OFFICIAL: Law Building

[kcdcchef]

what i mean long is that you pick and choose your battles, i did no want to lose either the twa building or the law building, hell, even the old soakies building had some neat highlights to it, however, i feel that when you lose the law building yet save the prez and the empire, or lose twa yet save the lyric, the new york life building, and the coates house, then it is not the end of the world. that is all

[Long]

what i mean long is that you pick and choose your battles, i did no want to lose either the twa building or the law building, hell, even the old soakies building had some neat highlights to it, however, i feel that when you lose the law building yet save the prez and the empire, or lose twa yet save the lyric, the new york life building, and the coates house, then it is not the end of the world. that is all

I agree none of this is the end of the world, and that in life you have to pick and choose your battles. . .

But, neither the Law Bldg nor TWA had to be lost.  The existence of the TWA building or the Law Bldg SHOULD have nothing to do with whether the Prez was saved.  All the properties you mentioned are separate unrelated properties (well, TWA and the Prez are part of Cordish) so its not like there is some requirement that says "you can only preserve 60% of your old buildings, so choose which ones you want.

I think what you're saying is more "we should be thankful for what we have," not "you need to choose your battles."  Saying "we should be thankful for what we have" is what you say at the table before Thanksgiving dinner, not what you say when you're bending over for a developer.

[kcdcchef]

noone bent over for a developer, they gave in to the needs of a smart businessman. he is doing more for downtown then all of us combined have ever done. if the man wants the building out, you PICK YOUR BATTLES. this was one that was picked, the empire, the prez, and fuck the useless ass twa building. thats all. and a happy thanksgiving, i will be sure to invite you over to say grace.

[FangKC]

Yes, both the Law and the TWA buildings could have been saved. In both cases, they had owners and developers who wanted to convert them into housing.  Abbott just couldn't keep financing. I think in his case he just wasn't experienced enough to be successful at what he was trying to do. In the case of the TWA Building, Roger Buford had already announced plans to convert the TWA Building into loft apartments a few months before the City bought it.  He has redeveloped older buildings before and has a track record.  For the life of me, I don't understand why the City just didn't let Buford proceed.

There is something fishy about what happened to the Law Building. A mysterious unnamed out-of-town buyer who will only buy the property if the building is demolished, then backs out after it's done.  A City administration that had already approved TIF to renovate a building into housing (one of the mayor's priorities); reneged; and quietly issued a demolition permit on a building that was on the National Register of Historic Places.  A demolition permit issued on a Friday, and demolition begins on the next Monday.  As my late grandmother used to say: "It is very queer."

[Long]

noone bent over for a developer, they gave in to the needs of a smart businessman. he is doing more for downtown then all of us combined have ever done. if the man wants the building out, you PICK YOUR BATTLES. this was one that was picked, the empire, the prez, and fuck the useless ass twa building. thats all. and a happy thanksgiving, i will be sure to invite you over to say grace.

I assume you're referring to Cordish. 

Sure, the Cordish development is going to be a great thing for this city, but don't pretend for a minute that he's doing it out of the kindness of his heart.  A smart businessman is in the business TO MAKE AS MUCH MONEY AS POSSIBLE.  He didn't NEED to take out TWA, he did it because it would make him more money than to not take it out, and the city let him do it.  Did Cordish threaten to walk if he didn't get TWA taken out?  I doubt it. 

It's all a big game.  If TWA would have remained until the control of Buford, Cordish would have had nothing to do with it-- no money invested on that corner, while the rest of the P&L district goes on.  As a smart businessman, he saw an opportunity to make more money-- invest a relatively small amount of additional money to get that corner rolled into the project and see an even bigger return.  In the meantime, he's quoted in articles saying "he understands the value of historic structures."  Sure, the historic structures that are already proven icons (meaning they can be marketed in such a way that makes more money) as opposed to a solid building that is on par aesthetically with the Hotel President and many other buildings, but doesn't have the "image" of the Prez, the Empire, or even the Midland.

