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Independence Boulevard
by Jeff Helkenberg, Jessica Logsdon and Stevo Svoboda
Todays daytrip, to an area that most typical daytrippers would tend to avoid, began as a conversation between myself and Ken, my friend, at YJ's. We started talking about how the local media neglects many areas of the city, which are labeled as distressed. In my job, I get to visit many of these places, and while I do find a lot of neglect, trash, hopelessness and signs of crime, I also find there are many enclaves of close knit communities with their own little business districts and community scenes. Since many of these areas are relegated to something beyond nuclear waste dumps of criminality and danger by the media and in the publics' collective mindset, we thought that it might be appropriate to visit these places ourself, and see if the hype is in fact, a reality. The first place we decided to pay a visit to is the business, cultural, and retail heart of the Northeast Neighborhood of Kansas City. Independence Boulevard is often referred to generically as the avenue. Often in Kansas City when somebody says I'm gonna pay a visit to the avenue, it is slang for either getting drugs or a some form of elicit evening entertainment on Independence. To say the avenue has a less than stellar reputation is quite the understatement. However, when you visit the place and look past the neglect and crime, you find many immigrants and their families making the best of American opportunities on this strip, often starting with less than nothing. I was thinking today, that perhaps the avenue, and many streets like it all across the US, could be referred to as (and perhaps this is a bit corny) American dream factories.
Jeff and Jessica live in the northeast, and we got ahold of them by phone and found them available to go with us, as they had some shopping to do, and they were curious about some bake and coffee shops. Ken had to go to work midway through our tour. The following synopsis of our adventures was a compilation of ideas from all of us.
Independence Boulevard
by Jeff Helkenberg, Jessica Logsdon and Stevo Svoboda
Todays daytrip, to an area that most typical daytrippers would tend to avoid, began as a conversation between myself and Ken, my friend, at YJ's. We started talking about how the local media neglects many areas of the city, which are labeled as distressed. In my job, I get to visit many of these places, and while I do find a lot of neglect, trash, hopelessness and signs of crime, I also find there are many enclaves of close knit communities with their own little business districts and community scenes. Since many of these areas are relegated to something beyond nuclear waste dumps of criminality and danger by the media and in the publics' collective mindset, we thought that it might be appropriate to visit these places ourself, and see if the hype is in fact, a reality. The first place we decided to pay a visit to is the business, cultural, and retail heart of the Northeast Neighborhood of Kansas City. Independence Boulevard is often referred to generically as the avenue. Often in Kansas City when somebody says I'm gonna pay a visit to the avenue, it is slang for either getting drugs or a some form of elicit evening entertainment on Independence. To say the avenue has a less than stellar reputation is quite the understatement. However, when you visit the place and look past the neglect and crime, you find many immigrants and their families making the best of American opportunities on this strip, often starting with less than nothing. I was thinking today, that perhaps the avenue, and many streets like it all across the US, could be referred to as (and perhaps this is a bit corny) American dream factories.
Jeff and Jessica live in the northeast, and we got ahold of them by phone and found them available to go with us, as they had some shopping to do, and they were curious about some bake and coffee shops. Ken had to go to work midway through our tour. The following synopsis of our adventures was a compilation of ideas from all of us.
Indpendence Avenue Taco Truck Review -- Antojitos Mexicanos
We have no complaints -- the food was excellent. The only caveat was the generator noise.
We talked to the guy who built the trailer. He is very proud of his handiwork -- it is a nice trailer, which he built from scratch, including the grill and hood. The troublesome generator was a replacement hastily put in place after the original generator died. As for the food, the salsa (three different kinds) was amazing. The burritos were more than ample -- huge, in fact. $6.00 for all we ate was awesome. Much can be said, as well about the friendly happy service, in a setting that could be in brookside, or the crossroads, or anywhere. This was the Avenue.
As we sat at the taco trailer, we notice with light and life, the nastiness that gives the avenue its reputation skitters off to the twilight regions of where the streetlights meet the darkness, like cockroaches exposed to the kitchen light.
