This article is under verification. Some claims may be incomplete or awaiting a cited source. KS.City is a civic encyclopedia in active compilation.

The Troost Corridor runs the length of Troost Avenue, a roughly 10.7-mile north-south street that is among the most historically significant — and most fraught — thoroughfares in Kansas City.1 For most of the 20th century Troost functioned as the city’s racial and economic dividing line (“the Troost wall”): a boundary, largely white to the west and largely Black to the east, produced by restrictive covenants, federal redlining, blockbusting, and school-boundary manipulation.23 The avenue is named for Dr. Benoist Troost, the city’s first resident physician — and a slaveholder.4 Today the corridor is a focus of reinvestment, anchored by institutions such as UMKC, Rockhurst, and the Stowers Institute, and the subject of a repeatedly stalled effort to rename it “Truth.”56

Boundaries

Troost Avenue is a north-south street, not a bounded neighborhood, so the “corridor” is best understood as the length of the avenue plus the blocks that face it. The street runs approximately 10.7 miles, from 4th Street near the Missouri River in the north to Bannister Road in the south.1

Its more consequential geography is east-west: Troost is the line Kansas Citians have long used to describe the divide between the historically white west side and the historically Black east side.2 The heaviest historical and contemporary attention falls on the stretch between roughly downtown/Midtown (the 20s and 30s) and the university district (50th-55th Streets).

History

The land before the street — the Porter plantation (1834-1865)

The ground the corridor’s most storied stretch sits on was a slave plantation before it was anything else.

Rev. James Porter, described as Kansas City’s first Methodist preacher, relocated from Franklin, Tennessee in 1834 and acquired roughly 365 acres by U.S. patent, centered on what is now 27th and Troost.78 He arrived with his wife Jane Thomas Porter, son Jesse LaGrande Porter, his mother Elizabeth Porter — and, in the language of the family’s own preservation project, “40 slaves.”7 A Missouri Valley Special Collections clipping describes the same holding as a retired Methodist minister with “two score slaves” transforming 365 acres north of 31st Street at Troost.9

The farmstead’s boundaries are given as roughly 23rd Street to 31st Street, and Locust Avenue east to Vine Street.810 The house was a five-room black-walnut log structure between 27th and 28th east of Tracy, facing north, later enlarged; the slave cabins stood behind it.7 The Porter family burial ground was placed on land that became the site of the Troost Avenue Methodist Church at 2534 Troost, donated by Lucy Porter.7

This matters for what follows: the Porters began platting residential lots in 1886, and the subdivision of the plantation is what produced the corridor’s mansion district.810 The Porter family’s ownership of the original tract did not fully end until 1929.8 The land now underlies Longfellow, Mount Hope, and Beacon Hill, among other neighborhoods.10

Namesake — Dr. Benoist Troost

The avenue is named for Dr. Benoist Troost (1786-1859), a Dutch-born, Napoleonic-era army surgeon who came to the town of Kansas around 1847 and became its first resident physician.411 In 1846 he married Mary Gillis Kennerly, a widow and favored niece of the wealthy trader William Gilliss; with Gilliss, Troost built the settlement’s first brick hotel on the levee between Delaware and Wyandotte, opened 1850 as the Troost House and later renamed the Gillis House.1112 His name attaches to Troost Avenue, Troost Park, and Troost Lake.4

Troost was also a slaveholder: the 1850 Federal Census Slave Schedule records him as the owner of six enslaved men and women.47 This fact anchors the contemporary renaming effort (see Renaming effort below).

A common local claim needs correcting. The frequently repeated statement that Benoist Troost “had a plantation at 31st and Troost” conflates two different slaveholders. The Kansas City Public Library took up exactly this reader question in 2021 and found that the plantation at that location was Rev. James Porter’s, not Troost’s — Troost’s documented slaveholding is the six people on the 1850 schedule, and it is documented separately.7 Both men held people in bondage; they were not the same man and not the same property. The distinction is worth keeping precise, because the renaming argument does not depend on the exaggeration.

”Millionaire’s Row” and the 1890 turn (1880s-1900s)

Following the Porter subdivision, the stretch of Troost between 26th and 32nd Streets was developed into grand mansions nicknamed “Millionaire’s Row” during Kansas City’s boom years.12 By one account, Porter’s own granddaughter demolished the original plantation house and built a mansion on the row that replaced it.10

When the local economy crashed around 1890, home values along Troost fell sharply. The new affordability opened the area to Kansas City’s African American community, many of whom had been displaced from the West Bottoms by industrial and railroad expansion.2 This early in-migration seeded the east-side settlement pattern that later hardened into a formal line.