[kcdcchef]

no, cordish never threatened to walk off over twa

all i am saying is when a major develper that has worked magic in other cities has a plan that will come to fruition, get out of his way and let progress happen. the law building i do not understand. the twa building, they have a plan for the site, and it was not of that much historical signifigance. the prez, empire, phillips, muehlbach, on and on. the cordish plan involved something else there. the law building is to hell and gone from it. they are saving so much there, adding so much, and we knit pick these details. what did we want to use that building for? mixed use retail and condos, right? give it a rest man. why did you not raise a ruckus over the jones store building coming down? it was in use far more recently than the twa building, had more historical value, and was in a high traffic area, do you not agree? hell, they could have taken those god awful brown paneling bricks off the outside of jones, refurbished all the individual brick buildings they were covering, and reinvented it as a downtown book store, and grocery store. perhaps some retail.

all this talk over no need for downtown department stores is half baked. walk around the streets of baltimore, dc, even fucken richmond, you will see a hechts, a macys, a nordstrom, and several others. so i am tired of all this talk over the law building and the twa building. plenty is getting saved, and the real fucked up thing is had it not been for this present plan, all that crap, the main street morgue included, would still be standing. and empty. and neglected.

[Long]

I know I've said this before, but I will say it again.

When we talk about old buildings that have already been torn down, already on the chopping block, etc.--

It is a matter of principle.  Learning from history, learning from mistakes made, bringing bad decisions into the open so that we don't repeat the same mistakes again.

Look, I completely understand the idea that what we're getting in the end is worth a lot.  But, a lot has been traded unnecessarily because it was EASIER, plain and simple. 

As for the Jones Store. . . do your homework.  The Jones Store was the biggest moldiest building in this part of the country.  And the old facade isn't there under those stone and metal panels, it was stripped off.  If it were just one thing or the other, maybe it would make more sense to work with it, who knows.  You have to consider the question of feasibility when restoring an old building.  You can't compare the Jones Store with any of these other buildings with a straight face.  Some developers think it is feasible to rework old buildings, even anonymous old buildings that don't have the status of an Empire Theater or Hotel President.  Some don't.

[Slappy the Wang]

What's become of the young developer who came to town promising to turn the Lqaw Bldg into greatness.  I haven't seen or heard anything of the guy for quite a while aside from all kinds of Rocky Horror rumors.  Is he currently working on anything?

[Long]

What's become of the young developer who came to town promising to turn the Lqaw Bldg into greatness.  I haven't seen or heard anything of the guy for quite a while aside from all kinds of Rocky Horror rumors.  Is he currently working on anything?

Sounds like he's sitting there waiting to cash in on land speculation.  Hell, its probably worth more without the old building sitting on it.  He should be careful though, or the city will pull eminent domain on him.

[kcdcchef]

yeah, god knows the president and union station were not moldy and full of pigeon shit. they were in perfect shape waiting for their reuse, that is why the workers were wearing gas masks and radiation suits at firts, because those buildings were in perfect shape. NOT

and the facade under the brown tiles COULD have been saved, expensive and costly and a major undertaking, yes, but possible. do your own homework and quit cheating off my post!!

[Long]

yeah, god knows the president and union station were not moldy and full of pigeon shit. they were in perfect shape waiting for their reuse, that is why the workers were wearing gas masks and radiation suits at firts, because those buildings were in perfect shape. NOT

and the facade under the brown tiles COULD have been saved, expensive and costly and a major undertaking, yes, but possible. do your own homework and quit cheating off my post!!

Go look at the Jones Store--  or even look at the photos I posted in the other thread.  The facade simply isn't there-- it would have to be completely rebuilt from nothing. 

The problem I find a lot of people have is they try to apply all the same rules to many different situations.  Not everything is black and white.  It isn't always as simple as "if you aren't with us, then you're against us."  Each case has to be evaluated on its own merits.  I assess each situation, based on my own experiences and judgement, and I make a decision on a case by case basis.  You are welcome to challenge me, but taking an argument for saving one building doesn't automatically apply to another, because the circumstances are different. 

