I was given the area on Troost between 72nd terrace and 75th street to study. Looking into this area was very interesting and I learned a lot. The thing that I found most surprising while doing my research was just how much the area had been developed in a short amount of time. I included a picture of three figure-ground diagrams to show just how much the area has changed over the course of around ninety years. The figure-ground diagrams only show buildings directly on Troost. The figure-ground diagram on the far left is based on the earliest map I could find of my area. This map came from a 1925 Atlas of Kansas City and as the figure-ground diagram shows, there was only one building on my area of Troost during 1925. The figure-ground diagram in the middle is based on a 1950 Sanborn fire insurance map. This map shows that there was a lot of development on the east side of Troost in 25 years and that Kansas City was expanding. The final figure-ground diagram on the right represents my area currently and is based off observations I made and google maps. This final figure-ground diagram shows that there has been a good amount of development on both sides of Troost. Another interesting thing I found is that some of the buildings still stand from 1950. One of which is “The Firehouse Southside Activity Center” which is currently closed, but the 1950 Sanborn map has the building marked on it as a firehouse. A current picture of the firehouse is also included.
