Resistance in Omaha
Park Defenders
Interstate construction was fully underway by the spring of 1961. By then a new battle emerged over Interstate right of way in defense of Omaha’s inner-city parkland. Unlike the Taxpayers Plan fight, where most of its supporters fell in the path of the Interstate rights-of-way, park advocates did not face the destruction of their personal property and called for new routes that protected parks at the expense of more homes. More unlike the Taxpayers Plan, a broader array of citizens across the city supported the protection of Omaha’s parks and park advocates maintained a less shrill or reactionary response than that of the Taxpayers Plan. But like the Taxpayers Plan's challenge, the parkland battle revealed a similar zero-sum contest over urban space that pitted park preservation against the preservation of older housing. Players in this contest approached the issue from vastly different interests based on one’s class and residential location.
Parkland advocates were largely affluent philanthropists, members of business and professional organizations, civic and women’s clubs, and community groups including parent-teacher associations and the YWCA. One local park supporter, Rachael Gallagher, a former chairperson of the Omaha Parks and Recreation Commission, voiced her formal opposition first as an individual and later organized a coalition called Friends of the Parks that broadly represented these groups’ interests. 
The Friends of the Parks were most outspoken on the issue of Interstate-80 cutting through Riverview Park to connect Omaha’s Interstate with Iowa. Initial construction of Interstate-80 terminated at 24th Street before future work built it eastward into Iowa. In early 1958, city planners and state highway officials approved a route that crossed through the northern tip of Riverview Park, land now occupied by Rosenblatt Stadium and the Henry Doorly Zoo.
Unlike the Taxpayers Plan’s efforts, park advocates received greater sympathy from the Omaha World-Herald, local government officials, and civic communities. The World-Herald strongly supported Omaha Congressman Glenn Cunningham’s efforts to author a bill revising federal powers under the Interstate Highway Act to prohibit the use of eminent domain to seize public land and parks for Interstate construction. Omaha’s Parks and Recreation Board approved resolutions opposing the West Expressway bisecting Elmwood Park near the University of Nebraska-Omaha, the North Freeway’s potential destruction of Miller Park in North Omaha, I-480’s planned taking of Jefferson Square in downtown Omaha, and the construction of I-80 through Riverview Park. Omaha’s City Council, frustrated by the Public Planning Board’s lack of consultation with it on Interstate planning, held public forums on parks jeopardized by freeways. At the forum, city councilmen and city council candidates denounced planning officials who, they argued, had not answered to the Council or the people during the freeway planning process. The City Council in May established a committee to study Interstate routing and right of way problems, tackling first the challenge of routing Interstate-80 through Riverview Park.
Homeowners near Riverview Park and the I-80 right of way faced a threat of displacement similar to that of the neighborhoods along I-480 and the 30th and Grover Street interchange. While Omahans remained indifferent to that community’s plight, with the Interstate’s perceived public good outweighing residential displacement, the broader community was more willing to support relocating the Interstate for park preservation. Homeowners near Riverview Park, however, easily favored the preservation of their homes and neighborhood at the expense portions of the park. While park defenders believed “Riverview Park must not be violated. . .because its terrain is so representative of Omaha’s original natural setting,” nearby homeowners saw Riverview much differently—an aging, rundown, and often unused park dating to the late-nineteenth century. Robert Norcutt who lived just north of the park said of Riverview, “It’s weeds, it’s brush, it’s a hole. Go out there on Sunday. If you find any one there let me know.” The proposed rerouting of Interstate-80 600-feet northward to protect Riverview Park threatened to take an estimated forty-six to seventy-five additional homes.
The park fight also highlightd a growing shift in city resources away from Omaha’s older neighborhoods in favor of newer suburban communities. Wallace L. Rankin, president of the suburban Southwest Civic Club, advocated constructing new parks in Western Omaha where the population was rapidly expanding. In a letter to the Friends of the Parks, Rankin explained that “It seems to us that more neighborhood parks in the vicinity of new homes with more children should be preferred to the older park in a diminishing neighborhood.” Rankin also justified West Expressway plans to cut through Elmwood Park and alleviate suburban traffic on West Dodge Road.
Although some homeowners in the area quickly disparaged Riverview Park, they resented the growing skew of city resources toward West Omaha and notions that their community was a “diminishing neighborhood.” Residents near Riverview such as Mrs. George Lindsay explained “Some of the houses may be old, but they are well kept. The people own their property and take personal pride in it.” Continuing, Lindsay argued that nearby residents were “solid, stable people. Some of them, or their parents, pioneered the city. Several generations have lived here. Who dares to deny these people recreational facilities that are equal to those in other parts of the city? I think we should protect the park property we have.” Others such as Laddiey Kozeny of the South Omaha Merchants Association countered the “diminishing claims,” arguing that South Omaha was a progressive community attracting new businesses and building new schools.
By 1961 and 1962, however, the local government was more sympathetic to homeowners near Riverview Park, perhaps because it had witnessed ordeals faced from Interstate displacement during the previous year. The City Council seemed to seek slightly more public input by inviting individuals opposed to rerouting Interstate-80, such as Joseph Baburek of the Southeast Improvement Group, to join the committee studying Interstate right of way problems near Riverview Park. At the state level, Governor Frank Morrison, unlike former Governor Ralph Brooks who remained distant from Interstate right-of-way controversies, publicly opposed the destruction of additional houses and instead favored routing the Interstate through the park. Although a wider array of community voices and interests opposed Interstate construction through Riverview Park, and proposals to shift the route north came to light in late 1962, the city and state ultimately decided in favor of taking the northern tip of Riverview Park to avoid destroying additional homes.
Advocacy for protecting Omaha’s parks from Interstate Highways in the 1960s broke differently based on lines of geography and class. Residents of neighborhoods surrounding Riverview Park typically were of an older generation of Omahans of working-class backgrounds. Those Omahans who potentially stood to lose their homes, had Riverview's defenders been successful, challenged notions that their community was on the decline and disdained the shift in city resources toward the suburban periphery. Park defenders, on the other hand, were typically more affluent individuals from the broader community that took interest in preserving green space sometimes without regard for the interests of those who lived nearby. Moreover, park defenders saw the clearing of Riverview Park as the first of potentially many parks across the city slated for freeway condemnation.