18th and Vine

History

18th and Vine is east of Downtown Kansas City and is the metropolitan area's historic center of African American culture. In 1991, the national historic district encompassing 35 contributing buildings was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In the 1990s, parts of the film Kansas City were filmed there, and façades left from the movie remained on most of the dilapidated buildings until the end of the decade.

The 18th and Vine neighborhood includes the Mutual Musicians Foundation, the Gem Theater, the long-time offices of African-American newspaper The Call, the Blue Room jazz club, the American Jazz Museum, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Smaxx Restaurant, a restaurant inside the Juke House and Blues Club, and several apartments and condos. The Historic Lincoln Building serves as a hub of professional and business activity in the Black community, restored in the early 1980s by the Black Economic Union of Kansas City.

Six blocks to the north, the former intersection of 12th Street and Vine is the subject of Leiber & Stoller's song "Kansas City" in 1952, adapted by Little Willie Littlefield as "Kansas City Lovin" and adapted by Little Richard, Wilbert Harrison, and the Beatles. Vine Street no longer intersects with 12th Street, where a housing project was built over it. The city has since erected a street sign in a park near the housing project to mark the former 12th and Vine.

The neighborhood has long suffered epidemic blight, with huge portions being juggled for decades between unproductive owners and their countless colossal visions and broken promises of rehabilitation. It has been the focus of more than $30 million of civic investment since the late 1980s, but redevelopment has struggled. In 2001, the Kansas City area manager of Bank of America proposed a $46 million redevelopment of 96 acres of blight across the District but canceled in 2005 ahead of the global crash of 2008, selling much of it to KC native millionaire Ephren W. Taylor II who likened his invisible investments to the comic book antihero The Phantom. Actually a con artist, Taylor promised in 2006 to develop his large Jazz District property into 42 homes plus a community center or museum within the nearby historic city workhouse castle, but was instead convicted of a Ponzi scheme defrauding Black churchgoers of millions of dollars and then federally imprisoned. From 2016 to 2020, the city government, community, and corporate investors have conducted many proposals for rehabilitation of the historic blight, including a massive $150 million project pending a federal investigation into corruption.

References

References

1. {{NRISref
2. Thomason, Philip. (December 1989). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: 18th and Vine Historic District". Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
3. "KCMO Historic Register". City of Kansas City, MO.
4. Barton, Eric. (September 14, 2006). "Done Deal". The Pitch.
5. [http://www.kctv5.com/story/18960846/kctv5-investigates-the-18th-vine-jazz-district-redevelopment-corp KCTV5 story on the neighborhood]
6. "KSHB TV article on new apartments".
7. (November 10, 2019). "Plan to revive area near jazz district faces hurdle". [[The Kansas City Star]].
8. Horsley, Lynn. (January 6, 2016). "KC Council will consider pitch for $18 million to bolster 18th and Vine district". [[The Kansas City Star]].
9. Alcock, Andy. (September 26, 2019). "Black Economic Union of Greater KC under federal investigation". KSHB.
10. Alcock, Andy. (December 23, 2019). "Developer under federal investigation conditionally approved for $1.2 million in KC tax money". KSHB.