits. “I have an amazing series going,” said Bainbridge. “In the past two years, I’ve painted about 25,000 pennies. I’m using them to make huge portraits of the largest financial players in American history.”

For Omaha’s Leslie Little, the creative catalyst was a mysterious, life-threatening illness. “I was living in London; I had a fabulous job; I belonged to a great golf club; I had a great group of friends and was on the board of two children’s charities. My life was just about perfectly set, and I got terribly ill,” said Little.

In 2004, on the verge of her 40th birthday, London doctors gave the former international executive a less than 20 percent chance of survival and advised her to return to the U.S. for one final, experimental surgery. “I decided if it’s the last thing I did, I was going to go to Paris for my 40th birthday.”

Sitting in a hotel bar in Paris, feverish and in pain, Little made a vow to God. “I said, ‘OK, if I survive this, I will do this book.’”

Four years after returning to Omaha for the “great medical care here” – Leslie Little is collecting prestigious awards as author and producer of Paris Icons, a stunning coffee table book that combines timeless Parisian photographs with the insights of poets, composers, and writers who have chronicled the city’s history.

With a vision of what the final product would look like, Little hunted for a photographer. Her father suggested James Scholz, a retired pastor and photographer living in Omaha.

Together, Scholz and Little skillfully captured the iconic images that typify Paris – from the Eiffel Tower to the L’Arc de Triomphe.

The129 plates that make up Paris Icons were selected from 5,000 photos that Scholz shot in two separate production trips to Paris.

Paris Icons has been awarded gold, silver and bronze medals. The Independent Publishers Association awarded it the “IPPY” Gold Medal for Most Outstanding Book Design of the Year. It received the IPPY Bronze Medal for Best Coffee Table Book of the Year, and was Silver Medal Winner for Best Travel Essay Book of the Year by Foreword Magazine.

Paris Icons has also won the hearts of some of the nation’s best retailers, including Barneys, Ralph Lauren Home, Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.

“We intend to create a collector’s series of all the great cities of the world,” said Little.

London Icons started production over the summer and will be released in time for the 2012 Olympics in London.

Although commercially successful, Little said the project was never about making money. “It’s really been about creating it for the sake of creating it,” she said. “I’ve had incredible experiences because of and through the book. I’ve had private sessions with the curator of the Baccarat Museum, met the head of the Louvre and had private photo shoots at the American Cathedral and the Rodin Museum. The experiences alone are something I’ll never forget.”