The Library District is an officially designated neighborhood in DowntownKansas City,
Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, roughly bounded by 9th and 11th Streets on the north and south and Main Street and Broadway on the east and west. The District contains a sub-district named the West Ninth Street/Baltimore Avenue Historic District listed on the National Register and which includes several buildings individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It also contains other notable structures not listed on the National Register.
History of the Library District
Originally developed as a commercial and entertainment area in the 1880s, the Library District took its new name in 2003 in connection with the move of the
Kansas City Public Library
The Kansas City Public Library is a public system headquartered in the Central Library in Kansas City, Missouri.
The system operates its Central Library and neighborhood branches located in Kansas City, Independence, and Sugar Creek. Founde ...
's Central Branch to the former headquarters of the First National Bank of Kansas City, presently the Central Library. At the same time, many commercial office buildings nearby were converted to
loft apartment
A loft is a building's upper storey or elevated area in a room directly under the roof (American usage), or just an attic: a storage space under the roof usually accessed by a ladder (primarily British usage). A loft apartment refers to large ...
residences and the City of Kansas City initiated major streetscape improvements within the district. Together, these changes established a distinctive character for the neighborhood.
Distinctive features
The Library District has walking tour guide available through the Kansas City Public Library's website. The walking tour guide begins at the steps of the Library's public garage on 10th Street, between Wyandotte Street and Baltimore Avenue.
Library district buildings on the National Register of Historic Places
Kansas City Club
The Kansas City Club, founded in 1882 and located in the Library District of Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, USA, was the oldest gentlemen's club in Missouri. The club began admitting women members in 1975. Along with the River Club on nearby ...
The Kansas City Library District Garage "Community Bookshelf"
The Central Library's parking garage has a distinctive facade on 10th Street, using images of 22 9-meter-high bookspines to create a "community bookshelf." The garage was created by architect Brian M. Finn when he was with the architectural firm CDFM2 in 2003. The signage firm Dimensional Innovations made the Mylar bookends and postcard images, and local residents got to choose which titles would be represented in the bookshelf. The Wyandotte Street facade includes enlarged historic postcards with images of 10th Street and 9th Street from the early 1900s. The Baltimore Avenue facade next to the
Kansas City Club
The Kansas City Club, founded in 1882 and located in the Library District of Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, USA, was the oldest gentlemen's club in Missouri. The club began admitting women members in 1975. Along with the River Club on nearby ...
includes giant banners with images of the Great Hall of the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
' Jefferson Building and a fanciful image of a gathering of famous Kansas Citians in an architectural fantasy by local artist Bob Holloway.
The 22 "Community Bookshelf" book titles (in order from West to East on 10th street):Community Bookshelf , Kansas City Public Library /ref>
*''Kansas City Stories, Volume I''
**''Kansas City, Missouri; Its History and Its People 1808-1908'' ( Carrie Westlake Whitney) 1908
**''Tom’s Town, Kansas City and the
Pendergast
Pendergast ( ga, de Piondárgas, ''Piondárgas'') is a Norman-Irish surname derived from Prendergast.
Pendergast may refer to:
*Aloysius Pendergast, character in novels by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
*Clancy Pendergast (born 1967), Ameri ...
Legend'' (William M. Reddig) 1986
**''Goin’ to Kansas City'' (Nathan W. Pearson, Jr.) 1987
**''Farm: A Year in the Life of an American Farmer'' (
Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the S ...
) 1989
**''Mr. Anonymous, the Story of
William Volker William Volker (; ; April 1, 1859 – November 4, 1947) was an entrepreneur who turned a picture frame business into a multimillion-dollar empire and who then gave away his fortune to shape much of Kansas City, Missouri, both through the William V ...
'' (Herbert C. Cornuelle) 1951
**''Kansas City, Missouri: An Architectural History, 1826 - 1990'' (George Ehrlich) 1992
**''Journeys Through Time: A Young Traveler’s Guide to Kansas City’s History'' (Monroe Dodd, Daniel Serda) 2000
*''Kansas City Stories, Volume II''
**''Virgil Thomson, a Reader: Selected Writings 1924-1984'' (
Thomson Thomson may refer to:
Names
* Thomson (surname), a list of people with this name and a description of its origin
* Thomson baronets, four baronetcies created for persons with the surname Thomson
Businesses and organizations
* SGS-Thomson Mic ...
) 2002
**''Mrs. Bridge'' ( Connell) 1959
**''I Was Right on Time'' ( O'Neil) 1996
**''The O’Donnells'' (Peggy Sullivan) 1956
**''Independence Avenue'' (Eileen Sherman) 1990
**''Stella Louella’s Runaway Book'' (Lisa Campbell Ernst) 1998
**'' PrairyErth: (A Deep Map)'' ( Least Heat-Moon) 1991
**''Messages from my Father'' (
Calvin Trillin
Calvin Marshall Trillin (born 5 December 1935) is an American journalist, humorist, food writer, poet, memoirist and novelist. He is a winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor (2012) and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts ...
) 1996
*''
Catch-22
''Catch-22'' is a satirical war novel by American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953; the novel was first published in 1961. Often cited as one of the most significant novels of the twentieth century, it uses a distinctive non-ch ...
Goodnight Moon
''Goodnight Moon'' is an American children's book written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd. It was published on September 3, 1947, and is a highly acclaimed bedtime story.
This book is the second in Brown and Hurd's "cla ...
