Was the 18th Street and Vine area born with a debilitating disease, or did someone assault it?
We know it's hurting. Harper's, a restaurant on the ground floor of the Lincoln Building, closed earlier this month. It followed the Red Vine and the Peachtree as dining establishments that either closed or fled.
Public sources have pumped millions of dollars into the district, the cradle of black life back in the Pendergast days. Few would argue that the investment has performed well.
Usually, I hear the effort to remake the district assessed in one of two ways. What I'll call the "scoundrel" point of view blames bad actors for the conflicts and the disappointments. In this analysis, the government spending on 18th and Vine was not just wasted but stolen.
A softer view sees 18th and Vine as a series of errors and misjudgments. From this perspective, the empty storefronts and money-losing attractions look more like failed ideas than crime scenes.
Over the years, my colleagues at The Pitch have spent a lot of time thinking about and reporting on 18th and Vine. A 2002 story chronicling the Jazz District Redevelopment Corporation's failed efforts to recruit businesses, by then staff writer T.R. Witcher, reads like it could have been written last week ("Nothing for Dinner," May 2, 2002). As recently as October, Casey Lyons was profiling UMKC history professor Pellom McDaniels, the latest strong personality with big plans and high hopes to bring new life to the district ("Historian in Chief," October 27, 2009). In between, various music editors have made note of some sad, counterproductive conflict — Jason Harper's September 1, 2009, Wayward Son column covered how the American Jazz Museum and the Mutual Musicians Foundation put on competing concerts to celebrate Charlie Parker's birthday.
But as a civic enterprise, the 18th and Vine story still eludes me. I can't stop thinking that the critical decisions were made 20 years ago, and the man most responsible for those decisions, former mayor Emanuel Cleaver II, is now in Congress, dealing with other problems.
As a city councilman, Cleaver put together a plan to borrow $114 million and build things. The major pieces of the plan consisted of the Brush Creek beautification and flood-control plan, a new American Royal arena, and construction of a jazz hall of fame at 18th and Vine.
The plan came to life in an atmosphere of racial mistrust. Worried that the city's white majority would reject its overtly black component, Cleaver took his proposal through the City Council — not to a public vote.
A jazz hall was not a new idea. In 1983, six years before the council approved the Cleaver plan, the city announced its intention to build a jazz hall of fame at 18th and Vine.
But just because the concept had been around for a while doesn't mean it was well-thought-out. The city spent two years trying to decide how to begin at 18th and Vine. Finally, the cost of a jazz hall, a Negro Leagues museum and a home for the Black Archives came in at $36.9 million. The Cleaver plan provided only $20 million.
Scaled down and subject to turf battles, the project took on the quality of a Rorschach test. People prone to think the worst about urban-revitalization projects rolled their eyes. Members of the city's black community felt overly scrutinized. "When we try to change the level of participation, we get a lot of questions that are ordinarily not asked," former councilwoman Carol Coe once told a Kansas City Star reporter.
Cleaver, it became apparent, had tried to do too much with too little money. "Twenty million to rebuild a whole area of the city? It's not even going to come close," said Richard Baron of McCormack Baron (the Quality Hill developer brought in to assist at 18th and Vine), according to a 1993 Star article.
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@HIB - Regarding your post and link to the Pitch article about the MMF: This is a well written piece and fairly objective given the fact that the MMF had literally been taken from the membership by the old board of directors. However, I don't think that the fact that the board ignored the by-laws and essentially took over the MMF illegally was emphasized very well here. But, I guess that's not "high drama" enough. I think there is a bias toward highlighting controversy here. Just my $0.02 though... Anyway... Personal differences (drama) between the principles in this Saga aside, there was no MMF membership because the members were summarily and purposely excluded over a period of time by attrition. I don't think that any of the new board members have anything against any of the old board members, we just wanted the membership to be a part of the organization and it was not under the old MMF board. I know and respect all of the old board members. They are great people and have done a lot of great work for the MMF, the music, and KC jazz. To be fair toward her, Lisa Henry simply stated/wrote what many MMF members were thinking and signed her name to it, rather than remain politically correct. And, Betty Crow simply did what she had to do in order to keep the MMF going in some desperate times for the organization, regardless if those methods were subsequently found to not be in keeping with the organization's bylaws. With that said, most people don't buy into painting Betty as a villain, just someone who perhaps thought it necessary to sidestep procedure/red tape/drama in order to reach what was in her mind a positive end for the organization. As far as the "racism" issue, I've never seen it as a platform of anyone I've interacted with on the KC scene, including Betty Crow... but, I associate with cool people. There are no sides to take in this issue. The MMF belongs to everyone. Period. I didn't even know any of that other irrelevant crap was going on and don't think all of the personal stuff is significant to the mission of the organization. That's just the way I think though... Peace, Cb Chris Burnett Musician, Composer, Proud MMF member since returning home to KC in 2001 - also a newly elected "at-large" board member of the MMF
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