The Troost wall — covenants, redlining, blockbusting (1900s-1950s)

Several reinforcing mechanisms turned Troost from a street into a wall:

  • Restrictive covenants. Real-estate developer J.C. Nichols (jc-nichols) and the J.C. Nichols Company built racially restrictive deed covenants into the Country Club District west of Troost, barring sale to or occupancy by Black and Jewish buyers.23 See restrictive-covenants-kc for detailed coverage.
  • Blockbusting and panic selling. Nichols and other developers are described as having orchestrated white flight by inducing panic selling and blockbusting, funneling white buyers into the west-side developments.12
  • Federal redlining. The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation completed its Residential Security Map for the Greater Kansas City Area on April 1, 1939 — the federal instrument that translated local prejudice into national lending policy.1314 The surviving map and its appraiser “area descriptions” are digitized in the Mapping Inequality project at the University of Richmond.13 Reading the KC sheet, the blocks flanking Troost are graded yellow (“definitely declining”), with red (“hazardous”) grades to the east and north of that band, where Black residents were then most concentrated; the yellow grading extends in places west of Troost to streets such as Rockhill.15 The practical effect was to starve the east side of mortgage credit for a generation, a pattern KC historians tie directly to the enduring Black-white wealth gap.3
  • A hardening pattern. By 1940, the most concentrated African American population in the city lived east of Troost, reinforced by segregated schooling — Lincoln High School and its feeder schools east of Troost offered the only post-elementary education for Black students.2

Restrictive covenants were ruled judicially unenforceable in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), a case that arose in Missouri; the ruling ended court enforcement without undoing the settlement pattern the covenants had already produced.3

Schools — boundary manipulation and the Jenkins case (1955-1997)

After the 1954 Brown v. Board ruling, the all-white Kansas City, Missouri school board did not openly defy desegregation. It manipulated attendance boundaries to keep white and Black schools separate, and Troost was the most obvious border it used.216 The Kansas City Public Schools board headquarters sits on the avenue at 2901 Troost.1

That evasion produced the longest and costliest school-desegregation case in American history. Filed in 1977, Jenkins v. Missouri ran two decades.1718 In 1985 Judge Russell Clark found the district and the State of Missouri liable for segregation and ordered a remedy built on “desegregative attractiveness” — magnet schools lavish enough to draw white suburban families back across the line, at an eventual cost of roughly $2 billion, with Missouri paying about 75 percent and the district 25 percent.1617 When the district could not fund its share, Clark doubled local property taxes to pay for it.16 The U.S. Supreme Court halted the plan in 1995 (Missouri v. Jenkins), and a 1997 settlement had the state pay KCPS $320 million over three years to end the litigation.1618

The remedy did not reverse the line. By 1996 the district was roughly 78 percent nonwhite.16 Missouri stripped the district of accreditation in 2000 — the first state in the country to do so — with partial restoration in 2002, a second loss in 2011, partial return in 2014, and full accreditation restored in 2022.16 Enrollment fell from about 33,000 students in 1999, the year Missouri charter schools opened, to roughly 14,000 today, with about half of Kansas City’s children now in charters.16 In April 2025 voters approved a $474 million bond — $424 million for KCPS, $50 million shared with participating charters — against a $650 million deferred-maintenance backlog on buildings averaging 60 years old.16

Disinvestment (1960s-1990s)

Through the second half of the 20th century the corridor experienced sustained disinvestment — commercial decline, vacancy, and the concentrated poverty that redlining and segregation had engineered on the east side.319 The April 1968 unrest following Dr. King’s assassination accelerated commercial abandonment along the east-side corridors. Troost’s reputation as a barrier persisted in the civic imagination long after the legal architecture of segregation was struck down.3

Transit — Troost MAX (2011)

Kansas City’s second bus-rapid-transit line, Troost MAX, opened January 1, 2011, running from Barney Allis Plaza downtown south along Troost to the Three Trails Transit Center, with two of every three runs short-turning at 75th Street.2021 KCATA built it on Troost because the avenue carried the highest bus ridership in the system — the corridor’s poverty and its transit dependence being two descriptions of the same fact — and it opened with 8,500-plus daily riders.20 The line was built with hybrid buses, solar lighting, pervious pavement, and rain gardens.21

