First "Give A Darn Awards"

Unfortunately, it's human nature to pay more attention and to dwell longer on the bad (negative) things that happen in our communities and in our lives. Any bad event makes a greater and longer lasting impression than a comparable good event.

Although that may have had its advantages during prehistoric times (it's definitely important to remember a bad encounter with a sabertooth tiger so you don't have another one), it leads us to fall into a trap of thinking that everything is bad and nothing is good.

But in a 2001 article titled, "Bad Is Stronger Than Good", Roy F. Baumeister and Ellen Bratslavsky concluded that we can still be happy in our lives by, "...having far more good than bad events."

So, as we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, I think it's time that we remind ourselves how important it is to deliberately honor good people, good actions and good outcomes in our city.

Two weeks ago, on November 12, I was privileged to be able to recognize two people who've done a lot of good in District 2 as I presented the first two of what I hope will be thousands of awards.

Many people knew Anna (Ann) Dercher. She was a lifelong KCK resident and, among other things, had been president of the St. Joe Watchdogs neighborhood group and had served as my appointee to the Unified Government Planning Commission.

Ann passed away in September. As I reflected on all the positive things she had done in her neighborhood and our district, I was disappointed that I hadn't done a better job of thanking her for her service, and I had an idea about a small way that I could recognize her and everyone else who "gives a darn" and makes a difference in the district.

I asked the UG Director of Urban Planning and Land Use, Mr. Rob Richardson, if I could make a presentation to Ann's husband Joe at a Planning Commission meeting. He graciously agreed, so here's the presentation I made at the Planning Commission meeting on November 12.

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"Thank you for the opportunity to make this short presentation.

"I became Commissioner two and half years ago. One day as I was really beginning to sink my teeth into the task of solving problems, meeting challenges and getting things done, I lamented, 'No one gives a darn anymore.' (except I actually didn't use the word 'darn').

"Well, of course, that wasn't and isn't true. There are thousands of people in our city who truly do give a darn about their block, their neighborhood, their district and the entire city and county.

"By virtue of the fact that you (Planning Commission) are sitting in those seats tonight, you have demonstrated that you absolutely give a darn.

"And as I further reflected on this topic, I began to think that I really should take proactive steps to begin to recognize and thank those citizens who are stepping up every day in every way to make this a great place to live. I thought that I should try to recognize those people who may or may not have any elected, appointed or hired position but are leading in our community by word and example.

"So... I had the idea that I would create a 'Give A Darn Award'.

"The award certificate says that this award recognizes citizens for "...going above and beyond to support and enrich the people and places of Unified Government District 2”.

"The first two people I thought of when creating this award were Ann and Joe Dercher.

"They have both worked tirelessly for years in their neighborhood and beyond to enrich and improve our city. Ann's years of service on this Planning Commission are just one example of that work.

"When I was told that a representative from Foutch Brothers would be present at the September 11 picnic of the St. Joe Watchdogs neighborhood group, and that he would be talking about the nearly completed renovation of the old Saint Margaret's Hospital and that Ann was going to do her best to be present for a few minutes because that project meant so much to her, I thought that the picnic would be the perfect place to present the inaugural Give A Darn Awards.

"Unfortunately, Ann went into the hospital for the last time just a couple of days before that picnic and I never had a chance to present the award to her.

"As I thought about the next best venue for presenting the award, I thought the Planning Commission would be ideal, given Ann's years of service in her role as a member of this group.

"I am grateful to Mr. Richardson for agreeing to let me make the presentation tonight and I hope that Ann is watching and listening tonight as I say, 'Thank you Ann for all that you did. Thank you for giving a darn about our city.'

"Thanks also to her loving husband Joe Dercher who was her daily partner and worked so hard right alongside her and who demonstrated a give a darn spirit as big as hers.

"Joe, I am honored to have the opportunity to present the inaugural District 2 Give A Darn awards to you."

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Here's what the Give A Darn Award looks like without a frame.

Joe Dercher holds a proclamation for Ann from the Planning Commission
and the nameplate that marked Ann's seat in the Commission Chambers.

I was privileged to present the first two Give A Darn Awards to Joe Dercher.

Having presented the inaugural awards, my plan is to create a "Give a Darn Award" web page linked from my Commissioner page on the UG website. My goal on that page will be to describe the history of the award, outline the basis on which it is given, list all of the recipients to date and tell people how they can nominate someone for a future award.

While I'd love for this to be considered a prestigious award, I don't want to make it an exclusive award. I'll give out as many Give A Darn Awards as there are deserving people to receive them! Wouldn't it be marvelous if we ended up with thousands of names on the Give A Darn Award honor roll?

