Randy Mason, Kansas City Star Journalist Profile

Articles

This Harlem was once the gateway to KC. Why isn't this place on anyone's radar?

1 week ago | kansascity.com | Randy Mason |Monty Davis

Inside Look is a Star series that takes our readers behind the scenes of some of the most well-known and not-so-well-known places and events in Kansas City. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email our journalists at [email protected]. You may not know much about Harlem. Or even how to get there. (More about that later.)But without it, Kansas City might have been a very different place. Harlem, Missouri, like the legendary one in New York, took its name from a town in Holland.
Harry S. Truman, the "people's president," brought the world to Independence

3 weeks ago | kansascity.com | Randy Mason |Monty Davis

Inside Look is a Star series that takes our readers behind the scenes of some of the most well-known and not-so-well-known places and events in Kansas City. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email our journalists at [email protected]. This view of the Truman Home at 215 N. Delaware Street in Independence carries the Kodachrome glow of the 1950s. In fact, postcards like this called "chromes" became the industry standard after WWII.
Built for $15,000 in 1907, this landmark KC bridge is still standing tall

1 month ago | kansascity.com | Randy Mason |Monty Davis

Inside Look is a Star series that takes our readers behind the scenes of some of the most well-known and not-so-well-known places and events in Kansas City. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email our journalists at [email protected]. Talk about a bargain. When the Blue Ridge Bridge was finished in 1907, the tab was only $15,000. Not bad for an 80-foot tall, single arch, limestone bridge to carry traffic over 15th Street on the eastern edge of Kansas City. And it still does.
Every golf course needs a greens keeper, even the Nelson Museum's Art Course

1 month ago | kansascity.com | Randy Mason |Monty Davis

Memorial Day weekend is, at least unofficially, the beginning of summer. That means, among other things, more hours to play miniature golf at the Nelson-Atkins Museum's Art Course. It also means James Throckmorton will stay plenty busy. The owner of Small Planet Gardens, Throckmorton keeps the nine hole course on the Nelson's south lawn shipshape for family-friendly fun. Each of the holes reflects an artistic take on on a piece in the Nelson's collection.
Every golf course needs a greens keeper, even the Nelson Museum’s Art Course

1 month ago | yahoo.com | Randy Mason |Monty Davis

Memorial Day weekend is, at least unofficially, the beginning of summer. That means, among other things, more hours to play miniature golf at the Nelson-Atkins Museum’s Art Course. It also means James Throckmorton will stay plenty busy. The owner of Small Planet Gardens, Throckmorton keeps the nine hole course on the Nelson’s south lawn shipshape for family-friendly fun.
This giant KC federal building's design looked more like business than government

1 month ago | kansascity.com | Randy Mason |Monty Davis

Inside Look is a Star series that takes our readers behind the scenes of some of the most well-known and not-so-well-known places and events in Kansas City. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email our journalists at [email protected]. Kansas City's skyline rose dramatically in the 1920s and 1930s. But by the 50s and 60s, as more and more people headed for the suburbs, demolition in downtown was more common than new construction.
Exhibits celebrate KC’s rich history of printmaking… – KC STUDIO

1 month ago | kcstudio.org | Randy Mason

Jack Lemon (foreground) with Christo at Landfall Press in 1983 (Landfall Press)Stephanie Fox Knappe has learned a lot about printmaking in the last six years. Even before COVID, Fox Knappe, the Sanders Sosland Senior Curator of Global Modern and Contemporary Art and head, American Art at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, began discussions with Michael Sims from the Lawrence Lithography Workshop. The topic: acquiring prints from the studio’s archives.
This KC theater opened in 1921 with an elevator to get large animals on stage

1 month ago | kansascity.com | Randy Mason |Monty Davis

Inside Look is a Star series that takes our readers behind the scenes of some of the most well-known and not-so-well-known places and events in Kansas City. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email our journalists at [email protected]. In 1921, when the Mainstreet Theatre opened at the corner of 14th & Main Streets, movies were just beginning to push vaudeville aside. But not in this 3,000 seat theater, which at the time was the largest in town.
Vintage postcard shows KC's Municpal Stadium in glory days. What's there now?

1 month ago | kansascity.com | Randy Mason |Monty Davis

Inside Look is a Star series that takes our readers behind the scenes of some of the most well-known and not-so-well-known places and events in Kansas City. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email our journalists at [email protected]. After 1955, Kansas City could rightly call itself a "major league town." And postcards like this one from the late 1950s were part of the proof. It's hard to say exactly who the Athletics might have been playing on that afternoon, but it hardly matters.
KC bed race event helps provide furniture for families in need

1 month ago | kansascity.com | Randy Mason |Monty Davis

It's not quite the Kentucky Derby or the Indy 500, the Boston Marathon or those bulls in Pamplona. Not yet anyway. But the Running of the Beds in Lee's Summit might be gaining on them. Now in its second year, the raucous race drew eleven teams to the Summit Church on Chipman Road on Saturday to raise funds for a good cause- Flourish, the area's only furniture bank.