Contemporary reinvestment (2000s-present)

Since the early 2000s the corridor has been a focus of coordinated reinvestment:

  • The Troost Avenue Corridor Action Plan was initiated by the Southtown Council in 2003, aligned with master plans from UMKC and Rockhurst.619
  • LISC and partners have invested millions in loans, grants, and infrastructure along the Troost-Prospect corridors since the mid-2000s.19
  • Four projects account for the bulk of recent private capital: Armour Corners, a $78 million Mac Properties mixed-use redevelopment of all four corners at Armour and Troost; Beacon Hill student housing for UMKC at $26 million; the Marcato Apartments at 27th and Troost at $20 million; and Wonder Shops & Flats at $18 million, which houses BikeWalkKC, The Combine, and SAVE Inc. alongside apartments.2223
  • The nonprofit KC G.I.F.T. (Generating Income For Tomorrow) has funded 78 Black-owned businesses east of Troost since its founding, distributing $1.9 million in grants that it credits with 153 new jobs and average revenue growth of 209 percent among recipients.22

On August 15, 2025, G.I.F.T. led a 10-mile “Equity Walk” the full length of the corridor from Truman Road to Bannister, featuring 24 Black-owned businesses; Mayor Quinton Lucas was among those who RSVP’d.2223 Co-founder Brandon Calloway framed the walk’s argument in a sentence: “Troost is not scary. It is a hub for Black businesses.”22

The reinvestment is not uncontested: local coverage frames it explicitly as a “revitalization or gentrification?” question, given the corridor’s history of displacement.6

Street safety — Vision Zero (2025-)

Troost is also one of Kansas City’s deadliest streets. Over the decade preceding 2025 the avenue recorded 26 traffic deaths and more than 3,600 crashes, across the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th council districts.24 On January 16, 2025, the City Council passed a resolution directing the city to apply for a $21 million federal RAISE grant to rebuild Troost from Truman Road to Bannister Road for slower speeds and non-car travel.2425 Third District Councilmember Melissa Robinson tied the case to the corridor’s larger pattern: “There is a disproportionate number of individuals specifically living in the Third District that are experiencing preventable deaths.”24

Renaming effort — “Truth not Troost” (2022-)

In June 2022, Chris Goode, founder of the Troost-based Ruby Jean’s Juicery, launched a petition to rename the avenue “Truth”, citing Benoist Troost’s history as a slaveholder.5 Goode framed the effort as reconciliation rather than erasure — “let’s be honest about it. And let’s move forward in a way that is representative of everybody.”5 As of 2024 the renaming remained under debate at the City Council, drawing comparisons to the earlier Paseo / MLK Boulevard renaming fight — the precedent that hangs over every KC street-renaming argument, in which a 2019 renaming was reversed by voters the same year.26

A city survey drew 1,027 responses, splitting roughly 55 percent in favor to 44 percent against.27 In February 2025, Goode and 3rd District Councilwoman Melissa Robinson announced a renewed push.28 On May 6, 2025, the ordinance — which requested $50,000 to replace street signage — reached the Special Committee for Legal Review and stalled: Mayor Quinton Lucas moved to hold the item off docket, citing the need for a more collaborative process. Robinson, who noted it was the third attempt in two years, called it a “day of denial” and pledged to continue.29

Institutions along the corridor

The central corridor is anchored by major institutions, several clustered in the 50th-55th Street university district:1

  • University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) — ~50th-55th Streets
  • Rockhurst University — ~52nd-55th Streets
  • Stowers Institute for Medical Research — ~50th Street
  • Kansas City Public Schools board headquarters — 2901 Troost
  • Troost Avenue Methodist Church — 2534 Troost, on the Porter family’s former burial ground7

Registry businesses on the corridor

Verified from the KS.City Registry as of 2026-07-26 — businesses with confirmed Troost Avenue street addresses, north to south:

BusinessAddress
The Combine KC2999 Troost Ave
Ruby Jean’s Juicery3000 Troost Ave
Thelma’s Kitchen3101 Troost Ave
Urban Restaurant3420 Troost Ave
Anchor Island Coffee4101 Troost Ave
Fannie’s West African Cuisine4105 Troost Ave
Equal Minded Cafe4327 Troost Ave
Blackhole Bakery5531 Troost Ave
Reggae Kitchen5535 Troost Ave
High Hopes Ice Cream5536 Troost Ave
Willa’s Books & Vinyl5547 Troost Ave
Wah Gwan6228 Troost Ave
Niecie’s Restaurant6441 Troost Ave
Local Liquid6500 Troost Ave
Chixen7502 Troost Ave

