Page 9 of 11
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 7:51 pm
by FangKC
Old photo showing the Fortune Club, at 39th and Main, one of the local nightspots and gambling dens controlled by the local mob. The building is north of the CVS Drugstore there.
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 7:54 pm
by FangKC
Photo showing a billard hall at E. 15th (Truman Road) and Montgall, down the street from the First Ward Democratic Club where Charles Binaggio was gunned down. The building showing the billard hall remains.
Close up of the building showing the same shot.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Truman+R ... 8,,1,-0.35
The building itself.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Truman+R ... 1,,0,-5.61
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 12:00 am
by FangKC
A photo showing back when Gillis Opera House was a burlesque theater.
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 12:02 am
by FangKC
A Life Magazine photo of the Kansas City Star building when it had radio towers on the roof.
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 12:07 am
by FangKC
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 1:29 pm
by taxi
Awww, to have lived in the days before fake tits.
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 3:48 pm
by KCKev
taxi wrote:Awww, to have lived in the days before fake tits.
Careful that might be my Grandma your talking about!
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 7:00 pm
by grovester
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:32 pm
by mean
It's like Mad Men: Kansas City edition.
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:19 pm
by loftguy
Great stumbling on this. Thanks Fang. 1960-1970, this was known as Johnnie's Pool Room. Four tables. Three eight ball and one snooker....all were 1900 era Brunswick mahogany beauties. Ten cents a game during peak hours and a nickel off times. No raised voices, nothing on the tables, but sticks balls and hands.
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2014 10:59 am
by FangKC
It's odd the disappearance of the pool hall. When I was a kid, they were everywhere. Even small rural towns had them.
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 5:02 pm
by Demosthenes
Here is a jaw dropping photo I found over in a KC thread on Skyscraperpage.com. Look at the density in the background!! This was just before the interstate was installed and mass destruction of the east side of downtown. Oh how I wish the city still looked like this!
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 7:04 pm
by aknowledgeableperson
And look at the surface lots.
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 8:37 pm
by mean
Seriously, that's an impressively depressing amount of surface parking for the 1950s.
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 9:50 pm
by pash
.
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 8:11 am
by Eon Blue
aknowledgeableperson wrote:And look at the surface lots.
I know, there's barely any by KC standards!
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 8:16 am
by Eon Blue
Demosthenes wrote:
Here is a jaw dropping photo I found over in a KC thread on Skyscraperpage.com. Look at the density in the background!! This was just before the interstate was installed and mass destruction of the east side of downtown. Oh how I wish the city still looked like this!
It's hard to pick out more than half a dozen buildings in that photo that are still extant. City Hall, Courthouse, PD, the Argyle, the Interstate, the Zoo Bar building. The lobotomized facade of the Jenkins Music Building is about the only other one I can pick out in the foreground. Such loss.
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 8:24 am
by zonk
Fang...what's the bell tower to the east of the old Law Building? Intersection of 13th & McGee? southwest corner
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 5:25 pm
by FangKC
The tower you see in that photo above is that of the Pantages / Tower Theater. The address was 213 E. 12th Street.
The building opened as the Pantages Theater--part of a chain of vaudeville houses, and later was the Tower Theater.
There were three theaters on that block of 12th Street. The Pantages / Tower, and the Esquire, which was a small
theater next door to the west. The Empress Theater was across the street where the parking garage for
Traders on Grand is now.
http://kchistory.org/cdm4/item_viewer.p ... OX=1&REC=2
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/1433
Here is a photo graphic I made showing historic downtown theater locations.
Re: When Downtown KC was a powerhouse - A must see for all
Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 6:27 pm
by grovester
AAAAAAAHHHHH! We deserve all the misery we've brought upon ourselves! What the hell were people thinking?