To begin, Kansas City’s system of planned parks, boulevards, and infrastructure can be traced to the 1893 Plan for Parks and Boulevards. This early plan, championed by visionary urban designer George Kessler, emphasizes the need to design comprehensively, yet pursue goals incrementally. Like any organism, the city needed to be designed intelligently in order to function sensibly throughout time. The 1893 plan accounted for a series of boulevards, then outside of the city limits, to help organize urban growth moving forward. One of these east-west thoroughfares was Linwood Boulevard. There is no data of the intersections of Garfield to Park existing on Linwood Boulevard in 1895. Thus, one can assume that this artery had not yet been developed. Despite being undeveloped, the boulevard was instructed to be “60 feet wide and contain sections lined by 10-to-12-foot-wide grass strips and 5-to-6-foot-wide sidewalks.”
According to the Sanborn map of 1950, all the residential structures between Garfield and Brooklyn retained the same building footprints. Behind the buildings on the southern side of Linwood from Garfield to Brooklyn, underground gasoline tanks were installed. Also, parking lots behind residences begin to emerge on the Sanborn map. In 1963, the monument to Sanford Brown, Jr. was relocated to a masonic cemetery.
From 1950 to the present, Sanford Brown Plaza has experienced moments of deterioration and revitalization. According to the Kansas City Star in 2009, “at Sanford Brown Plaza, Linwood Boulevard and Brooklyn Avenue, both drinking fountains worked; one didn’t in 2003, about twenty new trees have been planted in recent years, with much less glass and graffiti than six years ago.” Presently, the park appears to be in good order. It is well-landscaped, with new playground equipment, functional facilities, and well-kept basketball courts and baseball diamond.
Thus, the spatial history of Garfield to Park Avenues along Linwood Boulevard is an example of idealistic beginnings that produced mixed results. Sanford Brown Plaza has bounced back to become an important anchor for the community, but the surrounding residential structures are depressing remnants of a bygone era.
