By the Dashboard Lights

by David Friedli

November 15, 2007

Listen to the Music

Shhhh. Listen. There is a song in the air in Lyons, Nebraska.

Well, the fact of the matter is, you don’t even need to listen closely.

It is most prevalent on the corner of Third and Main, but even from a block away, it’s there.

I’m no musical expert nor did I major in rocket science during my time at the University of Nebraska.

And I’m not a cultured person. Simple things, simple pleasures and simple thoughts.

And simple adages. Like, “It’s not over ‘til the fat lady sings.”

Listen. She is singing. Pay attention and take heed. She is singing a simple tune.

Ye Old Opera House needs to come down.

Standing on the corner of Third and Main Streets (well, it was standing there a few minutes ago when I drove home, but I can’t say for sure it still is standing as of this writing), the two-story brick building is a big problem for our fair city.

The hundred-year-old structure anchors the corner of the business district but threatens to drag the rest of the merchant area down with it if something isn’t done soon.

Practicality says bring it down quickly, especially since a significant section fell from the roof’s edge into the street nearly two months ago.

Daily a few more bricks drop thirty feet to the ground, prompting the erection of a safety barrier first protecting the sidewalk and now eliminating a dozen prime parking spaces just across the street from the city library and the grocery store.

A study group has been organized to investigate ways Ye Old Opera House can be saved, renovated and reused for business or the arts.

Here is the reality, or at least my reality: what might once have been a cultural icon in Lyons is now a colossal eyesore.

And although people have told me destruction or renovation would cost about the same, I lean toward the demolition side.

Which is to say, I am leaning the same way the east wall of the building is leaning.

For the 27 years I have lived in Lyons, Ye Old Opera House has been An Old Warehouse. Not until the 1984 Centennial did townsfolk recognize the building’s history, and then only because “Ye Old Opera House” was painted on plywood covering the top floor windows.

When volunteers attempted to paint the east wall with the “Pride of Lyons” mural that is now on the Holmquist Grain building, they found deteriorating mortar and bricks which made it impossible to complete the artwork

That was 23 years ago. And in those two decades, nothing has changed for the better.

All together now. Same song, second verse, with the fat lady. “Na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye.”