For instance--

The Law Bldg was actually in the process of being restored when the job was shut down.  It had historic value in the eyes of many, those historic elements were intact, it was structurally sound, it was in a prominent location.

The TWA building to me was aesthetically on par with the Hotel President, and plans were in place to renovate it, so renovation was feasible to someone.  Just not the right someone.  It wasn't enough of an icon, it was just another building.  Another structurally sound building that is taking up space in a landfill somewhere so it could be replaced with some low-rise buildings whose intended function could have fit within a renovated structure, said renovated structure having additional floors to generate additional income.

The MO State office building.  The only argument for tearing this down is that its ugly.  Sorry if I'm not convinced that is a rational reason for wasting an otherwise perfectly good and usable building.

The Jones Store could have been reused, but "restoring" it to its former glory is likely not feasible.  We aren't talking about replacing a few broken terra cotta tiles, we're talking RECONSTRUCTING THE ENTIRE FACADE FROM SCRATCH.  GO LOOK AT IT-- THE FACADE ISN'T THERE.  It was all stripped off 50 years ago.  I'm sure we could come up with some interesting ideas for renovating it, but those ideas do not feasibly include a historic restoration.  And based on people's assessment of the state office building, if its already ugly, there's no hope for it, so bulldoze it.  Right?

[kcdcchef]

well, i have not been by recently, but from the pictures you posted, the ones of the brick gong up in the 60's available from the library, all told me a different story. neither you, nor i, am an expert on the subject. we arent. as much as we would like to be. agree to disagree

on the subject of the twa building. it was saveable. and structually sound. the same for the law building. there was not the interest there among the community to save them. do you see the uproar over the past 15 years when the words wrecking ball came up in the same story as the president, the muehbach, or the empire? people cared, and cared a lot. they had a lot of value to our community ( sorry, union station too ) but these buildings did not. they were nice to look at, nice to imagine what was, nice to imagine what could be. but the bottom line is they were reduced to rubble because of what they meant to the community as a whole, nothing. we should both give kansas city missouri its credit due.......it as a community is far smarter than it was 40 years ago with regards to salvage and reuse. a lot of historic and architectural treasures will be saved throughout downton, midtown, westport, and other areas.

i almost get wistful when i look at a then and now book, wondering why we could not have saved more. and truth be told, had it not been for all the art galleries coming out of nowhere, the crossroads is another example of a district where a lot of great old buildings would have been lost. i will stroll down baltimore and marvel at the president, the music hall, the old kc club, the muehlbach, the phillips, then glance over at one kansas city place, the new hr block building, the empire from the corner, and whatever goes where the twa building was. and perhaps stroll over and glance at what replaced the law building. i will get sad when i think of what was lost, and i will get whimsical at thinking what was there, in general, 50 years ago, when downtown needed no talk of renewal, renovation, or re anything. those days are gone.

to get where we are now, we need to all take a deep breath and admit to each other, and ourselves, that this was a necessary evil.....letting downtown almost die completely, just to have this present fun that is rehab.

[Long]

well, i have not been by recently, but from the pictures you posted, the ones of the brick gong up in the 60's available from the library, all told me a different story. neither you, nor i, am an expert on the subject. we arent. as much as we would like to be. agree to disagree

on the subject of the twa building. it was saveable. and structually sound. the same for the law building. there was not the interest there among the community to save them. do you see the uproar over the past 15 years when the words wrecking ball came up in the same story as the president, the muehbach, or the empire? people cared, and cared a lot. they had a lot of value to our community ( sorry, union station too ) but these buildings did not. they were nice to look at, nice to imagine what was, nice to imagine what could be. but the bottom line is they were reduced to rubble because of what they meant to the community as a whole, nothing. we should both give kansas city missouri its credit due.......it as a community is far smarter than it was 40 years ago with regards to salvage and reuse. a lot of historic and architectural treasures will be saved throughout downton, midtown, westport, and other areas.