Pending: Crows Coffee bought 3308 and 3314 Troost (10,500+ sq ft) in early 2025 for on-site roasting and a wholesale bakery, with a public café to follow — production space, not yet a storefront.30

The clustering is not incidental. Flatland’s coverage of the corridor’s restaurant wave describes independent operators as the practical mechanism of the corridor’s change, taking over long-vacant or repurposed buildings — Chixen opened in the former Epicurean Lounge at 7502 Troost in March 2024, one of several.31

Cultural significance

Troost is the corridor Kansas Citians reach for when they explain the city’s segregation to outsiders — the physical shorthand for a century of housing discrimination and its still-visible consequences in wealth, health, and homeownership east versus west.3 It is simultaneously a site of active repair: the reinvestment, the institutions, the Black-owned business cluster, and the renaming campaign all treat Troost as the place where Kansas City confronts that history directly rather than around it.5622

The corridor’s twin is The Paseo, eight blocks east — the boulevard that ran through the heart of Black Kansas City while Troost walled its western edge. The two streets are best read together: one built as a barrier by omission and lending policy, the other built as a showpiece and later fought over by name.

Adjacent neighborhoods

Troost forms the eastern edge of several west-side neighborhoods and the western edge of east-side neighborhoods; among the west-side neighborhoods that use Troost as their eastern boundary:

Sources

Footnotes

  1. Wikipedia — “Troost Avenue.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troost_Avenue — asserts: the avenue runs ~10.7 miles from 4th St to Bannister Rd; “Millionaire’s Row” 26th-32nd; streetcar in the 1920s; J.C. Nichols restrictive covenants + blockbusting/panic selling; institutions UMKC (50th-55th), Rockhurst (52nd-55th), Stowers Institute (50th), KCPS HQ at 2901 Troost; named for Benoist Troost, first resident physician. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. KCUR — “How Troost became a major divide in Kansas City” (2014-03-27). https://www.kcur.org/community/2014-03-27/how-troost-became-a-major-divide-in-kansas-city — asserts: Troost as dividing line (white west / Black east); “Millionaire’s Row”; 1890 crash opened the area to displaced African American residents; Nichols’s covenants funneled white residents west; by 1940 concentrated Black population east of Troost; 1955 KCMO school board manipulated attendance boundaries with Troost as the border; Lincoln High School as the only post-elementary option for Black students. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  3. KCUR — “Past housing discrimination contributed to wealth gap between Blacks and whites in Kansas City” (2018-08-10). https://www.kcur.org/community/2018-08-10/past-housing-discrimination-contributed-to-wealth-gap-between-blacks-and-whites-in-kansas-city — asserts: redlining and restrictive covenants drove disinvestment east of Troost and the enduring Black-white wealth gap; covenants ruled unenforceable (Shelley v. Kraemer, 1948). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  4. KC History (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library) — “Biography of Benoist Troost (1786-1859), Physician and Early Settler.” https://kchistory.org/document/biography-benoist-troost-1786-1859-physician-and-early-settler — asserts: Troost (1786-1859), Dutch-born physician, came to Kansas City ~1847 as first resident physician; namesake of Troost Avenue, Park, and Lake; 1850 Federal Census Slave Schedule records him owning six enslaved people. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. KCUR — “Truth not Troost: A new effort seeks to rename Kansas City corridor over slavery ties” (2022-07-03). https://www.kcur.org/housing-development-section/2022-07-03/truth-not-troost-a-new-effort-seeks-to-rename-kansas-city-corridor-over-slavery-ties — asserts: Chris Goode (Ruby Jean’s Juicery) launched the “Truth” renaming petition in June 2022 over Troost’s six enslaved people; framed as truthful reconciliation, not erasure; direct quotation. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  6. IN Kansas City Magazine — “Troost Renaissance: Revitalization or Gentrification? Or Can It Be Both?” https://www.inkansascity.com/innovators-influencers/local-news/troost-renaissance-revitalization-or-gentrification-or-can-it-be-both/ — asserts: contemporary Troost reinvestment (student-oriented and mixed-use development, new small businesses near the university district and 27th/Troost) framed as an open revitalization-vs-gentrification question. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  7. Kansas City Public Library — “Yes, Kansas City’s Troost Avenue was named for a slaveholder. And that’s not all we found…” (2021-05). https://kclibrary.org/news/2021-05/yes-kansas-city%E2%80%99s-troost-avenue-was-named-slaveholder-and-%E2%80%99s-not-all-we-found — asserts: library research answering a reader question about a plantation at 31st and Troost; the plantation at that location was Rev. James Porter’s, active 1832/1834-1865 with enslaved labor, not Benoist Troost’s; Troost’s documented slaveholding is the six people on the 1850 Federal Census Slave Schedule; Troost and William Gillis built the village’s first hotel on the levee 1849-1850, named Troost House then renamed Gillis House. (Note: the library’s server returns HTTP 403 to automated fetches; content verified via search-index extraction 2026-07-26 — a human browser load is the cleanest re-verification.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  8. The Porter Farmstead Historic Preservation Project — “Porter Farm” and “What is it?” https://porterfarmhistory.com/porterfarm/ · https://porterfarmhistory.com/whatisit/ — asserts: Rev. James Porter, first Methodist preacher in Kansas City, relocated from Franklin, Tennessee in 1834; ~365 acres by U.S. patent centered at 27th and Troost; arrived with wife Jane Thomas Porter, son Jesse LaGrande Porter, mother Elizabeth Porter and “40 slaves”; five-room black-walnut log house between 27th and 28th east of Tracy, facing north, later enlarged, slave cabins to the rear; family burial ground on the future site of Troost Avenue Methodist Church at 2534 Troost, land donated by Lucy Porter; residential lot development began 1886; Porter ownership ended 1929 when J. Lee Porter sold 80 feet at 31st and Troost. (A family/community preservation project site; it names no external sources of its own, so the acreage and enslaved-person count are corroborated against 9 and 10.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  9. KC History (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library) — “A Retired Methodist Minister with Two Score Slaves Transformed into a Plantation 365 Acres North of Thirty-First Street at Troost, Which He Found a Wilderness.” https://kchistory.org/islandora/object/kchistory:72642 — asserts: independent corroboration of the 365-acre figure, the location north of 31st Street at Troost, and roughly 40 (“two score”) enslaved people held by a retired Methodist minister. ↩ ↩2

