Lost Cedar Rapids

by Peter Looney

Cedar Rapids is the only city in America to house its government offices on an island. But tons of other iconic structures that defined the city are no longer around. The Little Gallery on First Avenue was created to showcase local artists. Yager's "moved up to bring prices down." The area was home to thirty-nine theaters, including two from 1928 that are still in operation. From the hotels to the factories, the ethnic districts to the depots, the dance halls to the amusement parks, these are the places that made a difference in the City of Five Seasons. Local author Pete Looney traces the history of the structures.

192 pages, Paperback

Published August 24, 2020

Reviews

[Lycan Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A curious book. Nice archive of past businesses and such in Cedar Rapids. You can tell that Peter Looney put his heart into this book.

Several criticisms.

1. A lot of the featured former businesses opened and closed in the late 1800s. Hence, they're completely lost to history and there's no current remaining traces of them ever having existed. While he sometimes nicely elaborates on what's currently in their former location, this isn't done exhaustively. I guess for this, if I really wanted to know, I could do more research myself. But for a book, it's a shortcoming.

2. The elaborative discussion of former theatre and vaudeville venues got tiring in the beginning. Especially since most were never really established before they were gone. Ditto many featured racetrack around town.

3. I did enjoy the sections about the individual districts around CR.

4. More discussion of restaurants would have been welcomed.

I did also appreciate how he didn't take the bait of venturing, too much, into the history of other area communities, rather sticking, for the most part, to solely Cedar Rapids proper.

Overall, minor criticisms aside, a good book.

[Googoogjoob · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable ramble through vanished local institutions- businesses and buildings, generally. Most of it inevitably dates to before my time- very often an entry will conclude with something to the effect of "after all these tenants, the building was knocked down in the late 1960s ahead of the construction of the interstate" or the like. The businesses of a century ago were frequently pathetic and/or tacky (among the wretched, Sinclair Lewisesque names and marketing ploys covered are a theater called the "Pla-Mor" and a restaurant called "Tastryt"), but one cannot help but feel that the homogenization of the local built landscape into a world of Wal-Marts, parking garages, and franchised restaurants is much worse.

This isn't an academic historical survey- it's a nostalgic, meandering book. The biggest criticism I have of it is that it's so focused on businesses- I found myself wanting much more on the history of the city's government buildings, schools, libraries, churches, parks, and so forth.