She and her friends took over benches outside on the spacious patio. There was so much positive energy and so much affirmation for the people on stage and also just for the people in the crowd,” said Stephanie Olsu, making her first Town visit. “Even being here for the first time tonight, the drag show was amazing. The dance floor, normally thrumming with a crush of dancing bodies, is focused on the stars, at least for the next few hours. Lip-syncing hits from Rihanna to Whitney Houston, the drag queens at Town Danceboutique command the room. WASHINGTON - On a sticky Friday night, performers dripping in sparkles and bright colors light up a darkened dance floor. | 'How are we going to support the community that really thrives in these kinds of clubs?' (WTOP's Teta Alim) Business & Finance Click to expand menu.Twelfth Street might have grown outdated with time, said legendary broadcaster Walt Bodine. Its rebirth proves a point that one of Kansas City’s most prominent storytellers made in the mid-1970s.
As was happening elsewhere around the country in the late 1960s and early 1970s, City Hall tried to revitalize the area by tearing down old buildings through the controversial urban renewal policies established by the federal government.īut 12th Street and downtown really didn’t bounce back until today’s renaissance, driven largely by the establishment of the Kansas City Power & Light District and the wave of people moving downtown. Over time, 12th Street lost steam along with other parts of downtown. Once a strip that featured “female impersonators,” 12th Street was also home to gay bars at that time. Some accounts say that, amidst the racial tensions of the 1950s and 1960s, 12th Street stood out as a melting pot where Black and white patrons mixed easily at “black and tan clubs.” Other recollections, however, described it more as a curated area where Black bands played for mixed audiences that sat separately. The hotspots included the Reno Club and the Orchid Room. Well-known 12th Street jazz bands included the Coon-Sanders Nighthawks Orchestra, and clubs along the strip also hosted prominent jazz artists like Count Basie and Charlie Parker. “Twelfth Street was always known for music,” said vocalist David Basse, who is part of “12th Street Jump,” a weekly jazz, blues and comedy program broadcast by radio station KCUR-FM from the Black Dolphin Lounge in Kansas City, Missouri. The “12th Street …” poem appeared in a Sept. But a curiousKC inquirer remembered enough about the drag’s last hurrah to ask us for a review of the “old 12th Street strip from the 1950s and 1960s.”Īnd that’s what led us to take this enlightening trip down memory lane, with a trove of historical material we sifted through at the Kansas City Public Library’s Missouri Valley Special Collections. The street, once famed for its burlesque houses and ties to the Pendergast clan, was drab by the 1970s. The eight-mile, east-west street runs between the West Bottoms and the eastern edge of the city near the Blue River. It’s a relatively pedestrian thoroughfare now, but it has a bawdy history that reaches back to Kansas City’s stockyard roots and its raucous music and arts scene. But what would you say to the dark horse selection of 12th Street? Obvious candidates include Ward Parkway, The Paseo and Southwest Boulevard. If there’s a street that defines Kansas City, Missouri, which one would you say it is?