  10. Diane Euston (with contributing historian Tim Reidy) — “Dissecting the Troost Divide and Racial Segregation in Kansas City,” The New Santa Fe Trailer (2020-06-30). https://newsantafetrailer.blogspot.com/2020/06/dissecting-troost-divide-and-racial.html — asserts: 365 acres patented to Porter in 1834; at least forty enslaved people worked the plantation; Porter’s granddaughter tore down the original house around 1886 and built a mansion on what became “Millionaire’s Row”; the former plantation underlies Longfellow Heights, Mount Hope, and Beacon Hill; blockbuster Bob Wood bought homes below market value “on the implied threat of future devaluation during minority integration” and resold to minority buyers; by 1920, 75% of the east-side population was African American. (Euston is a named local historian — and, separately, the lead petitioner of the 2019 Save the Paseo campaign; see paseo-mlk-renaming-saga. A syndicated copy ran in the Martin City Telegraph*, but that URL now 404s; the author’s own posting is cited instead.)* ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  11. Wikipedia — “Benoist Troost.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoist_Troost — asserts: born 1786 in Holland, served as a hospital steward in Napoleon’s army, arrived ~1847; married the widow Mary Gillis Kennerly in 1846, a niece of William Gilliss; partnership with Gilliss on the first brick hotel. ↩ ↩2

  12. Missouri Encyclopedia — “Gilliss, William (1788-1869).” https://missouriencyclopedia.org/people/gilliss-william — asserts: Gilliss’s role as an early trader and landholder in the town of Kansas, and the hotel partnership context. ↩

  13. Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America (Digital Scholarship Lab, University of Richmond) — Greater Kansas City, Missouri. https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/map/MO/GreaterKansasCity/context — asserts: digitized HOLC Residential Security Map and appraiser area descriptions for Greater Kansas City. (The map interface is a JavaScript application and does not render to automated fetch; grade geography below is cited to 15, which reads the same sheet. — re-read the area descriptions directly in a browser to quote HOLC appraiser language verbatim.) ↩ ↩2