Click my email address or my Suggestion Box link below to send me a note and nominate one or more people that you believe deserve a Give A Darn Award. Be sure to include their name(s) and the reason(s) that you believe they deserve an award.

I hope everyone has a safe and blessed Thanksgiving!
~ Brian

bmckiernan@wycokck.org
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Minnesota Avenue - Then and Now (in pictures)

Woohoo!

Fate is working in my favor these days. Let me explain...

When I mentioned to Marty Thoennes that my blog post with Central Avenue pictures was getting a great response, he said that the photos had come to the Central Area Betterment Association from retired KCK Police Captain Charles Steele.

Just a morning or two later, I read an email from Patty Dysart in which she said that the special guest at the Armourdale Optimist Club meeting this month would be… Charles Steele... talking about the history of Central Avenue!

Jackpot! How could it get better? A great lunch and an opportunity to talk to Mr. Steele about the photos. The Optimist Club meeting was last Tuesday and it turned out better than I could have ever hoped. Mr. Steele had brought along a handful of new photos that I hadn't seen yet and he loaned them to me so that I could scan them and share them with you.

These photos shift our focus from Central Avenue to the east end of Minnesota Avenue and some of the blocks around it.

He also told me how he ended up with the photos.

As we figured last time, most of the photos in these two collections were taken in the mid-1940s. They were taken by Police Department photographers (for a variety of reasons including documenting the streets, planning traffic control, planning future street improvements, etc.).

Mr. Steele said that in the early 1970s some of the administrators within the Police Department ordered the photos to be thrown away because they were taking up storage space that was needed for other files.

He said that one day at Police Headquarters, he happened to see some employees tearing the old photos in half and putting them in a trashcan. He said that he stopped them and told them he would take all of the photos rather than see them thrown away. Way to go Captain Steele!

So here we go… Avenues (Part 2). As I did last time, I took my cell phone camera out on the street and snapped a current photo that is as close to the original view as possible.

I hope you enjoy this set as much as you did the first. I've also picked up a couple of leads on additional photos and postcards, so this definitely won't be the last post in the "Then and Now" series.  :-)

This picture was taken from the southeast corner of 5th & Minnesota
(where the EPA building is) and is looking
north / northwest up 5th Street.

The Federal Court House on State Avenue dominates the view today.
The Reardon Center is in the foreground on the left.
The Children's Campus is just out of the picture to the right

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From the edge of Huron Park looking east on Armstrong.

Fire Headquarters still looks much the same,
but the rest of the picture is remarkably different.

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Looking north along an alley that was "behind" the old City Hall
(now City Hall lofts). The photographer was standing
just east of 6th Street on Ann Avenue.

The old City Hall building is still there (now converted to lofts).
The building on the right served for years as the Police garage.

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Looking west on Minnesota Avenue.
The photographer was standing about halfway
between 5th and 6th Streets.

The Commercial National Bank building (now UMB)
is still present at the corner of 6th (at left)
and the Kresge building (white) is still present across the street,
but there have been lots of other changes.

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Still looking west on Minnesota Avenue.
The photographer is now standing
just a little west of the 6th and Minnesota intersection.

Lots of changes (and a few new gaps) on this block.

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Looking north on 7th Street
from the intersection of 7th Street and Ann Avenue.

The Security Bank building now dominates the view on the left.
The old Scottish Rite Temple on the right is now the 7th Street Casino.

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Looking south / southeast from 8th and State Avenue.
The antenna in the right background was for KCKN radio
(which had studios on the 2nd floor of the Kansan building).

The KCKN antenna is gone on the right, but you can see
the reflections from the windows of the new Brotherhood tower on the left.

Have a great week!
~ Brian

bmckiernan@wycokck.org
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Are You Throwing Away Money?

A lot of people liked the historical pictures of Central Avenue! I've had a couple of offers of more pictures of both Central Avenue and Minnesota Avenue, so I'll start putting together another "then and now" post. Stay tuned.  :-)

Today, we're going to head south in the District to Armourdale. Last week I had the pleasure of visiting one of the most fascinating businesses in the district, and I'd like to share what I saw / learned.

This is how AMR's most visible building looks from 7th Street.

I don't know about everyone else, but when I hear "metal recycling" I typically only think about the aluminum cans and tin cans that we put in our green recycling containers every Wednesday.

As I learned last week, there is lots and lots more metal that can be recycled...and we can get paid if we put in the effort to recycle it! Huge thanks to Raynard Brown and Brian Jacobs for giving me a tour and educating me about the operation of Advantage Metals Recycling (AMR).

