This week’s Faces of Northeast is kind of special.

We’re going to take a step back in time to chat with Park Kaescner, a retired Kansas City Missouri Police Officer who used to run out of the old Northeast station at 6600 Independence Avenue until its closure in 1966.

The former Northeast police station shared space with the fire station at the time. There were two jail holding cells in the basement of the station. The station closed in 1966 and was sold to a private owner.

We met up with Kaescner inside Joe Vento’s barbershop on Independence Avenue and asked him about patrolling Northeast streets back in the day.

“I came on the department in September of 1958 and we lived at 337 N. Quincy,” he said. “My car number was 331 and my friend Tom Spencer was car number 332 and he ran the district right next to me.”

Officers were assigned to a specific district at the time and were tasked with keeping things safe for the residents. Kaescner’s district ran from Prospect to Jackson, the bluffs to 15th Street or Truman Road. Tom Spencer’s district ran from Jackson to Hardesty, from the bluffs to Truman Road.

We asked Kaescner, a native of Lamoni, Iowa, what some of his favorite memories were of the old Northeast neighborhood.

“Probably all the little family-run stores in the neighborhoods,” he said. “We had all kinds of ‘em.”

Kaescner still comes into the neighborhood for his regular haircut at Vento’s barber shop.

“Joe’s been cutting my hair for as long as I can remember,” he said. “Some things just don’t change.”