i almost get wistful when i look at a then and now book, wondering why we could not have saved more. and truth be told, had it not been for all the art galleries coming out of nowhere, the crossroads is another example of a district where a lot of great old buildings would have been lost. i will stroll down baltimore and marvel at the president, the music hall, the old kc club, the muehlbach, the phillips, then glance over at one kansas city place, the new hr block building, the empire from the corner, and whatever goes where the twa building was. and perhaps stroll over and glance at what replaced the law building. i will get sad when i think of what was lost, and i will get whimsical at thinking what was there, in general, 50 years ago, when downtown needed no talk of renewal, renovation, or re anything. those days are gone.

to get where we are now, we need to all take a deep breath and admit to each other, and ourselves, that this was a necessary evil.....letting downtown almost die completely, just to have this present fun that is rehab.

From the pictures I posted, and my own observations of the Jones Store, the old facade isn't there.  Aside from a few random stones around some of the windows, the terra cotta exterior stonework is gone.  In order to restore it, probably 95% of the facade would have to be replaced from scratch because it isn't there, 3% would have to be replaced because its broken.  Again, we aren't talking about replacing a few broken tiles and hitting it with the powerwasher.  There is brick under there-- the exterior walls of the building are there, but the outer stone veneer is long gone.  It doesn't take an expert to stand on the sidewalk and use your eyes.  A restoration of the Jones Store would pretty much have to be a replica, so then the question is feasibility-- you're spending a lot of money and getting zero authenticity.

I think we're going to have to disagree about what is a necessary evil.  Some buildings were torn down to make developers happier, and its easier to just concede a few things than to fight for them.  You can apply that philosophy to much of everyday life.  And people were made to care about those certain buildings because they were icons that could be marketed.  Its easier for the KC Star to glamourize the Hotel President and the Empire while they gloss over other random buildings-- it is harder for developers to get away with tearing them down because that icon is something FOX 4 can latch onto as a lead-story on the 6:00 news.  If they spent that 30 second story talking about "another old office building downtown" instead, no one gives a shit, so we line the developers pocket with a few more dollars. 

Plus, if my based all my opinions and decisions on "public uproar", I would consider myself not very well informed.  And I don't pretend to know everything about everything, but I do know what I believe in, and that what I believe in is right.  It takes well-informed people to educate the public, because many of them don't care enough to take it upon themselves.  You can't care about something you don't know about.  And then sometimes even the most informed people don't have what it takes to get through the public's thick skull.

[kcdcchef]

thick skull, good, well thought out comeback

i will sit here, again, and spend 10 minutes typing a rhetoric you will spend 3 seconds cutting and pasting for the sole purpose of isolating a few lines. again, who cares about the jones store. i look at those pictures and see old red bricks, that can be saved, and a lot more than 2% of the terra cotta. the last downtown department store, long, at one point, we had macys, jones, ebt, sears, now we are left with jones. now we are left with nothing. all we have now is crown centers annual christmas display in which we see the laughing santa every year. that is all we have of our department store downtown past, and you dont seem to be up in arms over it. my point exactly. i would love to have the twa building back, functional, and part of the cordish plan. i would love to have the law building, back, vibrant, and part of the downtown plan. we lost them both, and it is not a big deal.

fox 4 would lead in with the rehabbed twa building if it was worth it, but it isnt. i know, when i was in kansas city i had fox 4, kshb 41, kmbc 9, and kctv 5 come cover news stories with me all the time, gingerbread villages i did, chocolate sculptures i did, i even got them to cover haunted house stories with me. so dont give me this boo hoo shit about the twa building got creamed because it wasnt a media darling. it bit the dust for the same reason that the main street morgue, which was a quaint old building of 4 stories with a DAMN HISTORIC MURAL ON ITS SIDE, COME SEE RIVER QUAY. and noone gave a care, least of all me, because we got the h and r block building going in. GRID and i see eye to eye that it sucks to lose the basketball building, that was a historic mural linking the last ever final 4 kansas city got, and perhaps for 20 more years that may remain the same. but it went out and we get the sprint center. the twa building, the sporting goods store and soakies go, and guess what, we are going to get joes crab shack, hard rock cafe, parking garages, whatever, they will all be more useful to not only the residents of kansas city, but also the guests of the rehabbed president. that is one of the main reasons i am pimping this cause......what the fuck would we redo the twa building that would provide a use for its primary audience? i am sure a lot of out of towners are going to pass by the rehabbed twa building, that gets redone as lofts and a ground floor florist or something stupid like that, versus we knock it down, put in parking garage for the prez, and 2 new downtown restaurants, they will say wow, great.