What is nice about Independence Avenue are the various little markets and stores. Huda, a store owned by an Iraqi family, is the first place we've been to with exclusively Iraqi products. It was fascinating and indicitave of multi cultured aspects of this area to see products with both English and Arabic texts.
The young clerk manning the store hardly knew any english, which created confusion as there were very few prices on anything. After some haggling and muddling through with the credit card machine, we got a few items at the store, and left feeling like it was a place to come back to. The avenue seemed to be the melting pot of the city, from mexican and latin american, to korean, to vietnamese, etiopian and haitian, among others.
Our first stop was a Somali mini mall called Soma, which is at the corner of Olive and Indpendence. It seems to be the center of a vibrant Somali community with stores filled with clothing, perfume, religious items, knick nacks and souvenirs. We sat at the coffeeshop and had some refreshments. Weirdly as we sat down CNN was blathering loudly on the flat screen tv about some somali Terrorist in American Custody. There were no terrorists here in this small center of the KC Somali community, just friendly people.
Women of the night might be finding the avenue not such a good place to do business these days.
The avenue, as has been alluded to earlier in this piece, has a not so nice reputation. There are lots of people peddling drugs and themselves or others mainly at night and on the busy corners. The center of the KC hooking Universe seems to be centered on the corners of Prospect and Independence avenue, which also seems to be the main commercial heart of the Northeast. The architecture of this area belies the fact that nothing much has seemed to be added since the great white flight disaster exodus of the 1960's, which has been horrible for this area, and the city at large. We were griping among ourselves that there is really nothing wrong with this area that a little political will and public determination couldn't fix. Almost as a serendipitous sign, we saw a paddy wagon with an obvious woman of the evening being loaded into the back, thereby cutting her business evening short, and three mounted police on horseback patrolling nearby. There maybe hope yet. I think a better plan and alternative might be found in an organization called Veronica's Voice.
The hope comes in a plethora of small locally owned grocery stores, one of which, shall we say, will be a regular alternative to the big impersonal mega groceramas of the suburbs. The shelves here seem to be like the neighborhoods here -- international.
Coming back to the taco trailer (which actually served much more than tacos) and that troublesome generator. We had to shout to hear each other above the sound of the generator. Earlier in the day we met up with a sketchy fellow who seemed to busy himself with walking up and down the avenue shouting, mainly at himself it seemed. As we ate, he appeared again, still shouting as the unseasonably cool July day morphed into a gorgeous evening. We mused that at our horseness from shouting over the generator noise, how his throat must've felt at doing it all day. Maybe he is shouting because he is yet another forgotten soul on a strip of road that many seem to have forgotten. However, one group of businesses that should be forgotten are the check cashing, payday loan and tax preparing places. The market of exploiting the poor and downtrodden seems to be a lucritive one on almost any corner of the avenue.
As has been the history of this country where there is a big percentage of immigrants settled into an area, there are many examples of sub-standard high density housing.
You do not have to walk very far off of the avenue, though, to find beautiful old victorian mansions restored to life with landscaping that would wow you. Actually, we found some such architecture right behind the intersection of Prospect and Indpendence.
Before we began our trek, we looked with foreboding on the future of the crossroads arts district. With the quick rumored demise of the Arts Incubator, It seems as of late there are many more places finding themselves under tighter city scrutiny, or being otherwise shut down or out of business. We are wondering if the end is close by for a district full of art galleries and cheap loft spaces. If so, there are plenty of empty spaces and cheap living opportunities on the Avenue and surrounding northeast neighborhoods. It is about time to stop writing off the avenue, and places such as these.
Click here to see the rest of the Photos from today
We have no complaints -- the food was excellent. The only caveat was the generator noise.
We talked to the guy who built the trailer. He is very proud of his handiwork -- it is a nice trailer, which he built from scratch, including the grill and hood. The troublesome generator was a replacement hastily put in place after the original generator died. As for the food, the salsa (three different kinds) was amazing. The burritos were more than ample -- huge, in fact. $6.00 for all we ate was awesome. Much can be said, as well about the friendly happy service, in a setting that could be in brookside, or the crossroads, or anywhere. This was the Avenue.
