A demolition worker knocks down the house at St. John Avenue and Benton Boulevard this past Wednesday. Emily Randall

Jan. 27, 2010

The abandoned and decaying house on the Northeast corner of St. John Avenue and Benton Boulevard has finally come down. After waiting for about three years, the city finally demolished the building this past week. What took so many years to get started only took a couple hours to finish.

With the recent upgrades in that area — the Benton Circle Project and the in-process Cliff Drive Kiosk — we wouldn’t mind seeing something else done with this space to continue the beautification. Perhaps it could be a green space — a sort of miniature park connecting to the Concourse. It would even be nice to see some kind of memorial there remembering those who died in a house fire on that lot years ago.

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Drunk drivers coming through Northeast

The Kansas City Police Department conducted sobriety checkpoints this past Friday at two locations in the city — including one here in Northeast at Interstate 435 and Winner Road on the northbound exit ramp.

The police stopped a total of 205 vehicles, and they made a total of seven Driving while Under the Influence arrests, along with one arrest on a state charge of driving while license revoked, one city charge of driving while revoked and four other traffic charges.

We’re hoping none of those seven DUIs came from Northeast folks headed home.

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A unique safety reminder

We got a chuckle out of the kcICON folks’ newest idea for keeping drivers at a safe speed through the Interstate 29/35 corridor. “Barrel Bob,” a 10-foot tall, orange barrel man is currently pointing the way to safe travels through the kcICON corridor at Parvin Road.

Barrel Bob is a product of the quite creative Robert Ohl, a Clarkson Construction employee. It took about 10 hours to build and wears standard safety gear, including a reflective body, hard hat and safety glasses.

Hopefully “Bob” will catch people’s eye and bring safety to their attention rather than stealing their attention away from the road!