remember, long, whatever goes there, people still walk from a rehabbed prez, by a rehabbed kc club, by a rehabbed muehlbach, to get to whatever goes there. so pardon me if i dont cry for the loss of these 2 buildings, while i still rejoice over all that is about to happen there. and btw, the news did run a story on the loss of this building, on how it was kc's last real link to twa, and it was going away

too bad noone said the same for the river quay mural.

[kid a]

thick skull, good, well thought out comeback

i will sit here, again, and spend 10 minutes typing a rhetoric you will spend 3 seconds cutting and pasting for the sole purpose of isolating a few lines. again, who cares about the jones store. i look at those pictures and see old red bricks, that can be saved, and a lot more than 2% of the terra cotta. the last downtown department store, long, at one point, we had macys, jones, ebt, sears, now we are left with jones. now we are left with nothing. all we have now is crown centers annual christmas display in which we see the laughing santa every year. that is all we have of our department store downtown past, and you dont seem to be up in arms over it. my point exactly. i would love to have the twa building back, functional, and part of the cordish plan. i would love to have the law building, back, vibrant, and part of the downtown plan. we lost them both, and it is not a big deal.

fox 4 would lead in with the rehabbed twa building if it was worth it, but it isnt. i know, when i was in kansas city i had fox 4, kshb 41, kmbc 9, and kctv 5 come cover news stories with me all the time, gingerbread villages i did, chocolate sculptures i did, i even got them to cover haunted house stories with me. so dont give me this boo hoo shit about the twa building got creamed because it wasnt a media darling. it bit the dust for the same reason that the main street morgue, which was a quaint old building of 4 stories with a DAMN HISTORIC MURAL ON ITS SIDE, COME SEE RIVER QUAY. and noone gave a care, least of all me, because we got the h and r block building going in. GRID and i see eye to eye that it sucks to lose the basketball building, that was a historic mural linking the last ever final 4 kansas city got, and perhaps for 20 more years that may remain the same. but it went out and we get the sprint center. the twa building, the sporting goods store and soakies go, and guess what, we are going to get joes crab shack, hard rock cafe, parking garages, whatever, they will all be more useful to not only the residents of kansas city, but also the guests of the rehabbed president. that is one of the main reasons i am pimping this cause......what the fuck would we redo the twa building that would provide a use for its primary audience? i am sure a lot of out of towners are going to pass by the rehabbed twa building, that gets redone as lofts and a ground floor florist or something stupid like that, versus we knock it down, put in parking garage for the prez, and 2 new downtown restaurants, they will say wow, great.

remember, long, whatever goes there, people still walk from a rehabbed prez, by a rehabbed kc club, by a rehabbed muehlbach, to get to whatever goes there. so pardon me if i dont cry for the loss of these 2 buildings, while i still rejoice over all that is about to happen there. and btw, the news did run a story on the loss of this building, on how it was kc's last real link to twa, and it was going away

too bad noone said the same for the river quay mural.

i don't see how a joes' crab shack and a hard hock cafe would benefit residents of kc or out of towners. hard rock is dated and is not very "special" since it is in alot of cities all over the country and world. and joe's you can go out to the burbs for that crap.i think what some people are saying on this forum is that we have lost a lot of great architecture in the past and we should salvage as much as we can now and set a better example for the future generations to follow. losing the twa, the law, soakies the basketball building, etc. are all huge losses.
they have taken an even bigger chunk out of downtown's character and history.  structures built today do not have the detail, material, craft and the presence of the older buildings. to be blunt, they just are not built  well either...CHEAP materials.

