In 1944 the outcome of World War II was still unsettled. Lulu Broad owned the Gypsy Tea Shop, and she wrote a letter to Henry Doorly, publisher of the Omaha World-Herald, suggesting that the city build a memorial to the fallen. Doorly brought in Robert Storz. Storz asked every business to give $5 for each employee who had served and $100 for each one killed, and more than 3,000 individuals and organizations ended up paying to buy, build and landscape the site.

That funding model never really went away. Most of the changes at Memorial Park since then started with someone outside City Hall asking for them, and the current one fits that pattern. A volunteer has a proposal to improve access to the park's upper level on the west side, which is the side facing Fairacres. Visitors who can't take the stairs have never had an easy time with that climb.

What's being proposed this week

On Tuesday, October 13, 2026, the Dundee-Memorial Park Association is hosting Buey Ray Tut of Spark Development at its speaker-series meeting. It runs 7 to 8 p.m. in the Brownell Talbot cafeteria at 400 N. Happy Hollow Blvd. According to the DMPA events listing, Tut is leading the effort as a volunteer. The goal is to make Memorial Park accessible to people who use wheelchairs or walkers, families with strollers and anyone else who has trouble with stairs. He's expected to explain why he started the project and show visuals of the preliminary plans.

The October 2026 DMPA newsletter is more specific about where the work would happen. It describes the project as improving access to the "upper level on the West side" of the park.

The Omaha Parks Foundation lists the project on its current projects page under the name "Memorial Park Accessibility: West Staircase." The Foundation calls it a community-led initiative to improve safe, equitable access for people with mobility challenges, and names veterans, older adults and families with strollers. The listing has a "Support this Project" link for donations. It also shows a top-down concept sketch, uploaded in June 2026, with planting beds, path networks and Memorial Park Drive labeled along one edge.

So a donation page exists and a concept sketch is public, and the full presentation happens Tuesday night.

Why the climb is the hard part

Memorial Park was designed as a climb. Leo A. Daly was hired as chief architect in 1945 and John Caspar Wister of Philadelphia as landscaper and horticulturist. President Harry Truman dedicated the memorial on June 5, 1948, at the park's entrance at 60th and Underwood Avenue.

The shrine sits at the highest point in the park. It's a semicircle of seven arches with a branch of the U.S. military above each one, and bronze plaques on the columns list the names of more than 900 people who died in the war. A large lawn slopes from the memorial down to Dodge Street, with trees along both sides.

Putting the names at the top, above a long rise, was a deliberate design choice, and it's a big reason the view from Dodge is so striking. It also means getting up there takes the most effort of any spot in the park. Every visit to the colonnade involves that elevation change, whether you're walking the dog or bringing out-of-town guests to look at the names.

A park that keeps getting fixed by the people who use it

The west staircase project follows a long list of improvements that came from groups other than the original builders. Patrick Wyman's June 2026 history of the park for Grow Omaha lists most of them.

1. The reflecting pool. It was eventually replaced with the flower bed that circles the flagpole today. Before that, caretakers had to put on rubber boots every time they raised or lowered the flag.
2. 1959. The Omaha Rose Society planted a rose garden where the peony garden had been.
3. 1968. The S-curved steel pedestrian bridge to Elmwood Park was finished after parents at St. Margaret Mary's pushed for it. The American Institute of Steel Construction named it Most Beautiful Bridge in 1969, Omaha made it a landmark in 2004, and it's still the most used of the city's pedestrian bridges.
4. 1990. The Woodmen of the World flagpoles went in along the driveway.
5. 2023. A 2,500-square-foot plaza was built between the stairs that lead to the memorial.

The 2023 plaza matters most here. The Grow Omaha history says it fixed one of the park's longest-running problems by adding flat seating and gathering space. The Omaha Parks Foundation's Memorial Park 75 page describes the new arts plaza as fully ADA accessible, next to Storz Drive and served by an accessible drop-off area.

The plaza addressed seating and gathering. The new proposal targets something different, which is access to the upper level on the west side. Every change on the list fixed one problem and left the next one for someone else to take on. The bridge gave schoolchildren a safe way across the street, and the plaza added flat ground for events. The climb to the upper level is the problem nobody has addressed yet.

What's public and what isn't

Some details are confirmed and some won't be known until after Tuesday or later. Here's where things stand as of October 12, 2026.

Tuesday's meeting is the first public presentation of the preliminary plans. The Omaha Parks Foundation project page is where any fundraising updates would show up.

Getting to Tuesday's meeting, and to the park, from the Fairacres side

Some of the streets you'd take to Brownell Talbot have had work on them this fall. In the City Updates section of the October newsletter, City Councilmember Pete Festersen wrote that resurfacing was underway in the Dundee and Fairacres neighborhoods. That includes Underwood Avenue from 61st to 68th and a stretch from 46th and California to 51st and Underwood, and he expected both to be done by the time the newsletter went out.

He also reported that Metropolitan Utilities District work replacing gas and water lines near Happy Hollow Boulevard and Underwood Avenue had reopened all lanes on Underwood and should wrap up soon.

The meeting will be in a building that just got renovated. Festersen attended the ribbon cutting for Brownell Talbot's major addition. He wrote that the school improved its facilities while keeping its original architecture, and he called it a neighborhood anchor. Across the street, Dundee Presbyterian Church marked its 125th anniversary and announced a capital improvement project of its own.

A few other dates in the DMPA calendar and newsletter fall during the same weeks:

• Saturday, October 17, 6 to 8 p.m. Third Saturday Music in Dundee, with a different Omaha-area musician playing in the iHeartMedia lot.
• Sunday, October 18, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Dundee Vintage Market at Albany and Avers, 5011 Underwood Ave., with more than 13 local vintage vendors. Admission is free.
• Saturday, October 24. The Dundee Merchants Association hosts Treats in the Street at 50th and Underwood. The listing has two different times, 5 to 6 p.m. in the header and 2 to 5 p.m. in the description, so confirm before you head over.
• Monday, October 26. Free yard waste pickup. The newsletter also has a Leave the Leaves item this month.

Anyone who wants to see the west staircase plans can go to Brownell Talbot at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 13.

Questions about how this project, or other park improvements in the works, could affect your part of Fairacres? SK & Ren follow these neighborhood projects closely and are always happy to talk them through. Work with SK & Ren.