  14. Big Ten Academic Alliance Geoportal — “HOLC Redlining Maps and Data [Missouri—Greater Kansas City].” https://geo.btaa.org/catalog/91e46e82-43ce-4843-a87e-804f98502a93 — asserts: catalog record for the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation Residential Security Map covering Greater Kansas City; the Kansas City map was completed April 1, 1939. ↩

  15. G.S. Griffin — “The 1939 Map That Redlined Kansas City — Do You Want to See It?” (2022-02-16). https://gsgriffin.com/2022/02/16/the-1939-map-that-redlined-kansas-city-do-you-want-to-see-it/ — asserts: on the 1939 KC sheet the areas along Troost (locatable by the left edge of Forest Hill Cemetery) are graded yellow, with red areas east and north where Black residents were most concentrated; the yellow grading extends west of Troost in places, to streets such as Rockhill. (Griffin is the author of Racism in Kansas City: A Short History*; this is a named-author secondary reading of the primary HOLC sheet, not the sheet itself.)* ↩ ↩2

  16. KCUR — “How Kansas City lost trust in its public school system — and what it’s taking to rebuild” (2025-03-27). https://www.kcur.org/history/2025-03-27/kansas-city-public-schools-history-building-bond-desegregation-racism — asserts: Troost as the racial boundary for school attendance; post-Brown boundary manipulation; Jenkins filed 1977, Judge Russell Clark’s 1985 liability finding and ~$2 billion magnet remedy (Missouri 75% / KCPS 25%); doubled local property taxes; 1995 Supreme Court halt; 1997 settlement, $320 million over three years; ~78% nonwhite enrollment by 1996; accreditation lost 2000 (first state in the nation to do so), partial 2002, lost 2011, partial 2014, fully restored 2022; enrollment ~33,000 (1999) to ~14,000; charters opened 1999 and now enroll about half of KC children; April 8, 2025 voter approval of a $474 million bond ($424M KCPS / $50M charters); $650 million deferred maintenance, buildings averaging 60 years old. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  17. Wikipedia — “Missouri v. Jenkins.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_v._Jenkins — asserts: 1985 remedial order requiring magnet schools and facility improvements; the “desegregative attractiveness” rationale; the 1985-1999 court-supervised funding period; Supreme Court disposition. ↩ ↩2

  18. Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse — “Jenkins v. Kansas City Missouri School District, 4:77-cv-00420 (W.D. Mo.).” https://clearinghouse.net/case/11122/ — asserts: the 1977 filing, parties (students and KCMSD against the State of Missouri, federal agencies, and suburban districts), and the case’s procedural history. ↩ ↩2

  19. LISC — “Troost-Prospect Corridors, KCMO.” https://www.lisc.org/media/filer_public/12/92/1292bfe7-c4bb-4db6-aaa1-fb9992ae76ea/lisc_map_2_front_back.pdf — asserts: the Southtown Council’s Troost Corridor Action Plan (2003) aligned with UMKC/Rockhurst master plans; multi-million-dollar LISC investment in the Troost-Prospect corridors since the mid-2000s. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  20. KCATA — “Troost MAX To Open 1-1-11.” https://www.kcata.org/news/troost_max_open_1111/ — asserts: Troost MAX launched January 1, 2011; runs Barney Allis Plaza to Three Trails Transit Center with two of three runs short-turning at 75th Street; serves downtown, the Crossroads, Hospital Hill, and midtown; the city’s highest-ridership corridor; 8,500+ daily riders at opening. ↩ ↩2

  21. KCATA — “MAX Bus Rapid Transit Service Celebrates 10th Birthday in Kansas City.” https://www.kcata.org/news/max_bus_rapid_transit_service_celebrates_10th_birthday_in_kansas_city — asserts: Troost MAX opened 2011 as the system’s second BRT line, with hybrid vehicles, solar lighting, pervious pavement, and rain gardens. ↩ ↩2

