Wooden sidewalks and secret gardens hide inside Omaha’s Old Market

Nine city blocks of Omaha history

You step off a modern downtown street and the ground changes under your feet.

Brick replaces concrete, wooden sidewalks run under awnings, and horse-drawn carriages roll past slowly. Nine blocks of downtown Omaha hold onto this feel, boxed in by towers and traffic.

Wholesale companies and printing shops once filled these buildings. Now they hold cafes, galleries, and shops stacked three stories high.

Walk a few steps off the main street and you find something the sidewalk outside never hints at.

The blocks that almost disappeared

These blocks got their start in the late 1800s, when wholesale companies, warehouses, and printing shops packed every building. By the 1960s, most of that business had moved west, and the brick shells sat empty.

A handful of owners took a chance and turned them into apartments, shops, and restaurants instead of tearing them down. By 1970, the district had become a gathering spot for artists.

The National Register of Historic Places added it in 1979, and Omaha named it an official landmark in 1985.

Duck into a hidden brick alley

The Old Market Passageway started as a plain alley squeezed between two buildings. Walk through it today and you pass under stone arches, string lights, and greenery hanging from the walls.

Grow Omaha calls it one of the most photographed spots in the city, and standing inside it, you can see why. Shops and galleries line both levels, tucked into the walls on either side.

The tucked-away feel is exactly what makes people stop and take pictures.

Find a secret garden behind the shops

Behind the Passageway, a covered brick walkway leads you somewhere you would never expect inside a shopping district.

The Garden of the Zodiac opened in 1987, and Swiss artist Eva Aeppli filled it with 22 bronze sculptures.

Twelve wall busts stand for the signs of the zodiac, and ten gold-leaf heads represent the planets, the sun, and the moon.

The walkway opens into a courtyard with a small pond at its center, ringed by plants, flowers, and herbs. Nothing outside hints that it exists.

See art inside century-old warehouses

Jun and Ree Kaneko founded KANEKO inside three warehouses built around the turn of the last century, and the space still shows its age in the best way.

Tall brick rooms keep their old industrial bones while filling with new work, from rotating exhibits to workshops and live performances mixing art, design, and science.

A sunlit library sits inside, stocked with books and quiet corners to read.

General admission costs $10, less for students, seniors, and military members, and free if you belong to KANEKO.

Watch artists create new work

A group of artists opened the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in 1981, near 12th and Leavenworth streets, as a place to make and show new work.

Its artist-in-residence program brings in creators from around the world, so the people working inside change season to season.

Exhibits rotate often, so you rarely see the same show twice if you visit more than once a year. Every exhibit and public program stays free, open to anyone who walks in.

Taste homemade ice cream since 1986

Ted & Wally’s has scooped homemade ice cream in the Old Market since 1986, and the shop still sits inside an old gas station that never lost its quirky shell.

Behind the counter, the team makes ultra-premium ice cream from scratch, the old way, using rock salt, ice, and antique freezers.

Flavors change daily, and you might find classic vanilla bean sitting next to a small-batch flavor nobody has heard of. For locals and visitors, it has become one of the district’s sweetest traditions.

Browse records, books, and antiques

Homer’s Music has sold records and CDs in the district for decades, the kind of shop where you can lose an hour flipping through bins.

A few doors down, Jackson Street Booksellers draws in readers hunting for used and rare books. Antique shops and specialty stores fill the old storefronts around them, each one packed with one-of-a-kind finds.

Street performers often play music on the corners as shoppers pass by. Browsing this many independent shops turns into an activity all its own.

Wander an open-air gallery of murals

Public art shows up everywhere here, with murals and sculptures tucked into sidewalks and passageways through the district. A horse-drawn carriage can carry you over the cobblestones if you would rather not walk.

Small galleries open their doors along the blocks free of charge, so stepping inside costs you nothing but time.

Once a month, the First Friday tradition invites people to stroll the streets and look at local art on display. Walking the sidewalks starts to feel like moving through an open-air gallery.

Step back in time at Union Station

The Durham Museum fills Omaha’s Union Station, which the Union Pacific Railroad built in 1931 as a showpiece for the city, and it now stands as a National Historic Landmark.

The pearl-colored front counts among the finest examples of Art Deco style anywhere in the country.

Step inside and you find restored train cars, a streetscape built to look like the 1940s, and rare coins and documents on display. An old-fashioned soda fountain still serves malts and phosphates to visitors.

Eat your way through 30 restaurants

More than 30 restaurants operate inside the district, and the range on their menus stretches from French cooking to fresh seafood to cowboy-style comfort food.

The Reuben sandwich shows up on plenty of local menus, a nod to Omaha’s own place in that sandwich’s food story.

If you want something sweet instead, you will find scratch-made pastries, candy shops, and homemade treats scattered throughout the blocks.

Outdoor patios line many of the restaurants, so you can eat a meal while watching the street go by.

End your day along the river

The brick streets and covered walkways hold onto that frozen-in-time feel all the way to the edge of the district.

From there, it is a short walk to the Missouri River, where the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge lets you cross the water on foot.

The Joslyn Art Museum and the Omaha Children’s Museum both sit close by, if you want to keep the day going. Everything about this district stays compact and walkable, tying shopping, art, and food into one outing.

Visiting the Old Market Historic District in Nebraska

You can walk the whole Old Market Historic District for free.

It sits in downtown Omaha, bordered by 10th, 13th, Farnam, and Jackson streets, and most galleries let you in at no charge. The Durham Museum charges admission, but its parking deck stays free.

Come on a Saturday between May and October and you will catch the Omaha Farmers Market running through the district. Many downtown hotels sit within walking distance, and some run shuttles.

Wear sturdy shoes, since the streets run brick and cobblestone.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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