'' (
Brown
Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model us ...
, pictures by
Hurd
GNU Hurd is a collection of microkernel servers written as part of GNU, for the GNU Mach microkernel. It has been under development since 1990 by the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation, designed as a replacement for the Unix kernel, an ...
)
**''
Harold and the Purple Crayon
''Harold and the Purple Crayon'' is a 1955 children's book by Crockett Johnson. Published by Harper Collins Publishers, it is Johnson's most popular book, and has led to a series of other books, as well as many adaptations.
Plot
The protagonist ...
'' (
Johnson
Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...
)
**''
Winnie the Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear and Pooh, is a fictional Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard.
The first collection of stories about the character w ...
Green Eggs and Ham
''Green Eggs and Ham'' is a children's book by Dr. Seuss, first published on August 12, 1960. As of 2019, the book has sold 8 million copies worldwide.
The story has appeared in several adaptations, starting with 1973's '' Dr. Seuss on the Loos ...
Little House on the Prairie
The ''Little House on the Prairie'' books is a series of American children's novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder (b. Laura Elizabeth Ingalls). The stories are based on her childhood and adolescence in the American Midwest (Wisconsin, Kansas, ...
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' is a children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. It is the first novel in the Oz series of books. A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the magical Land of Oz afte ...
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Baum
Baum is a German surname meaning "tree" (not to be confused with the French surname Baume). Notable people with this surname include:
* Bernie Baum (1929–1993), American songwriter
* Carol Baum, American film producer
* Christina Baum (b ...
Hamilton Hamilton may refer to:
People
* Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname
** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland
** Lord Hamilt ...
)
*''
Silent Spring
''Silent Spring'' is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading d ...
O Pioneers!
O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), pl ...
Their Eyes Were Watching God
''Their Eyes Were Watching God'' is a 1937 novel by American writer Zora Neale Hurston. It is considered a classic of the Harlem Renaissance, and Hurston's best known work. The novel explores main character Janie Crawford's "ripening from a v ...
Fahrenheit 451
''Fahrenheit 451'' is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Often regarded as one of his best works, ''Fahrenheit 451'' presents an American society where books have been personified and outlawed and "firemen" burn any that ar ...
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' or as it is known in more recent editions, ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United St ...
'' (
Twain
Twain may refer to:
People
* Mark Twain, pen name of American writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910)
* Norman Twain (1930–2016), American film producer
* Shania Twain (born 1965), Canadian singer-songwriter
Places
* Twain, California, a ...
)
''(Building Entrance)''
*''
Tao Te Ching
The ''Tao Te Ching'' (, ; ) is a Chinese classic text written around 400 BC and traditionally credited to the sage Laozi, though the text's authorship, date of composition and date of compilation are debated. The oldest excavated portion d ...
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Lao Tzu
Laozi (), also known by numerous other names, was a semilegendary ancient Chinese Taoist philosopher. Laozi ( zh, ) is a Chinese honorific, generally translated as "the Old Master". Traditional accounts say he was born as in the state of ...
)
*''The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes'' (
Hughes
Hughes may refer to:
People
* Hughes (surname)
* Hughes (given name)
Places Antarctica
* Hughes Range (Antarctica), Ross Dependency
* Mount Hughes, Oates Land
* Hughes Basin, Oates Land
* Hughes Bay, Graham Land
* Hughes Bluff, Victoria La ...
)
*''
Black Elk Speaks
''Black Elk Speaks'' is a 1932 book by John G. Neihardt, an American poet and writer, who relates the story of Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota medicine man. Black Elk spoke in Lakota and Black Elk's son, Ben Black Elk, who was present during the ta ...
Invisible Man
''Invisible Man'' is a novel by Ralph Ellison, published by Random House in 1952. It addresses many of the social and intellectual issues faced by African Americans in the early twentieth century, including black nationalism, the relationship b ...
'' (
Ellison
Ellison is a surname and given name. It may derive from "Son of Elias" in Norwegian. Ellison can also be spelled Ellisson, Elison, Elisson, Ellyson, Ellysson, Elyson, and Elysson.
People with the surname
* Andy Ellison, British musician
* ...
)
*''
To Kill a Mockingbird
''To Kill a Mockingbird'' is a novel by the American author Harper Lee. It was published in 1960 and was instantly successful. In the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' has become ...
Lewis
Lewis may refer to:
Names
* Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name
* Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname
Music
* Lewis (musician), Canadian singer
* "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...
,
Clark
Clark is an English language surname, ultimately derived from the Latin with historical links to England, Scotland, and Ireland ''clericus'' meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone who was educate ...
The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...
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Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works '' The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawl ...
)
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A Tale of Two Cities
''A Tale of Two Cities'' is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in ...
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Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
McCullough
McCullough is a Northern Irish surname. It is a variation of the Scottish McCulloch. In Irish Gaelic it's “''Mac Cú Uladh''”, which means ''“Son of Ulster”.''
People with the surname McCullough:
* Alfred McCullough (born 1989), Ameri ...
)
Further reading
* George Ehrlich, Kansas City, Missouri: An Architectural History, (Kansas City: Historic Kansas City Foundation, 1979)
* Millstein, Cydney. “West Ninth Street Baltimore Avenue Historic District Boundary Increase I, Kansas City, Missouri.” National Register of Historic Places Nomination, 2001.
* Millstein, Cydney Library District Walking Tour Guide Kansas City Public Library. 2004