SvobodaKC

Saturday, August 4, 2012

First Friday Junk Stroll

Junque in the West Bottoms

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- 2012/08/03 Friday 18:35

West Bottoms

My Location@18:34,8/3

1100-1198 Hickory St, Kansas City, MO 64101

http://m.google.com/u/m/dEv0ju

I went to the West Bottoms for first Friday. It seems that antiqueing is taking over from art strolling. There are acres of space dedicated to flea markets open only on the first weekend of the month.

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Good Ju Ju is one of the oldest stores in the west bottoms. I did a video profile back in 2009....

Good Ju Ju has since moved from its original space and a lot of other spaces have opened up in the West Bottoms.

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It is fun to explore these old buildings.

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I love this sign, but I didn't love the price...

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The west bottoms is a great area to explore, but be careful.

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I take the time to catch some railfan action at the old Union interlocking tower.

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Tima has to sit outside in many of the venues.

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In 2001, I had a loft space in the same building as the Farenheit gallery. As Tima and I walked past, two very curious cats watched intently.

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There is also an outdoor flea market.

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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Ghost Towns In Kansas City -- Waukomis Rd. and Nashua, Missouri

Small Communities Swallowed by an Imperial City

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From Wikipedia....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kansas_City
or, more specifically, on annexation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kansas_City#Sprawl.2FAnnexation

1960s

The 1960s were marked by a period of many projects coupled with the rapid urban decay of many inner city neighborhoods. During this period, many historic buildings were demolished to make way for parking lots, and office buildings. The area became primarily for business rather than for everyday city life.

During this inner city decay, Kansas City began to annex land and expand its area. In the process, Kansas City eventually became one of the largest cities in the United States area-wise at 318 square miles (824 km²), while its population decreased by 15,000 from 1950-2000. It is still not uncommon to find cattle and corn fields on the extreme edges of Kansas City. Kansas City in 2000 ranked 21st in the United States in terms of area while #40 in terms of the list of United States cities by population.

In areas within the city limits of Kansas City, you can see small pockets where there was an older community that got swallowed up by the expanding city.

My nephew, Matt, and I took advantage of a summer evening to explore such an area. First, we stopped off at the Price Rite Market on Waukomis drive...

View Larger Map

It is nice to see a small locally owned little grocery market.

We then moved on to an area called nashua, in the farthest reaches of the northern city limits of Kansas City, Missouri.

View Larger Map

There is a mention here, of the town of Nashua

http://www.kchistory.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/Local&CISOPTR=23608&CISOBOX=1&REC=2

Also here is a mention of it online...

http://thelibrary.org/lochist/moser/claypl.html

Nashua (elevation 1010 feet)
Nashua is six and one-half miles south of Smithville, on the Kansas City, Quincy and Omaha R. R. (--Williams, p. 363.)It is situated at Sec. 23, Twp. 52 N, R. 32 W, at the junction of 168 & By-pass 71.It is a part of Kansas City.

I think you can tell this mailbox belongs to the fire department...

The second general store of the day on our trip is here in Nashua.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nashua-General-Store/107341385989487

There is an old radio station building that used to have the letters KCMO on it back in the 70's. We used to drive to the commissary at Fort Leavenworth, and, at the time, the only way was to take Cookingham Road as 435 wasn't completed. We would always pass by the old art deco building that had the KCMO call letters on it.

I've found another mention of Nashua here....

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110711204201AAZe6EV

Here is something I found from Kansas City on Nashua, which is interesting....

http://www.kcmo.org/idc/groups/cityplanningplanningdiv/documents/cityplanninganddevelopment/019323.pdf

There are the remains of a downtown area and the core of Nashua.

The modern streamlined design of this old radio station places it sometime in the 1930's to 1950's. I'm not finding any information online about this building.