High and Writhing

No one is entirely sure what happened that September night in 1997 except that the man's name was Michael Burke.

Maxine Jones' adult son called her to the window of her apartment in the twelve-story Central Park Towers. Jones (whose name has been changed for this story) looked out her window. In the alley across Tenth Street was Burke, talking with three other men. When one of them grabbed Burke's shoulder, an argument broke out. A man pulled a knife and stabbed Burke four times, severing his carotid artery with one of the cuts.

Burke clutched at his neck as he ran across the street to the high-rise where his elderly mother lived and where Jones was watching from the window. By the time he made it to the flagpole in front, blood was flowing over his hands, trailing his movements as he stumbled through the first set of doors and tried to get someone to buzz him into the brightly lit lobby.

When police arrived soon after, officers stepped over his body to get inside the building. For months, Jones says, whenever it rained, blood would seep up from the cracks in the sidewalk outside the building.

These days what's oozing from Central Park Towers seems to be paranoia.

During the past two years, Kansas City, Kansas, police have paid more visits to the Towers than to any other address in the city. Only 171 people live at 15 North Tenth Street, but two years ago cops answered more than 2,000 calls there. In 2001 the number of calls dropped to around 1,600, but nowhere else in Kansas City, Kansas, saw more police activity last year.

The Central Avenue United Methodist Church stands nearby, along with a drive-through branch of the Industrial State Bank. Farther west along Central are Tomahawk Labor, a nightclub called the Blue Roses, the KC General Discount Store, the 99 cent; Value Market, Black's Retail Liquors and an office where customers can wire money to Mexico. Dogs wander the alleys surrounding the building.

Central Park Towers isn't the most dangerous place in Kansas City, Kansas -- many of the police calls prove to be false alarms. "We have two or three [residents] who will call the police every five minutes," says the building's manager, Linda Johnson. "If they get into an argument, they'll call the police. If they hear music, they'll call the police."

Despite all the cops' visits, though, drug dealers and prostitutes are a common sight in and around the building. And Central Park Towers has been the site of assaults, domestic violence incidents, burglaries and other disturbances. "The word used to be, if you wanted any kind of dope in Kansas City, Kansas, come to Central Park Towers. They had it all," says John Francis, who moved out in 2000 after living there for a year.

"There is a high fear factor for residents here," says Sue Drew, who as director of the Central Avenue Betterment Association is one of the building's neighbors.

But in Wyandotte County, Central Park Towers is the only place some people can have a home.

When Central Park Towers was built in 1975, it was designed as subsidized housing for the elderly.

Many low-income elderly Americans who moved to similar high-rises across the country saw them as a good deal. The HUD-subsidized buildings were well-constructed and secure, and the federal government paid for utilities. Until the mid-'80s, most subsidized housing for the elderly was occupied by the elderly.

For years, senior citizens were content at Central Park Towers. "Shirley," 77, has lived in the building since she and her husband followed her sister there in 1984. When Shirley's husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, she cared for him in their apartment until he died in the late '90s.Her sister passed away in 1992.

Now Shirley spends as little time at the building as possible. Pulling groceries and a large container of Clorox from her small blue hatchback, she looks up from the parking lot behind Central Park Towers and considers the mournful building. Its windows are gloomy and dirty, covered inside by heavy drapes and shades.

Public housing for the elderly has changed in recent years. Many older residents have died or moved to places where they could receive specialized care. Others have simply found better locations as the range of affordable housing has expanded.

The shift has brought new neighbors Shirley doesn't like.

Since the influx of new tenants, she avoids being at the Towers. She'll wake at four in the morning, get down to her car by 7 a.m. and take off, go wherever. Sometimes Kmart. Sometimes Wal-Mart. She'll spend hours a day roaming the aisles. "The place has just been going downhill," she says of her home. "I don't know where these characters are coming from."

Many of the newer residents are people with mental disabilities such as schizophrenia and depression; others are battling substance abuse and have been referred to the low-income housing by Wyandotte Mental Health Center, the only agency serving mentally disabled clients in Wyandotte County.

The building has become the place to go for people who can't go anywhere else. Its population has shifted from almost 90 percent elderly to only 30 percent.