[Long]

The thickheaded comment wasn't a reference to kcdcchef or anyone else specific.  It was a general jab at the public-at-large.  Sorry for the misunderstanding.



Basically

all I'm saying is

we could have had all this great new stuff while still keeping more of the old stuff.  

This is the underlying fundamental point that is being missed.  Bulldozing all these buildings was not the only way there would have been a P&L district or an H&R Block HQ.

Once you understand that, then everything I've been saying will make sense.  If you can't understand that, then there's nothing else I can say, so stop reading now.

I'm not arguing preservation for the sake of preservation or at the expense of progress.  I'm not arguing to save buildings that aren't feasible to save.  I'm not even arguing to save crappy buildings that have no potential for re-use and/or no historic value (I'm sure someone will use that against me, even though I've never argued to save or tear down a building without having a good reason for each specific case)  Some of them, like TWA and Law, were no-brainers.  I can't speak to the feasibility of Main St. Morgue and those attached buildings.  Maybe they were falling in.  But when solid, substantial buildings that either have development prospects and/or are in use are torn down, that is simply a lack of vision.  It is taking the easy way out, and we can do better.  We can have 100% of the new and the best of the old.

That is all for that argument.  As for Jones:

If I'm not mistaken the whole Jones Store was covered with terra cotta tiles, not just around the windows.  There was no exposed red brick on the street-facing facades.  The building appears to be a steel structure, the red brick was the exterior wall infill (or maybe the red brick was a structural exterior wall and only the interior was steel), with a layer of terra cotta as the finished surface.  I could be wrong about that, but my recollection of old photos is that all the street-facing walls where white.  Also, I think the building on the 12th and Main corner used to be one story taller.  

As for the legacy of downtown department stores, I don't know. . . I mean, Jones Store closed in 1998.  That is when the downtown department store died, not today.  That was likely a response to the market.  Its always sad to see some institution disappear, but I don't know how to solve that problem.  Whether the building stays or goes at this point isn't going to affect the presence of a downtown department store one way or the other.  As for the building, like I said, I can sit here and think of some interesting ways it could have been modified and re-used, but it wouldn't have been feasible to do a historic restoration, and since it is perceived as ugly, I doubt you'd find much support for some funky re-use.

 

[Long]

i don't see how a joes' crab shack and a hard hock cafe would benefit residents of kc or out of towners. hard rock is dated and is not very "special" since it is in alot of cities all over the country and world. and joe's you can go out to the burbs for that crap.i think what some people are saying on this forum is that we have lost a lot of great architecture in the past and we should salvage as much as we can now and set a better example for the future generations to follow. losing the twa, the law, soakies the basketball building, etc. are all huge losses.
they have taken an even bigger chunk out of downtown's character and history.  structures built today do not have the detail, material, craft and the presence of the older buildings. to be blunt, they just are not built  well either...CHEAP materials.

When I was young, I remember there was some discussion as to whether the junior high school in our town, which was this massive, probably 80 year-old building at that time, should be abandoned (then likely torn down) or whether it was worth the cost of fixing its problems.  All its infrastructure was outdated, steam heat, no A/C, the electrical system was causing calls to the fire department on somewhat of a regular basis, and I think there were even some structural concerns.  And I remember him talking about how wasteful and cheap society had gotten.  I was probably in grade school at this time, but I remember this conversation. . . and I remember thinking "yeah they should just tear it down and build something new,"  and I couldn't understand why my grandfather was getting so worked up about it.  Because the actions of my parents' generation was already in my head, that you just used something until it broke or you got tired of it, then you'd just go and buy something new. 

