All posts by Sean Thomas

Historical Analysis Project.

 

East 60th / East 62nd and Prospect

            For this project we were assigned the task of analyzing historical Sanborn maps and other data sources to observe how a particular assigned area in Kansas City has progressed over the years. Our observations would include things like changes in building density, road network changes, demographic changes, and any other changes in the assigned block group’s character. The particular area in Kansas City that I was assigned was the midtown Prospect boulevard area at East 60th street and East 62nd street.

            At first glance of the site my initial impression of the site was that the area has seen a huge decline in population and that the area had drastically deteriorated. I formed this assumption because of the unkempt vegetation and the closed, boarded-up commercial buildings on the corner of Prospect and East 60th street as you can see in Figure 1.

history-1

Figure 1

Another surface level observation that I made was that there must have been a huge drop in density as there were many empty residential lots that still have driveways leading to the property from the streets but with no built structures there.

            Digging a little deeper beyond the surface level data, I found some Sanborn maps that confirmed that there were actually houses in those now empty lots as you see in Figure 2 which is a Sanborn map from 1939.

history-2

Figure 2

In addition, doing some exploring in Google Earth Pro revealed that there was density in that immediate area up to as late as 205. After that you start to notice the demolition of the neighborhood. That is strange to me as this area of Kansas City isn’t extremely old or anything. It is in fact a little newer than many of the historical areas of Kansas City closer to the urban core that still stand to this day. I found this out by the lack of Sanborn map data prior to year 1939.

            The only other year I was able to find Sanborn map data for was 1950. That particular map is almost identical to the map from year 1939. I infer this is because the bulk of change in the neighborhood didn’t happen until fairly recently. Around those two years is when the neighborhood was most like still new to the metropolitan area and things were still stable.

            In summation of all the interesting data that I found for my neighborhood, I found that the East 60th and East 62nd blocks of Prospect Avenue have seen a drastic decline in population since 1939 when density in the neighborhood and Kansas City in general was more prevalent. Not the area is largely vacant and conditions similar of those in poverty.