Weekend
ii Preview
The following is a brief list
of weekend events. Please call
the venue for more information.
CONCERTS:
Duffy’s, 14120 St.
Sunday: Walker Kong and
the Dangermakers, Wide
Duggan s Pub, 440 S.llth St.
Friday and Saturday:
Radio King
Kimball Recital Hall,
301N. 12th St.
Friday and Saturday:
Cellobration
Sunday: Clark Potter
Knickerbockers'901 O SC
Friday: Oil, Shutterbug
Sunday: Merle Saunders
Lied Center, 301N. 12th St.
Friday:Perlman/Nikkanen/
Bailey Piano Trio
The Royal Grove, 340 W.
Comhusker Highway
Friday: Decker
Saturday: Motorhead,
Nashville Pussy
7th Street Loft, 504 S. Se\>enth St.
Friday and Saturday:
HOWLOOSEANATION
Zoo Bar, 136N. 14th St.
Friday and Saturday:
The Bel-Airs
THEATER:
Howell Theatre,
Temple Building,
12th and R streets -
Friday and Saturday:
“The Dining Room”
Mary Riepma Ross
Film Theater,
12th and R streets
All weekend: “Run Lola Run”
McDonald Theatre, 51st &
Huntington
All weekend: “Alison’s House”
Mueller Planetarium, Morrill
Hall, 15th and U streets
Friday: Alternative Laser
Saturday: Sci-fi TV Laser Show
GALLERIES:
The Burkholder Project,
719 P St.
All weekend: works by Carol
Gallion, Sammy Lynn, Patsy
Smith and mixed works by
Prairie 7
Hay don Gallery,
335 N. Eighth St.
All weekend: works by Judith
Ernst Cherry
Lentz Center, Morrill Hall, 14th
and U streets
All weekend:
paintings by Shi Hu
Noyes Gallery, 119 S. Ninth St.
All weekend: “Roaring ‘20s,”
works by Sandy Meyers, LeRoy
Van Gian, Ray Anderson, Max
Cox and Ralph Spangler
The Sheldon Memorial Art
Gallery, 12th and R streets
All weekend: “Black Image and
Identity,” “Modem Masters,”
Charles Rain’s “Magic Realism,”
“Robert Colescott: Recent
Paintings”
fl
HHEDCD
_„rnn_ .. ... Liz Meacham/DN
RUBY TUESDAY EMPLOYEES Susan Houton, left, Andy Witt, middle, and Melanie Kiuever, right, discuss the Thursday evening schedule
at the host stand. They expected a big rush around five o’clock.
Parking problems
afflict Haymarket
shops, restaurants
By Jason Hardy
Senior staff writer
The sower on top of the capital building has long
been a symbol of Nebraska and the people who work
its land.
He stands proud against the Lincoln skyline,
caught in mid-motion as he sows away, scattering
seeds across the flat land beneath him.
If only he were scattering parking spaces instead.
While much attention has been given to the park
ing famine at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
little has been paid to the situation just a few blocks
to the southwest in the Haymarket.
An area housing some of the finest restaurants in
the city and a unique array of shops and galleries, the
Haymarket has always been one of the most crowd
ed places to park in Lincoln.
And with the recent addition of Ruby Tuesday, a
chain restaurant that opened just south of La Paloma,
the parking situation can only get worse.
Or will it?
“It’s a double-edged sword,” said Dan Sloan, co
owner of the Mill, a coffee shop in the Haymarket.
“People want to go where the crowds are. They
whine about standing in line, but I think that if you
had acres and acres of parking, they would go look
for a place where the crowds are.
“It’s sort of a weird thing. I don’t think that if
parking were really easy it would be a miracle cure
for people’s wishes for more business.”
As the saying goes, nothing attracts a crowd like
a crowd. But what about places that don’t necessari
ly depend on a crowd to attract businesses, such as
die antique shops, the craft stores and the Salvation
Army?
It’s those places that concern Scott Miller, presi
dent of the Haymarket Development Corporation
and Telesis Incorporated, the company that owns
Lazio’s Brewery and Grill and Jabrisco, two restau
rants in the Haymarket.
Miller said in addition to the Haymarket’s repu
tation as a crowded hot spot, other issues complicat
ed the parking shortage.
“The restaurants don’t get hit as hard as the other
businesses,” Miller said. “If you want a diverse
Haymarket, you have to have better parking. If
you’re going to shop, you have to have a place to
park. Otherwise, it hurts retail.
it s nice, because the
Haymarket is the place to be, but
when you’re competing with South
Pointe and Gateway, the parking sit
uation is just not good.”
Nancy Martin, assistant manag
er of the Burlington Arcade Antique
Mall, 210 N. Seventh St., said that
while restaurants depended on peak
times for their business, other shops
like the Burlington Arcade depend
ed on the availability of business all
day long. Who would want to buy an
expensive antique and carry it for
blocks and blocks because there was
nowhere to park near the shop?
“I think people probably try and
adjust the times when they come
down here so parking is a little easi
er to find, Martin said. I think most ot the places
would benefit from more parking because there are
quite a few new businesses in the Haymarket. So
more parking is definitely needed.”
Miller said the lack of parking was by no means
a derivative of a lack of initiative by the people who
work in the Haymarket. Plans have been made to cre
ate new parking places, but none have actually gone
through.
“There are three components that are tough to
deal with: the post office, Burlington Northern, both
of which have huge bureaucracies, and the city of
Lincoln,” Miller said. “There’s not a local decision
maker that can actually get something done, and it’s
just a mess to try and deal with lawyers from all three
entities.”
And unfortunately those three entities are the
area’s only major hope for any parking solution.
Ruby Tuesday’s addition to the Haymarket has
no doubt caused increased stress on the already fee
ble parking environment, but more importantly it
brings up the idea that if more businesses continue to
come into the Haymarket, parking is going to
become increasingly rare.
“Things have been so bad for so long that it’s
hard to notice when things get worse,” Miller said.
“I’m sure it’s worse, but you can’t really tell. They do
have a lot of employees who park m
front of the building, and that’s sort
of a sore spot.
“The area itself is just booming
so much that people want to jump on
the bandwagon. There are already
restaurants wanting to come down
here and suck up more parking.”
However, Robby Yendra, manag
ing partner for Ruby Tuesday, said
that for his outfit, parking was a con
cern but not necessarily a huge prob
lem.
“We knew that there was a park
ing crunch, and we were able to
accept that because the other aspects
(of the Haymafrkbt) were a great
match,” Yendra said. “We haven’t
suffered because of parking. It’s
tunny because people always seem to fmd a place.
Some people anyway. It is impossible to tell how
many people shy away from the Haymarket because
of the parking situation, and the severity of the situa
tion seems to change from person to person, depend
ing on what type of Haymarket business they are
affiliated with.
“Of course, any improvements would be great,
but I think you’ll see the Haymarket continue to
grow because it’s such a happening place,” Yendra
said. “I don’t think the parking will get any less hec
tic simply because of all the continuing activity
down here.”
a
I don’t think that
if parking were
really easy it
would be a
miracle cure for
peoples wishes
Dan Sloan
co-owner of