KCRag Forum

This was a Katz drugstore, opened in the 1950s. Converted to Skaggs circa 1970. There is another midcentury Katz at 75th & Metcalf, still operational as CVS. The Roeland Park location was on two levels, and if you needed a quick visit, you could park in nose-in spots along Roe. The lower level h...

Fences up at the old Salvation Army building on Linwood set to be torn down. Oh no! I hadn't heard about a plan to demolish. That is a nice structure. Seems like a logical conversion to apartments or maybe a boutique hotel. Nice large windows. A first level that comes to the sidewalk and looks like...

That is till the world cup happens and I think they are using both arrowhead and children's mercy? People will eventually learn the safe way thing to say is KC or Kansas City. Just never say only the state and you are good. Does anybody in KC claim MO or KS anymore? I will say that both states have...

The airline codes are legacy codes assigned long ago. Each airline also has a unique, three-digit ticket number prefix. AA is 001, as it was apparently (or possibly alphabetically) the first airline to accept the protocols of the post-war IATA which implemented the prewar Warsaw convention (1929, ra...

There are no internal voids or expansion tanks in the columns. There is a 500 gallon expansion tank in a conditioned space well above the columns, connected with LONG lengths of 3" copper tubing. It's a static system and the columns being directly exposed to the elements means the expansion ta...

After more review, I think as long as the expansion "tanks" are still working, meaning some internally available voids, the freeze compaction risk to structural integrity is low. Of course, I make no guarantees. I would be concerned about Gillum's participation in the built structure, just...

OMG Harry Weese would be turning in his grave. I find it hard to believe that the liquid will freeze solid at -13 (maybe just turn slushy), because KC does have -20 every 10 years or so. I guess we will see. Not all liquids expand the same as water as well. I assume this is a suspension of some kind...

* I admire idealism as much as the next guy, but this NYT writer really let loose here.

Cities need to come together organically. Artificial posturing toward "activity-rich neighborhoods" usually ends badly. Think of the Knoxville Worlds Fair. Or the Hudson Yards debacle in NYC.

Brightline is double tracked I think all the way from Cocoa Beach to Miami -- and there is some freight activity on that line (Florida East Coast Railroad - the original Henry M. Flagler line). The freight tends to run at night, usually it's mixed freight with mostly gravel/ coquina stone going nort...

The Hampton inn at 8th and Walnut that closed after a flood during COVID is finally reopen Man, that took forever. Would love to know the backstory and details, if anyone here knows the deal. I know the realtor who handled the sale of 801 Walnut about 15 years ago, as well as the architects of reco...

This K-Mart site, which opened circa 1970, and a couple other K-Marts (the northland I-29 site, for example) were vacant for about as long as they were open. My last visit was 1986 to buy a footlocker for books to take to college. I think it closed around 1995, nearly 30 years ago. 30 years of prime...

^This is LAZ parking Dave? As in Alan and Marcia Lazowski of Hartford? My old neighbors LOL.
They're also the company that privatized Chicago's parking. Get ready for costs to go up :')

Berkley got the 1980s office building boom to show up to downtown -- with supporting credit going to Mayor Charlie Wheeler before him (1970s). One KC Place, ATT Pavilion and City Center Square were all late 1970s-early 1980s projects.

The Glover Plan was his lowpoint IMHO, in 1989.

How sad that the Imperial Brewery, which is over 100 years old, is being demolished. It managed to last this long, and it's sad to see it go. My father remembered going there -- in the _1930s_ with his grade school class (Bancroft) -- and doing an "archaelogical dig." It was already an aba...

No such thing as a Dutch Elm. The disease is Dutch Elm Disease, but here in KC it attacked the beautiful arching American Elms that made streets into a tunnel of green shade. Now we have varieties of elm developed that are resistant and being widely planted as along Broadway through Penn Valley Par...

Stores without Kansas City-area locations that have been expanding and could make sense: ... Gucci ... Louis Vuitton ... Zara The Plaza had a Gucci during the 1970s and early 1980s, at 48th & Pennsylvania. It was easily the most glamorous store on the Plaza. We also -- briefly -- had a Saks Fif...

Something similar happened to the Art Moderne residence near 65th/ State Line. After a failed listing, the "angry owners" took out their disappointments on the house. Its interior was gutted, including all of the in-built (steam) heating radiators and other fixtures. I toured it during its...

^ Lufthansa for years protected its Frankfurt/ Main dominance by aggressively price-undercutting any "other carrier" services to Duesseldorf, which would be the natural, primary airport for the Rhineland. The Cologne airport is close to Bonn and was rarely anything more than a fixed termin...

I have to bring up Warner Plaza -- this was the densely-built, Midtown apartment community (from the 1910s-20s) where the Glover Plan (Home Depot + Costco) now exists. Housing for at least a thousand households (dozens of solid, four-story apartment buildings) evaporated forever. An entire city prec...

^Another AA frequent flyer here (EXP 17 years) -- KC is my #1 destination market, and it's irritating to lose the layover opportunities in NYC and now Austin. KC used to be a Delta city, but AA had made a comeback and was the primary legacy carrier (US Airways designated KC as a focus city many moon...