  22. KCUR — “Troost Equity Walk shows how Black businesses revived historic street” (2025-08-14). https://www.kcur.org/housing-development-section/2025-08-14/troost-kansas-city-equity-walk-black-business-revival — asserts: August 15, 2025 Equity Walk, 10 miles from Truman Road to Bannister Road, 24 Black-owned businesses featured, Mayor Quinton Lucas RSVP’d; Armour Corners $78M (Mac Properties, all four corners at Armour and Troost), Beacon Hill UMKC student housing $26M, Marcato Apartments $20M (27th and Troost), Wonder Shops & Flats $18M (BikeWalkKC, The Combine, SAVE Inc.); KC G.I.F.T. has funded 78 Black-owned businesses east of Troost, $1.9M in grants, 153 jobs, 209% average revenue growth; named businesses Urban Restaurant (Justin Clark and Ron Evans), Ruby Jean’s, Equal Minded Cafe (43rd and Troost); Brandon Calloway quotation. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  23. The Beacon — “‘Troost is not scary’: Kansas City Equity Walk highlights Black business revival on historic street” (2025-08-13). https://thebeaconnews.org/stories/2025/08/13/troost-kansas-city-equity-walk-highlights-black-business-revival/ — asserts: independent contemporaneous coverage of the same Equity Walk and the corridor’s Black-business cluster. ↩ ↩2

  24. KCUR — “Kansas City is trying to overhaul Troost Avenue and fix more of its dangerous roads” (2025-01-17). https://www.kcur.org/news/2025-01-17/kansas-city-dangerous-roads-troost-vision-zero-city-council — asserts: January 16, 2025 council resolution to apply for a $21 million federal RAISE grant covering Troost from Truman Road to Bannister Road; 26 deaths and 3,600+ crashes on Troost over the past decade across the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th districts; Vision Zero budget $4M rising to a proposed $8M; ~250 projects completed in 2024; 97 traffic deaths citywide in 2024; Melissa Robinson quotation. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  25. City of Kansas City, Missouri — “Troost Corridor Improvements” (Vision Zero projects directory). https://www.kcmo.gov/Home/Components/FacilityDirectory/FacilityDirectory/347/1881 — asserts: the city’s official project record for the Troost corridor safety rebuild, including public-engagement milestones. ↩

  26. KCUR — “Will Troost Avenue ever become ‘Truth’? Kansas City lawmakers criticized for name change delays” (2024-04-11). https://www.kcur.org/politics-elections-and-government/2024-04-11/troost-avenue-truth-kansas-city-council-paseo-mlk-name-change — asserts: as of 2024 the Troost-to-Truth renaming remained under City Council debate, compared to the Paseo/MLK renaming fight. ↩

  27. FOX4 Kansas City — “Support for Troost Avenue name change? Here are the survey results.” https://fox4kc.com/news/support-for-troost-avenue-name-change-here-are-the-survey-results/ — asserts: city survey of 1,027 respondents; just over 55% agreed with renaming, just over 44% disagreed. ↩

  28. KSHB 41 — “KC councilwoman, business owner push to rename Troost Avenue to TRUTH Avenue” (February 2025). https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/kc-councilwoman-business-owner-push-to-rename-troost-avenue-to-truth-avenue — asserts: February 2025 renewed push by Chris Goode and 3rd District Councilwoman Melissa Robinson. ↩

  29. KSHB 41 — “Latest effort to rename Troost Avenue to Truth Avenue stalls in Kansas City, Missouri” (2025-05-06). https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/latest-effort-to-rename-troost-avenue-to-truth-avenue-stalls-in-kansas-city-missouri — asserts: May 6, 2025 Special Committee for Legal Review hearing; Mayor Quinton Lucas moved to hold the item off docket, citing the need for a more collaborative process; ordinance requested $50,000 for sign replacement; Robinson called it the third attempt in two years and a “day of denial”; Troost business owner Yashi Poindexter expressed mixed feelings. ↩

  30. KCUR — “Crows Coffee lands on Troost for major expansion with on-site roasting and wholesale bakery” (2025-02-16). https://www.kcur.org/arts-life/2025-02-16/crows-coffee-lands-on-troost-for-major-expansion-with-on-site-roasting-and-wholesale-bakery — asserts: Crows Coffee acquired 3308 and 3314 Troost (10,500+ sq ft) for roasting and a wholesale bakery, production targeted by end of 2025 with a café to follow. ↩

  31. Flatland KC — “Restaurants Become Cornerstones of Troost Renaissance.” https://flatlandkc.org/eats-drinks/restaurants-become-cornerstones-of-troost-renaissance/ — asserts: independent restaurants as the mechanism of corridor change; Chixen (owner Anthony Dedmon) moved into the former Epicurean Lounge at 7502 Troost with a March 2024 grand opening. ↩

See also

Categories
  • Concept
  • Neighborhood
  • Gilded Age
  • Civil Rights
  • Modern
  • Segregation
  • Redlining

On the record — ks.city/wiki/neighborhoods/troost-corridor