Kansas City Reality Check: Organized Crime Made 18th & Vine Great, Local Government Only Helped Ruin Good Times

This might be the best article we've read all week that actually provides real world insight on the reality of this cowtown. Here's the money line on the demise of the district . . .

In his place came reformers committed to "good government," which meant trimming the city's budget, ending the graft, restoring property tax values, and cracking down on crimes that Pendergast had not enforced. Implicit in all of this was a proto-neoliberal impulse: a concern with "law-and-order," the attempt to foster economic growth through property values, and a disregard for current residents who seemed to be an economic impediment. Pendergast stole a lot of money, but he also allowed people to participate in the broader economy as long as they paid taxes upward.

Accordingly, the reality of Kansas City's history shouldn't be forgotten as this town still struggles to clean up our dirty image and ignore the uncomfortable fact that a corrupt, fat, old, Irishman was probably the greatest promoter of community and culture in this town's history. 

Moreover . . . Local government meddling has never helped this part of Kansas City and never will.

Read more . . . 

All That Jazz: KC's rise and fall

Uplifting Black, Brown, and queer voices across the South-no matter who's in office. Rhythm and blues musician Jesse Stone, a Kansas City, Missouri native, once said "Kansas City... did more for jazz music, Black music, than any other influence at all."

Comments

  1. The cleave created a mob of grifters and thrives at 18th and vine and it’s time to expose it to all of kc once and for all.

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  2. ^^^ Thieves, stupid spell check

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  3. ^^shut up chump. Back in the day, we would have taken you out the back door & beat the shit out of you. We didn't tolerate "Karens" then.

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  4. Thanx for your input Grammar Nazi. Get a life.

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  5. I'm really enjoying watching 18th & Vine fail now that I'm not paying for it.

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  6. ^^and we're really enjoying not having you here!

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  7. Good! I detest gubmint leeches. 😏🍿

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  8. As my KC jazz teacher Greg Mize once said, "There's only two bad weeks in a musician's year... Christmas week and a week in Kansas City."

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  9. And Six Blocks West of There are Huge Crowd's of People eating drinking listening to 80,SENT AND 90 so and Modern music. LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION.

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  10. Bandit still thinks that's funny after seeing it posted for the 602nd time!
    Typical of what "El Bandito" uses instead of a sense of humor.

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  11. And when Henny Youngman first said that, @3:08,there was a second line...
    "And I know that because I spent a year there one week."
    (TA-dum-dum)

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  12. Jazz is for fat old white men who are divorced and sit in a trailer pretending to be Doc Severenson. Jazz is dead.

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  13. 3:50 now that’s funny and true right there! Hahahahaha!

    Kc is the arm pit of the third world shithole countries of the world!

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  14. Pendergast was the Chicago Mob who joined forces with J Edgar Hoover to fight labor union in Kansas City. When Hitler invalided Poland and deregulated industry there were no Jazz Explosion?

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  15. God bless Tom Pendergast!

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