KCRag Forum

As part of the conversation about streetcar on Armour, I was looking to see where 35th Street went east of Paseo and noticed that the 3300, 3400, 3500, and 3600 blocks of Myrtle are completely gone, street and all. Most of the land is owned by the Land Bank. Does anyone know what the story is? It looks a lot like an urban renewal experiment that was later demolished.

Based on Google Earth, it's been that way since at least 1990

the city owns 33rd to 34th. probably being held for a future building like a police or fire station down the line or similar
the land bank owns most of it from 34th to 38th in a series of large lots. so I'd guess it was held up in the former entity's legal mess.
a group called Palestine Missionary owns most of the west half from 35th to 36th, noncontiguous though
Houston Enterprises owns 38th to 39th

the good news is the land bank property is shown as under evaluation for the land bank site. I'd guess they want to control tightly who buys this land. being in large pieces and largely contiguous it shouldn't be sold to just anyone

Maybe it was never developed? Went through the 1940 photos:

West side, 3300 block of Myrtle: http://cdm.sos.mo.gov/u?/kcpltax,2299
West side, 3400 block of Myrtle (block is empty): http://cdm.sos.mo.gov/u?/kcpltax,2322
East side, 3400 block of Myrtle (block is empty): http://cdm.sos.mo.gov/u?/kcpltax,2323
East side, 3500 block of Myrtle (block is empty): http://cdm.sos.mo.gov/u?/kcpltax,2327
West side, 3500 block of Myrtle (block is empty): http://cdm.sos.mo.gov/u?/kcpltax,2326

Page 828 of Vol 6 of the Sanborn maps notes Myrtle and the cross streets between Mersington and Norton as "unpaved and impassable." Very odd.