In The Loop: Nov 21, 2021
Your weekly email from The KC Downtown Loop
If you were missing Friday’s “In The Loop” email, it’s because I’ve moved them to Sunday mornings—a great time to grab a cup of coffee, nestle into the couch, and leisurely read the weekly roundup about our Downtown Kansas City.
It was this week in 1893 that the football teams from the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri began a 14-year run of Thanksgiving-day games in Kansas City. It was generally considered the biggest sports event in the city for most of those years, and reached 18,000 spectators by 1910. (The streak was interrupted in 1907 when the game was played in St. Joseph, but the Thanksgiving-day games would return to Kansas City the three years following). Mizzou won the first Turkey Day battle 12-4 (touchdowns were worth four points back then), but KU would win 11 of the next 17 games (with three ties) before the games were moved to the Columbia and Lawrence campuses.
Kansas City’s Exposition Park served as the venue for the Jayhawkers-Tigers clashes, a former baseball ground located just north and east of the 18th and Vine District, near a park that still exists today called The Grove. At various times around the turn of the century, Exposition Park served as home to baseball teams such as the major league Kansas City Cowboys, minor league Kansas City Blues, semi-pro black team Kansas City Maroons, and the Kansas City Packers of the Federal League.
Thirty-eight years ago this weekend (November 20, 1983), Downtown Kansas City served as ground-zero for the ABC movie The Day After, a fictional—but harrowing—account of the nuclear destruction of our city that was watched by 100 million viewers across the United States. The final scene of the 3-hour Sunday-night broadcast showed actor Jason Robards encountering the crumbling, smoking remains of the Liberty Memorial.
Not gonna lie, when I saw this video several months ago depicting the St. Louis City SC MLS stadium being built next to the Schlafly Tap Room in Downtown St. Louis, I wished we had a similar sports/entertainment district in our Downtown. Now, with the Kansas City Current soccer team, riverfront development, and the KC Streetcar, we will! (And maybe a major league baseball stadium somewhere Downtown soon after?)
My former neighbor in the River Market, Gunnar Hand, is promoting a two-mile gondola line that would connect Strawberry Hill in KCK with Quality Hill in KCMO—with a stop in the West Bottoms. More from Kevin Collison of CitySceneKC:
Kansas City has a new urban superhero: Midtown Cone Guy!
Artful City: One weekly selection from a Downtown artist, gallery, or museum
Quick Clip: The city in motion—just a few seconds at a time in GIF form
Downtown Lens: A single image depicting life around the Loop
Give a friendly Downtown-Kansas City welcome to….
Players and fans attending The 2021 Hall of Fame Classic Monday and Tuesday at the T-Mobile Center, featuring basketball teams from Illinois, Cincinnati, Kansas State, and Arkansas.
Participants in the New York City Dance Alliance dance convention at Bartle Hall, starting yesterday and going through Monday
And you might catch (pun intended) a few attendees of CatCon 2021—The Catfish Conference who could still be hanging around Downtown after their convention concluded yesterday
Thanks for reading!
I often post more stories or media at kcdowntownloop.com during the week without sending an email (I don’t want to overwhelm your in box). Follow The Loop on social media (found at the bottom of this link 👉 here) to see when new content goes up.
Until next week!