As better informed as we like to think we are these days, I think we're even worse today than our parents.  We make efforts to save buildings here and there, because some people really understand that it is the right thing to do, and enough of the rest of us can be "told" that it is the right thing to do, but most people don't blink an eye when something is torn down.  And think about the products of today.  Dirt cheap.  You buy it, use it, throw it away.  There is no "service industry" anymore, because you don't invest in products anymore.  Back in the day, you pay a lot of money for something, and you might have to call a repairman once in like 10 years, but the thing just kept working.  Today, when something fails, you throw it away.  But you could argue that products of today are "designed to fail", built-in obsolescene, so you have to go buy a new one.  Companies used to make their money based on a reputation for quality, you would tell your neighbor to go and buy this TV or lawn mower because it was built to last. . . but then companies realized they could make more money by selling more quanities of cheaper products.  Builders build on the cheap to cut costs. . . but the only reason they are allowed to get away with it is because people only care about the initial cost, not total cost of ownership, and they are conditioned to expect the product to fail.

[kcdcchef]

i understand historical preservation. it is not a hard concept to grasp. so lets get to the roots of this and move on, quit bellyaching back and forth, and go over to another topic and fight, ok?

who gives a shit how well a joes stone crab, a hard rock, a ripleys, whatever they put in this area is built. i really dont care, and a lot of people are going to agree with me on that, so get over it. twa building was great. it was the nicest designed building in the world. was the greatest ever, they should not have destroyed it. there were probably calls from the 11th hour from the president of the united states, the european union, the vatican, and god, to save this building. why we ignored them i will never know. now back in the real world, the building is gone because the same intillegent people who are the driving force behind this project, who want to see a used, vibrant, and used dowtown BENT OVER for cordish, and said lets study this. they studied, and let it be. the twa building, was not needed, it would be easier to knock it down and put something of use there. something built cheaper, faster, and with less care for architecture. i guess the vast majority of you would much rather drive down 13th and see a vacant, useless twa building, instead of what is going to be there. dont eat there, park there, party there, or be seen there. it would be a complete travesty. this so dumb to go back and forth when fundementally we agree that the buildings would have been great to keep. you fail to reference my other points. look at the dozens of other gems we saved. but fuck them, because the useless ass dumb law and twa buildings got lost.

i could care a less about jones store, the old macys where a parking garage is now, the main street morgue, or for that matter the italian gardens. i am happy to see what we did spare, because we know that there have been a few major booms in downtown kansas city. 1890's, 20's, and 60's. fast forward to now. so, really, what has been saved, will go nowhere in the next 40-50 years, in theory. does that not satisfy you people? there are so many places when i drive downtown kc that i show people, the old kc star, the old muehlbach, the phillips, the hotel savoy, the new york life building, the prez, the empire, 300 buildings in the west bottoms, union station, kellys in westport, that is just to name A FEW. even great downtowns like manhattan, san francisco, boston, to name A FEW, have discovered that there comes a time for keep some, lose some.

my whole point for getting sucked into this cemantic battle with you is to say, and attempt to prove, that we as kansas citians have done that. we saved what mattered, and we lost some that mattered too, but for a good cause. you see in this thread, a lot of kc skyscraper regulars that lament the loss of twa building, and the law building. but not a lot of real passion, except yours long. and i for one appreciate it. i get kicked in the balls in other forums on this website, and i appreciate going toe to toe with someone that is also educated on these matters

to further clarify, i, for one, hate losing these two, i just feel we let them go for the right reason.

[kid a]

long...i totally agree with you. we are a throw away society especially in america.

kcdchef- i'm glad you are not a councilmember or working for the city. ever been to europe?
just because the the twa was vacant, does not mean it would be vacant forever!
there was a developer interested into converting the building into lofts. it wasn't the best building,
but it did have character and history and i would appreciate you keep your sarcastic remarks to yourself.
you sound like an idiot who constantly contradicts himself.

the building is gone, i agree,
it's time to move on

[kcdcchef]

kid a
charisma, not character, gets you public office in america, i have that.
i never said it would be vacant, i say that if we get bitchy about some of these buildings, that arent that important, we lose out on something bigger.