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About Quality Hill
Quality Hill is an historic and upscale neighborhood in downtown Kansas City,
Missouri, USA, on a 200-foot-high bluff that overlooks the confluence of the
Kansas River and Missouri River in the West Bottoms below.
It is located on the west side of downtown, between Broadway and I-35 to the
east and west, and between 7th Street and 14th Street to the north and south.
The Kansas border is half a mile away through the West Bottoms. Quality Hill has
been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978. Today, it
includes residences, large businesses (including the headquarters of Kansas City
Southern Industries and DST Systems Inc.), retail establishments, entertainment
venues, and private clubs.
Situated within fourteen blocks of the Missouri River itself, Quality Hill is
the oldest still-inhabited originally residential neighborhood in the Kansas
City metropolitan area.
A signpost in both French and English erected by the Chouteau Society at the
northwest corner of 11th Street and Washington Street, near the Cathedral of the
Immaculate Conception (known for its gold-covered dome and the oldest standing
building on Quality Hill), seat of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Kansas City
and St. Joseph, states that the corner was the site of an early 18th century
French missionary church, the oldest structure known to have been built by
westerners in the region. This would have been in keeping with the era of French
fur trappers who traveled the river. The first officially-recorded church on the
site, however, was built in 1822 at the behest of Fran�ois Chouteau, who is
credited with being Kansas City's first Western permanent settler.
Quality Hill also features the 19th century Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral,
seat of the Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri. Several buildings on Quality
Hill date to before the Civil War.
On September 15, 1806, the Lewis and Clark Expedition stopped on what is now
Quality Hill, on its return from the Pacific Ocean. Meriwether Lewis noted in
his journal that the site offered a "commanding situation for a fort." Today,
the site is commemorated by a large bronze sculpture, informational signposts,
and a lookout point at the north end of Case Park, located at 8th Street and
Jefferson Street.
Between its formal inception as a neighborhood in 1857 and a short time after
the end of World War I, Quality Hill was the most fashionable and expensive
neighborhood in Kansas City. Many of the city's leaders of power and industry
lived high on Quality Hill's limestone bluffs in large houses overlooking the
West Bottoms below. There, they had ready access to their businesses and to the
ports of commerce.
The rise of the powerful Pendergast Machine is defined by the hill. In the early
1900s, Jim Pendergast achieved his political power while operating out of his
Climax saloon at the foot of the hill in the West Bottoms (and its associated
Kansas City Stockyards). His chief rival was Joe Shannon. Shannon's faction was
named the "rabbits" because of their connection to the old ways of doing things
in lowlands along the rivers (one of the initial names for Kansas City was “Rabbitville”)
while the Pendergast faction was named the goats because of their desire to
climb out of the bottoms. Tom Pendergast was to succeed his brother. Pendergast
arranged to have a park built on Quality Hill overlooking the Kansas City
Downtown Airport which was built during his reign (today, this park is known as
Case Park). A statue of Jim Pendergast was placed in the park; it remains there
today. The hill was a popular spot to watch the planes take off. Planes had
climb steeply to avoid the 200-foot hill and its buildings (which was a
consideration when the city the moved its main airport further north to Kansas
City International Airport in 1972).
In 1953, the American Hereford Association placed a fiberglass statue of a bull
on a 90-foot pylon at its headquarters at 715 Kirk Drive, with President Dwight
D. Eisenhower presiding. The bull was nicknamed "Bob" by locals (due to the
acronym created by the phrase "Bull on Building") and was either loved as an
icon or reviled as kitsch that detracted from the city's beauty. The statue's
sculptor was Paul Decker with the firm Rochetti and Parzini of New York City; it
was fabricated at Colonial Plastic Corporation of Newark, New Jersey.
Downtown Kansas City went into a decline in the 1960s and 1970s, and Quality
Hill fell into extreme disrepair.
In the 1970s, the Hall Family Foundation acquired nearly all of Quality Hill,
built some new structures, and refurbished old ones. In the 1980s, the
Foundation granted property management rights to a private lessor company,
McCormack Baron Ragan, which today owns and manages eight blocks of the
neighborhood (as New Quality Hill). DST Systems also purchased a large amount of
real estate on Quality Hill, which it owns and manages today.
In the 1990s the architecture firm HNTB bought the American Hereford building
for its world headquarters and removed the bull statute from the building. In
2002, HNTB and other firms arranged to have it moved across I-35 to Mulkey
Square.
In 2004, Kansas City Southern Industries completed a multimillion-dollar new
headquarters, designed after Quality Hill's distinctive architectural style,
located between the two cathedrals. The Heart of America United Way (the Kansas
City Metropolitan Area branch of the United Way) also maintains its headquarters
in the heart of Quality Hill, in the former Virginia Hotel and two 19th century
houses along Washington and Pennsylvania streets.
Since its refurbishment, Quality Hill once again has become a highly upscale
urban neighborhood. It is widely regarded as one of the best successes in urban
renewal in the United States. Among the neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri,
the average income of Quality Hill residents is second only to the Sunset Hill
neighborhood immediately south of the Country Club Plaza. Quality Hill's
attractiveness to potential inhabitants derives from both its historic beauty
and its ready access to the cultural and business benefits of downtown Kansas
City. Its architecture - both historic and new, echoing Kansas City's origins
and in much the same way as St. Louis's historic Soulard neighborhood, is mostly
in a 19th-century French colonial style.
Today, refurbishment of Quality Hill continues. Recently, several 19th century
buildings have been converted into expensive apartments, although this has not
gone without some controversy. Additionally, there are concerns by some
residents that the neighborhood is slowly falling into disrepair once again.
Developer McCormick Baron Salazar says it is working to address those concerns.
As redevelopment of Downtown Kansas City burgeons, and with the population
having swelled from 3,000 in 2002 to over 15,000 in 2005, Quality Hill's
population continues to grow rapidly (and the cost of living there continues to
skyrocket).
The Quality Hill Playhouse, one of downtown Kansas City's most popular theater
venues, features many Broadway and off-Broadway shows.
The River Club, one of Kansas City's most exclusive private clubs (and
undoubtedly its most exclusive city club), is also located on Quality Hill, on
8th Street between Jefferson and Pennsylvania Streets, near the Lewis and Clark
historic site.