I can't afford to live there?!?

A friend at church recently told me that he would love to live in Kansas City where I do, but that he and his wife could not afford to live there. Based on stories he had heard from a friend who had trouble with vandlism in east Kansas City, my friend reasoned that living in east Kansas City would end up costing him more in time and effort than he wanted to put into his living situation. Yet, he also mentioned that in the past month he had over $2500 of items stolen from his car outside his house in a far more affluent western part of KC. I don't know if his reasoning is based on fear or simple rumors and perceptions. It is true that my house in east KC has been broken into, but in comparison to my friend I did not loose much because my nieghbor watches out for me and called the police when she noticed something was wrong. I am wondering what is the main factor in what we deam as safe and unsafe neighborhoods? Is it possible that factors other than real statistics are the driving factors in making a person feel safe or unsafe?

Baseball!

I am still a Minnesota Twins fan. However one thing I have been looking forward to in Kansas is going to KC Royals games. In Minnesota, the Twins play indoors with no wind and a controled temp of 70deg. At the Royals game this week, the gametime temp was 34 deg with a wind chill in the low 20's. I like being outdoors, but this is just too cold for baseball.

Wrong Block?

I was outside watering my garden yesterday when I heard a voice say:
"You don't need to be here, You're on the wrong block! Thats right, I'm talking to you. You ugly white f--k!"
I think I would have felt intimidated by this, but the shouting came from a very innocent looking 9yr old girl who was walking home from school with her friends. How can I respond to this? My roommate later pointed out that this girl might have been addressing his girlfriend who was sitting on my front porch with him, but it doesn't make much sense that someone would just randomly deride a person on my porch for being female and white. No one ever said things like this to me in Minnesota. I am really confused and a little bit scared because I can't imagine that a 9 yr old girl came up with such things by herself.

Support Structures

My house has a tired slope in the middle. The solution for this seems rather simple. Get something to lift it up and support the part of the house that has sunk. Usually this is done with basement jacks. These are large steel poles that a person turns with a big wrench in order to raise the house support beams by about 1/4 inch per day. In my case however, I discovered that the concrete in my basement floor was not thick enough to support the new basement jacks when the basement jacks broke through the concrete floor. I must find a better solution for lifting and supporting the house.

Fire and Friends

This fine looking house is my current residence in Santa Fe Place, Kansas City. As for the house, after a month of work, I have been blessed to host my first visitors at the house this week. Six friends from Minnesota came down this week. We have had a wonderful time exploring Kansas City and making life work together in the house amidst construction zone. In addition to the six Minnesota visitors, there are myself and 2 roommates living in the house, making for a total of nine people staying in the house this weekend. I have forgotten how much more fun life can be with a crowd of people living together! Perhaps the highlight of the week was having our very first back yard bon fire night on Monday.

Intro to Santa Fe Place, Kansas City

This is the first entry into a journal on one guy's experiences in moving from Minnesota to rebuild one abandoned house in Kansas City. The title of the blog comes from my neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri; the historic Santa Fe Place Neighborhood. I am diving into this project with little experience in rebuilding houses and I have never lived outside of Minnesota until this endeavor. Whether I like it or not, many learning opportunities will confront me, and I am a person who tends to understand learning opportunities best when I am able to think them through by outward expression. Writing a blog seems like my best option for reflecting on this adventure.

I like History! Let's start with a brief introduction to the Santa Fe Neighborhood history.

In 1827, John Thornton became the first person to file a claim on the 520 acre land
known today as the Santa Fe Neighborhood. The land was used as a distillery and grain
mill to serve the people on the Santa Fe Trail and those in the Westport and Kansas City
areas. In 1835 the land was purchased by Jones and Rachel Lockridge, who had five
children and several slaves.
Between 1850 and 1860, Thomas Lockridge, a son, extended the farm’s boundaries and
constructed Kansas City’s first public hall at 5th and Main Street. During the Civil War,
Thomas Lockridge sold much of the family’s farm, with the exception of the family homestead.
(By his father’s will this property could only be transferred from one Lockridge
to another, not sold.) After Thomas’s death in 1868, relatives had the will revoked, and
in 1893 they began developing an exclusive residential neighborhood called Santa Fe
Place. By 1915, Santa Fe had the reputation as “the place to live” for the rich and powerful
in Kansas City. During the 1920’s, Santa Fe maintained its elite status. Also
during this time period, J.C. Nicols began developing the Country Club district, attracting
affluent White families.
In 1931, the all-White neighborhood created a covenant that “no real estate in Santa Fe
Place could be sold, given, rented to or occupied by Black people for a period of thirty
years.” Despite the covenant, in 1948, Dr. D.M. Miller and his wife became the first
Black family to establish residency in Santa Fe. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled the
covenant unconstitutional and illegal in 1949. By the 1950’s, affluent Black families had
moved into some of the homes in the Santa Fe neighborhood.
The first of nine organized community groups, Victor Neighborhood Club, was formed in
1951 and established rules for keeping the neighborhood attractive. After struggling to
find educational services for their children, Benton School was designated a Black school
in the area. Later, the name of the school was changed to D. A. Holmes School. In 1986,
the Santa Fe neighborhood was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The
Santa Fe neighborhood has faced challenging times, and has a rich history
-Santa Fe Neighborhood Report from July, 2001