AMR is located at 1015 S. Packard (just east of 7th Street Trafficway and just north of the Kansas River) in the southern part of Armourdale.

The red lines outline Advantage Metals Recycling.
You can see the Kansas River at the bottom of the picture.

This particular location first opened in 1954 and it became AMR in 2008. The company employs 45 people to operate the 15 acre Armourdale site. It's one of 16 different AMR locations in Kansas and Missouri.

Now here's the part that blew my mind… this one location recycles close to 350 million pounds of metal every year!

About 60% of that total comes from businesses. The other 40% comes from people like you and me.

There's lots of aluminum that can be recycled besides soda cans.
Among other things, this bin had the rollers from an old garage door,
the chassis from an electronic device and a discarded TV antenna.
(Click any picture to get a larger look.)

AMR collects both ferrous metals (containing iron) and nonferrous metals (not containing iron) from individuals and businesses in about a 150 mile radius around Kansas City. They sort and process everything they receive, and ship the chopped, shredded, pressed and/or bundled results of their efforts to manufacturing plants within about a 500 mile radius of Kansas City.

Those plants then melt the recycled metal from AMR and reuse it to create new metal products.

For example, back on October 9, demolition crews demolished the steel superstructure of the old Amelia Earhart bridge in Atchison, Kansas. Guess where it all ended up? That's right… Advantage Metals Recycling. The picture below shows pieces of the bridge girders (green in color) waiting to be chopped up and loaded onto train cars.

A stack of metal including girders from the Amelia Earhart bridge
wait to be chopped, shipped and used again.

Here's a quick list of the metal that the company accepts:

• Steel/iron
• Cast iron
• Stainless steel
• Aluminum
• Copper
• Brass
• Lead
• Zinc
• Assorted alloys

All sorts of manufacturers and contractors (like General Motors in Fairfax and Kawasaki in Maryville, Missouri) do their part to keep the environment clean by shipping all of their excess, defective or discarded metal to AMR for recycling.

It doesn't look like much, but this metal "chopper"
is the most impressive equipment in the plant.
Metal gets loaded into the little building by the crane at right.
A giant piston (red arrow) drives two sets of giant blades
that chop the metal up small enough it can be loaded into train cars.

Another crane with a big claw (think "Toy Story")
picks up chunks of chopped metal and loads them in a train car for shipping.

As I walked around the yard, it occurred to me that this isn't anything like the junkyard on the old TV show "Sanford and Son". Although they effectively deal in "junk", AMR is a sophisticated, high-quality, precision operation.

And it's no small challenge to build a recycling plant like this one. For example, each one of the big yellow cranes (seen in several different pictures here) costs over $600,000. The giant "metal chopping" machine contains four blades that cost about $5,000 each. The blades last about a month before they need to be replaced! And those are only two examples of the high tech equipment scattered throughout the site.

This impressive machine uses giant rams to squish
soft metals and wire into bales that are shipped off for reuse.

Two examples of the output from the baler...
aluminum cans (lower left) and random wires (upper right).

Who knew?? This big tangled, white and green mess contains
hundreds of strings of broken Christmas lights that are being recycled.

Boxes of metal pieces wait to be squished and baled for shipping.
The variety of objects that have been recycled is surprising (lower left).

One thing that many people are concerned about is the recycling of stolen metals.

It's no secret that air conditioner coils and copper pipes (among other things) are very often targeted by thieves looking to make a quick buck. Although the amount of money that the thieves might receive from a recycling center is relatively small, they almost always leave behind a large mess and a big repair bill.

I was very impressed with the steps that AMR takes to discourage thieves from attempting to recycle stolen metal at their site.

They have a clear and comprehensive set of guidelines governing what kinds of metals can to be recycled and by whom. Additionally, they keep accurate records of every recycling transaction.

For example, every consumer transaction is recorded in multiple ways. Cameras and scanners located throughout the plant capture images of the person who is doing the recycling, his or her driver's license, his or her vehicle and the metal that is being recycled. Additionally, the person who is doing the recycling is not handed cash at the checkout counter. Instead, they are given a card that can be inserted into an ATM located outside the building.

A sign in the consumer recycling area details the restrictions
on what can be recycled and by whom.

Mr. Brown said that AMR has made a tremendous investment in video and computer technology to support the anti-theft efforts. The company stores terabytes (lots and lots) of data each year on their computer servers. He said that AMR provides information to local police departments five or six times a month to help in the investigation and/or prosecution of theft cases.

Additionally, AMR has been an active participant in helping all KC area governments create and update ordinances that regulate the recycling process and make it harder for thieves to profit.

