Omaha daily bee., 1919-07-20
V1eUs and Revews
Remodeling of Bee Building
: Not a New Project

Not q Ne1U .PrOJect
The work of remodelng the Bee building
now in evidence evokes quite few expressions
| of wonderment and some of regret that any
| change in the appearance of the building should
be permitted
Il don't believe we would see this N your
father were alive" declared an old friend to
me- and another, "The building ought to re-
main exactly as it was originally constructed
as monument to the man who put it up
To these my answer has been this: per
haps. But-my father realized for long time
the ultimate necessity of remodeling the build
ing and had the question of reconstruction
more than once under serious consideration.
The fact is, thef Bee building has already
undergone several important changes which
would be clearly apparent by contrasting car
lier and later pictures of it. The interior court
for example, was originally entirely open, the
ornamental fountain in the center having been
afterwards installed. AS its special feature, the
front of the building on the ground floor
standing out in front of deep inset doorways
and windows, since covered up by building out
extension windows, first on the west side Of
the main entrance to accommodate a~tenant,
and then removed, only to be restored later
uniformly on the whole Farnam street side.
Again, while the main entrance of the Bee
at first second entrance through the central
arch on Seventeenth street. 1t was expected
that people cutting across through these two
entrances would use the building as thor
oughfare. back and forth, from Farnam and
Seventeenth. 1t turned out that the second
entrance took up space that could be more
proftably utilized so it was closed and made
into an Office room.
Plans for more or less important structural
changes were drawn two or three times at my
fathers instance by S. S. Beman, the architect
of the Bee building. When about IS years
ago the project was pushed almost to COM
ner of Seventeenth and Douglas, where the
Brandels theater now stands part of the scheme
called tor a Farnam street entrance through
an enclosed colonnade covering the sidewalk
on the east side of the Bee building and con-
meeting with the hotel at the juncture of the
alley. This would have produced portico
effect, held up by long row of the same
polished granite columns to make it correspond
with the general scheme of the buildings
architecture. The city council actually passed
an ordinance vacating the alley to accommo-
date the proposed Improvements. The hotel
had already been christened The Cosmopolitan
hotel, but the financing of it, though under way
fell through because Rome Miller, who was
to have the hotel lease, persuaded himself that
he could do better by buying the bld Bruns-
wick hotel and converting it with an annex
into his present Hotel Rome. Had the Cosmo-
politan hotel been built as planned, the de-
velopment of upper Douglas street would of
less have come sooner.
still more radical reconstruction of the
building once sketched by an architect called
for the removal of the entire granite base up
to the third story and the substitution of steel
and glass that would turn the first two stories
into capacious quarters for large mercantile
street entrance was to be restored to afford &C
cess to the Offices above by elevators relocated
on that side of the building. This would
have given over the entire Farnam street
frontage to attractive show windows for two
floors above the street level and of course
changed the character of the building from
strictly Office building to combination of
stores and Offices like the more modern big
buildings.
The nub of the thing is that styles in bus-
ness buildings have immensely changed in the
more than 50 years elapsing since the Bee
building was planned and erected and recon-
struction to adapt it to present needs was only
question OF time. In nothing has the prog
ress OF the times been demonstrated more |
strikingly than in the occupancy of the building
by The Bee. When we moved into the new
home the editorial rooms and type-setting and
stereotyping departments were assigned to the
top floor, with the press room and mailing room
on the first floor, as the ideal places for them
The lesson of experience soon taught that the |
work of these branches must be brought in |
closer proximity, though the object was not
accomplished except by several successive
moves until not single department of the |
paper remained in the original location in the
building designed especially for their accommo-
dation.
When we are established in the remodeled |!
structure, retaining most of our present space
and adding business office opening directly |
to the Fanam street sidewalk, the management |
while not particularly ideal for the paper, will |
feel sure, be decided improvement for
facilitating our business with the public and
will take care of the needs of our working
force in a satisfactory manner.
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