In The Loop: Feb 13, 2022
As we approach today’s game for NFL Third Place (Bills-Chiefs was the Super Bowl, right?), we tip our helmets—just as the LA Public Library did on social media—to the originators of the hardback smack, from way back during the 2015 MLB playoffs: The Kansas City Public Library.
On this date in 1942, Walt Disney returned to The Benton Grammar School at 30th and Benton Boulevard, just southeast of Downtown. As a child, Disney had attended the school in the Santa Fe neighborhood while living a few blocks away, near 31st and Bellefontaine. He attended from 1911 to 1917.
Twenty-five years after leaving Benton Grammar, the world-famous creator returned to KC to present the school with two Disney-themed murals, painted by artists through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and based on Disney Studio drawings. (The lead WPA artist, Corrine Mitchell, would become the first black artist to have a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.)
For decades, schoolchildren at Benton Grammar School (later renamed D.A. Holmes Elementary) enjoyed the murals, before the school was closed in 1997. Tragically, the whereabouts of the two Disney panels, last documented to have been seen in the 1980s, are unknown. One plausible theory is that they simply deteriorated, or were vandalized, and were thrown away.
Tuesday marks the date in 1940 when Missouri governor Lloyd C. Stark issued a victorious news release after Kansas City voters effectively removed the remnants of the Pendergast political machine through a special charter election. Stark’s ascent in state politics was originally assisted by Pendergast, but when the machine began to wane—and because Stark coveted the Senate seat filled by Pendergast-backed Harry Truman—Stark turned on Boss Tom, and contributed to his downfall. On February 15, 1940, the governor said in his news release (in part):
“I feel I voice the sentiment of the vast majority of Missouri’s 4,000,000 people who are fighting for honesty and decency in government, when I congratulate the citizens of Kansas City on their sweeping victory over the Pendergast Machine.”
“…This stupendous victory sounds the death knell of the Pendergast Machine in Kansas City and destroys the last vestiges of its influence around the state.”
The New York Times published a brief article about the election as well, saying:
“This was called the ‘clean-up.’ It would kick out the henchmen of the captive boss, Tom Pendergast, and provide for the election of their successors on April 2. It would be hard to think of anything meeker at present than the remnants of the Pendergast machine and the chiefs of its factions. They bleated like lambs for the amendment that was to throw their tribesmen to the street.”
This week in 2007, our beloved domed theater at 1400 Main Street was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Opened as the Mainstreet in 1921, it subsequently was known as the RKO Missouri, The Empire, and again today as the Mainstreet. The building, which opened as a single theater seating 3,200 people, was eventually divided and subdivided into multiple movie theaters.
In the early 1980s, I watched The Rolling Stones’s film about their 1981 North American concert tour, Let’s Spend the Night Together, on the Empire Theater’s 70mm wide screen—it was 70 feet wide and 30 feet tall. The opening scene, when the curtains open and the Stones run on stage to a packed Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Ariz., is still one I’ll never forget on that larger-than-life screen.
From the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, the theater was repeatedly threatened with demolition by owner Larry Bridges. I recall seeing trees growing atop the vacant building, and worrying that we might lose one of the coolest buildings remaining Downtown. Thankfully, Bridges sold the theater to the city in 2004, and the Cordish Co., developer of the Power & Light District, partnered with AMC Theaters to redevelop both the Mainstreet and the nearby Midland Theater. The AMC Mainstreet Theater reopened in 2009. Then, from 2012 to 2021, the theater was operated by Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, which shut down during the pandemic, declared bankruptcy, and chose not to reopen in Kansas City. Last spring, B&B Theatres of Liberty, Mo., announced a deal to reopen the moviehouse as B&B Theatres Mainstreet KC, and opened its doors in October with screenings of Addams Family 2, The Many Saints of Newark, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
A couple of weeks ago, I shared the news that an out-of-town company planned to create an official KC-themed Monopoly game, and that the company, Top Trumps USA Inc., was seeking suggestions from our fine citizens about what Kansas City landmarks, establishments, and districts needed to be included. Turns out, the company apparently has no intention of using our suggestions—unless our KC favorites can cough up tens of thousands of dollars to buy a space on the game board. Writer Devan Dignan has the scoop:
After some initial concern about gentrification and displacement by a couple of city council members, the council voted 11-1 Thursday to approve a development project in a blighted area of the historic 18th & Vine District that will add 54 apartments and more than 30,000 square feet of retail. NPR affiliate KCUR has more:
LINK: Kansas City Council approves $23 million plan to transform blighted block in 18th and Vine district
FOX 4 News is reporting that this coming weekend will be a big one for Downtown with the Eric Church concert and the Triple Crown volleyball tournament bringing tens of thousands of people to the urban core and giving local hotels, restaurants, and other establishments a needed boost. The Kansas City Marriott Downtown is already sold out, according to Fox 4, and the Sheraton Crown Center has only two rooms remaining. Here’s the link:
Artful City: One weekly selection with a Downtown connection
Quick Clip: The city in motion—just a few seconds at a time
Downtown Lens: A single image depicting the urban aesthetic
Give a friendly Downtown-Kansas City welcome to….
Theatergoers attending The KC Rep’s Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B at the Downtown Copaken Stage through Feb 20
Attendees of the National Association for Campus Activities LIVE 2022 convention from now through the 16th at Bartle Hall
The 20,000 expected participants and fans of the Triple Crown Volleyball Women’s NIT 2022, this Friday through next Monday at Bartle Hall
Country music fans attending the Eric Church concert at T-Mobile Center this Friday night
Fans of comedian Whitney Cummings, on her “Touch Me Tour” this Saturday night at Arvest Bank Theatre at the Midland
Got a tip about Downtown KC?
Know a favorite artwork by a Downtown artist, or a piece located in a Downtown art gallery or art museum? Let me know, and I might feature it in “Artful City.”
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Until next week—enjoy the city!
