trailerkid wrote:
You portray a pretty stereotypical hayseed character on the board whether you'll admit or not. e.g. civic involvement in 1970/80s when leaders began to really turn it into a complete piece of shit emulating Raytown, prefer 5:30 PM meals at Golden Corral, generally negative about ANY investment within the urbanized parts of KCMO. Nothing personal...Just calling a spade a spade.
I bring this quote up again because you don't really have an idea of what caused the decline of the urban core. Can you name a city that did not have a decline in its urban core during the period of the 1970's/80's? What happened in KCMO is not different that what happened in others so it is not unique. And there were many people, leaders, businessmen, and others who did attempt to reverse the trend but without success. These failures could be because of the inflation of the 70's, high interest rates, changes in tax laws, collapse of the savings and loans industry, poor decisions made by everyone.
For KC the attempts to "bring back" the core were many.
The River Quay brought us Victoria Station which had waits of 2 hours. During my drinking days, and nights, Poor Freddy's was a popular spot. There were other places of live music and it was a happening place, that is until the mob fought its battles there. But Westport was able to take its place.
Washington Street Station at 8th and Wash. was another popular restaurant with long waits and brought to KC the salad bar with the big hunk of cheese.
Old restaurant operations, such as the Olive Garden, survived and flourished.
The movie theaters did have a hard time competing against the suburban multiplexes but the best place to see Jaws was at the Empire, Bullit and the French Connection at the Midland, and Play Misty for Me was best viewed in the small theater downstairs at the Midland. The big screens downtown were the best for the big movies of the day for obvious reasons and for me was THE place to go to see them.
Downtown office space was dated for the most part and Crown Center was a welcomed addition, especially for those employers who wanted to stay in the downtown area but the rest of downtown had a hard time competing with Executive Hills and Corporate Woods because it was hard to accumulate the necessary land for new office construction and rehabbing costs were greater than new construction. But with a few changes in laws new office buildings were constructed such as AT&T Town Pavilion and City Center Square to name a few but that was not enough. Executive Hills did have some big plans but was shot down due to lack of credit and some jail terms. SoHo was one of the first, if not the first, rehab projects undertaken but followups were few. A big new hotel was built and new housing did come on line in various places but followups did not happen for many reasons.
Retail suffered since almost all closed at either 5:30 or 6:00 during the week and had a hard time competing with new suburban outlets since most was closed on the weekends. My wife and I did buy our wedding rings from a small jeweler on Grand, I bought more gifts for her from a jeweler who operated in the federal building, and more presents were bought at the Town Pavilion during lunch hours.
Riots in the 60's and teacher strikes caused many, who could, to leave the urban core housing. Riots also destroyed many urban businesses that were not replaced and if they were replaced had less business.
A big portion of the south end of downtown was given to one person to redevelop but during those years nothing came about for whatever reason so it was a government mistake to give over some much land for such a long period of time without results. But at least an attempt was made.
Downtown played a part of my life during the 70's and 80's, with work, shopping, dining and nightlife. However, it changed and, except for work, alternatives were found to replace it.