In capstone, we’re all working on a a group documentary project about Broadway.
That’s Broadway the street, mind you.
I campaigned heavily for Broadway to be our project topic because I think Broadway epitomizes the city of Columbia. It’s got the eclectic/trendy downtown, City Hall, historic residential neighborhoods, student apartments, developing neighborhoods, big commercial strip malls and it’s the oldest street in the city.
My contribution to the project? I’ll be working on the development aspect. Broadway “began” where downtown is now, and ever since, it’s been expanding and developing on its western and eastern ends. So I’ve been exploring those two “ends” of Broadway.
Today, I went to the eastern end — past Hwy 63, where I’ve never been before. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was hoping to find a developing neighborhood whose growth has been stunted by the economic crisis and recession. Sure enough, I found that neighborhood.
The sales office at The Vineyards, a partially-developed neighborhood on East Broadway/East Hwy WW.
The speed limit on East Broadway past Hwy 63 is 45; I was going at 35 because I wanted to look around as I was driving. But it’s a two-lane road, and when I saw that the two drivers behind me were getting impatient with me, I threw on my turn signal and drove into a neighborhood. After a quick drive around, I observed that:
- each lot was fairly large and not every lot had a house built yet,
- mailboxes were completely identical to each other (much like those in the Village of Cherry Hill), and
- quite a few houses had signs indicating they were for sale or sold.
I parked at the clubhouse near the neighborhood’s entrance and approached a woman who was walking with her young son. After introducing myself as a photojournalism student looking into development in Columbia, I was pleasantly surprised when the woman — Becky — said she was a builder before the economic crisis hit.
Becky gave me a lot of information about the Vineyards, which began development three or four years ago. The neighborhood’s Phase I — the subdivision we were in — was hardly completed, and the Phase II subdivision half a mile away had just begun when the stock market fell. Becky also said the Old Hawthorne neighborhood further down the road was worth checking out: its golf course is almost PGA-level, and it might soon feature Thomas Kinkade-style houses.
I definitely learned a lot, and I’ll be exploring more of the East Broadway region over the next few days.
Across East Broadway from The Vineyards is the largely-houseless planned subdivision of Old Hawthorne Plaza.
Words and Light 
That’s really interesting. Back home, they’ve built up a lot of new houses really fast, but there are some that are only partially built.
If you’re ever in Kansas and want an interesting (albeit potentially dangerous) place to visit/photograph, you should look up Clearview City and the Sunflower Ammunition Plant, just off of K-10 before you get to Eudora. The ammo plant is abandoned and all kinds of creepy, but Clearview City is eerily small and still occupied.
I rode there for the first time with my mom and sister, and it’s interesting because it looks more like a slum than anything else. I think I called it a “shanty town.” Clearview City is a tiny subdivision across from the ammo plant that used to house military families. When we rode through, it was a gray, overcast day, and the whole landscape just reeked “zombie attack.”
That actually sounds like something kinda neat to check out and make pictures of. If I’m ever on that side of Kansas City, I’ll try and swing by there.
The homes at The Vineyards neighborhood were on the $200-$300,000 range, I think is what Becky said. (I didn’t get my notebook out until after I’d asked that question.) So it’s certainly no shanty town. But because it’s only three or four years old and largely empty still, it looked pretty desolate — especially during this overcast afternoon.
Score!
[…] March 27, 2010 by Chris Dunn My entire capstone class is finishing the group documentary project on Broadway. […]