All those gray strips at the bottom of this pile are
lawn mower blades that didn't make the cut (so to speak)
and are being recycled.

The gigantic pile of metal shavings behind the blue container
is what's left after the Kawasaki plant in Maryville, Missouri
mills aluminum blocks to make motorcycle engines.

Although it looks like a giant pile of red hair, this huge tangle
is composed of the steel cords that go into "steel-belted" tires.
It's brown instead of silver because the cords have oxidized from sitting outside.

An AMR employee (right foreground) waits for a crane
to come unload a customer's trailer (left foreground).
The size of the pile behind the employee gives you
a sense of the volume of metal processed by AMR.

So... the next time you're about to throw some metal in the trashcan, consider taking it to Advantage Metals Recycling. They are open Monday - Friday from 8:00am to 4:30pm and on Saturday from 8:00am to noon.


Have a great week!
~ Brian

bmckiernan@wycokck.org
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Central Avenue - Then and Now (in Pictures)

The other day, I stopped by the office of the Central Area Betterment Association to talk with Marty Thoennes and I noticed that he had several old photographs of Central Avenue hanging on the wall.

I had a great time looking at those old photographs and mentally comparing them to how Central Avenue looks today. I thought you might also enjoy a look at Central Avenue "then and now".

Marty had 12 prints that were not in frames and he loaned them to me for the afternoon. I had the prints scanned into digital pictures and I've posted them here.

The photos are arranged from east to west. The caption for each photo gives the rough description of the vantage point and what the photo shows.

Last Friday afternoon, I went out and took "now" photos... trying to get as close to the original vantage point as I could (without getting run over!). I cropped my new photos so that they showed a view that is as close to the old photo as possible.

I hope you enjoy the look back as much as I did. The photos show up fairly small in the blog, but the originals that I uploaded are really big, so if you click on one picture, you'll be able to view them all in a much larger size.

The first photo is dated August 11, 1945, so I assume that all of the photos were taken sometime in the mid 1940s.

I'm sure you'll all see different details, but here are a few things that stood out to me:

• There was diagonal parking along Central Avenue in all of the old photos, BUT there was no "center turn lane". Looks like we had to trade one for the other.
• There are lots and lots of overhead wires in the old photos.
• There are streetcar (trolley) tracks and/or streetcars (trolleys) in every photo. So... we used to have "light rail", then we tore it out and now were thinking about putting it back. :-)
• There were very few gaps between buildings in the old photos. Central Avenue "today" has what I call "hillbilly teeth" (i.e., one building... a lot of empty space... another building... etc.) compared to Central Avenue "then".
• There are tons of people and cars in almost every photo.
• The old streetlights looked cool.

Enjoy!

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Looking east towards 7th Street while standing at Simpson Avenue.

Not nearly as many buildings in this view.

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Still looking east towards 7th Street, but a little further around the bend.

Almost none of the buildings on the north (left) side of the street still exist.

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Looking west toward 10th Street from about Ferree Street.

All of the old buildings east of 10th (close to the camera) are gone.

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Looking southeast while standing at the corner of 10th and Central.

There used to be a building on the triangle
that is now Lally Park (tall evergreen)!!

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Looking east toward 10th and Central from about Baltimore St.

Look at all the old buildings that are "missing" on the left side of the street.
(I still remember what it smelled like the night Drew Hardware burned.)

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Looking east from between 16th and 17th Streets.

A pretty comparable view.

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Looking west to the intersection of Central Avenue, 18th Street and Park Drive.

Wow! All the buildings on the right side of Central are now gone.
Also gone is the Standard Service station and the house
on what is now Trolley Park (middle of photo).

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On the other side of the intersection...
Looking east at the intersection of Central Avenue, 18th Street and Park Drive.

This photo is from street level since there's no
wall behind the Standard Service station to climb on.

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Looking southeast at 19th Street and Central Avenue.
That's a house up on the hill among the trees.
Off to the right you can see "Kroger's" on the building
that has most recently been Casa de Tacos and Casa de Hernandez.

It's amazing to me that we took away the gas station, house and all the dirt
in the little triangle that is now Trolley Park.

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Looking southwest along Park Drive from 21st Street.

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Looking "back" northeast along Park Drive from about 22nd Street.

The road is in much better shape without the trolley tracks.

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Looking west along Park Drive between 22nd and 23rd Streets.

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Click a link below to send me a message if you have any thoughts or observations.

If anyone has any old / historical photos of Minnesota Avenue or Kansas Avenue, please drop me a note. I'd love to scan those photos to digital pictures and do a "then and now" look at those avenues as well.

Have a great week!

~ Brian

bmckiernan@wycokck.org
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