As we sat at the taco trailer, we notice with light and life, the nastiness that gives the avenue its reputation skitters off to the twilight regions of where the streetlights meet the darkness, like cockroaches exposed to the kitchen light.
What is nice about Independence Avenue are the various little markets and stores. Huda, a store owned by an Iraqi family, is the first place we've been to with exclusively Iraqi products. It was fascinating and indicitave of multi cultured aspects of this area to see products with both English and Arabic texts.
The young clerk manning the store hardly knew any english, which created confusion as there were very few prices on anything. After some haggling and muddling through with the credit card machine, we got a few items at the store, and left feeling like it was a place to come back to. The avenue seemed to be the melting pot of the city, from mexican and latin american, to korean, to vietnamese, etiopian and haitian, among others.
Our first stop was a Somali mini mall called Soma, which is at the corner of Olive and Indpendence. It seems to be the center of a vibrant Somali community with stores filled with clothing, perfume, religious items, knick nacks and souvenirs. We sat at the coffeeshop and had some refreshments. Weirdly as we sat down CNN was blathering loudly on the flat screen tv about some somali Terrorist in American Custody. There were no terrorists here in this small center of the KC Somali community, just friendly people.Women of the night might be finding the avenue not such a good place to do business these days.
The avenue, as has been alluded to earlier in this piece, has a not so nice reputation. There are lots of people peddling drugs and themselves or others mainly at night and on the busy corners. The center of the KC hooking Universe seems to be centered on the corners of Prospect and Independence avenue, which also seems to be the main commercial heart of the Northeast. The architecture of this area belies the fact that nothing much has seemed to be added since the great white flight disaster exodus of the 1960's, which has been horrible for this area, and the city at large. We were griping among ourselves that there is really nothing wrong with this area that a little political will and public determination couldn't fix. Almost as a serendipitous sign, we saw a paddy wagon with an obvious woman of the evening being loaded into the back, thereby cutting her business evening short, and three mounted police on horseback patrolling nearby. There maybe hope yet. I think a better plan and alternative might be found in an organization called Veronica's Voice.
The hope comes in a plethora of small locally owned grocery stores, one of which, shall we say, will be a regular alternative to the big impersonal mega groceramas of the suburbs. The shelves here seem to be like the neighborhoods here -- international.
Coming back to the taco trailer (which actually served much more than tacos) and that troublesome generator. We had to shout to hear each other above the sound of the generator. Earlier in the day we met up with a sketchy fellow who seemed to busy himself with walking up and down the avenue shouting, mainly at himself it seemed. As we ate, he appeared again, still shouting as the unseasonably cool July day morphed into a gorgeous evening. We mused that at our horseness from shouting over the generator noise, how his throat must've felt at doing it all day. Maybe he is shouting because he is yet another forgotten soul on a strip of road that many seem to have forgotten. However, one group of businesses that should be forgotten are the check cashing, payday loan and tax preparing places. The market of exploiting the poor and downtrodden seems to be a lucritive one on almost any corner of the avenue.
As has been the history of this country where there is a big percentage of immigrants settled into an area, there are many examples of sub-standard high density housing.
You do not have to walk very far off of the avenue, though, to find beautiful old victorian mansions restored to life with landscaping that would wow you. Actually, we found some such architecture right behind the intersection of Prospect and Indpendence.
Before we began our trek, we looked with foreboding on the future of the crossroads arts district. With the quick rumored demise of the Arts Incubator, It seems as of late there are many more places finding themselves under tighter city scrutiny, or being otherwise shut down or out of business. We are wondering if the end is close by for a district full of art galleries and cheap loft spaces. If so, there are plenty of empty spaces and cheap living opportunities on the Avenue and surrounding northeast neighborhoods. It is about time to stop writing off the avenue, and places such as these.
Click here to see the rest of the Photos from today
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