What happened to 12th Street? | curiousKC

It’s a relatively pedestrian thoroughfare now, but it has a bawdy history that hearkens back to Kansas City’s stockyard roots and its wide-open entertainment scene all the way up through the 1960s. The eight-mile, east-west strip runs between the West Bottoms and the eastern edge of the city near the Blue River.
CuriousKC researched the history of 12th Street after receiving a request to review the “old 12th Street strip from the 1950s and 1960s.”
We’re FlatlandKC.org, KCPT’s digital magazine, a destination for local and regional storytelling in and around Kansas City.

[@kckgirl78]

I’m from the KS side of the viaduct. In the late ‘60’s, our Ma taught us how to ride the bus over and let us spend a few hours walking around downtown KCMO. I have very fond memories of the penny arcade, the Cake Box bakery, The Jones Store.....just the freedom to be kids, unlike today’s youths. SO glad I came through when I did. 💐

[@teeramirez464]

I love you! I remember the penny arcade. I was like 4 last time I saw this.

[@teeramirez464]

I love you

[@kungfujiujitsufliptrick4832]

All over the US cities torn down beautiful buildings for no reason

[@BellaBellaElla]

"Parking. MY CAR!.. parking!! Gah! More more parking!! Ooo and highways!! All the highways"

[@adamfoulk5865]

Anyone remember palmenteres trucking. Anybody remember my dad? I love my dad i hope someone remembers john foulk

[@gcrav]

1:50 The Reno Club, where the Count Basie Orchestra jammed into that tiny bandshell. It was a radio broadcast from that club that got the Basie Orchestra discovered by John Hammond, then on to the Savoy Ballroom in New York, the Decca recordings......

[@Philacav]

Simple: They tore most of it down just like most of downtown Kansas City.

[@jilldaubresse5873]

Better to ask what the heck happened to Kansas City as a whole. I don't even recognize the place where I grew up.

[@davehughesfarm7983]

you know what happened

[@L33TZER]

the aforementioned and KC trying to be like cali, NY, TX KC shines when it's being KC not every other city and adding arenas on SW blvd

[@peterbillionaire]

Excellent pictures with a lot of detail. 👍

[@cargotrailereric6738]

I worked at 9th and oak in the 70s it was skid row. Depressing.

[@adamfoulk5865]

Really?

[@adamfoulk5865]

Was it drugs?

[@maxiguess2291]

the buildings, neighborhoods, and communities sacrificed just for a highway. and now none of these neighborhoods can ever be what they once were 😢

[@DJRodneySoptic]

Very well done. Thank you for this kind of content

[@scottjones9973]

I get sad, but hopeful, when I see these old photos of dense, bustling streets. And what an interesting history!

[@toddgoza3522]

From my understanding the black section of 12th Street was 12th & vine

[@asbestosfibers1325]

What an embarrassingly awful period in our cities history. This deserves no spotlight.

[@MrFmccarty]

12th street was nothing like Los Vegas ever!

[@g..._anthony27]

He was even around during the 50's or 60's

[@vernette39]

Thanks for the look at the past.

[@wandaalexander1972]

60's, 70's 80's 90's...cultural decline...skuzzy, dingy, dirty, druggy, immoral era. Not a good era to be born or grow-up, or live in

[@FlatlandkcOrg]

Thanks for the comment Wanda, but it disregards major strides in society and culture that have happened during that time period. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Those born in the 60s or later might view that as a moral victory that should've happened in the 1860s.

[@southernarawak5699]

Flatland it actually did happen in the 1860s though. Civil Rights Act of 1866 and it did absolutely nothing to uplift the people it claimed it did just like the one in 1964 except after the one in '64 the Negro population was defeated and successfully neutralized as a productive body politic. Hence, the commenters point.

[@Shinyarc]

I wonder why? It seems like the government’s “urban renewal” and interstate highways demolishing thousands of apartments and minority neighborhoods preceded this “cultural decline”. The destruction of pedestrian friendly and dense city cores like KC’s also started the obesity crisis too. This entire issue started from the government putting their nose in city planning, taking perfectly good neighborhoods and turning them into crime havens (with drugs the CIA imported) and no one wants to talk about it.