You don't know jack about Troost Avenue

​Which street was named after a Dutch doctor, who was pivotal in the construction of Kansas City's first hotel?

What bustling business district challenged downtown as a hub of commerce?

Where did the richest man in Kansas City live in 1951?

Troost Avenue.

Surprised? Father David Paisius Altschul was when he first started researching the corridor's history more than 20 years ago. Now, that knowledge is on display.

Fr. David Paisius Altschul

​Last week, a steady stream of families, students and nuns in black habits strolled the second floor of the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center, taking in the "200 Years on Troost" exhibit on opening night.

Surveying the crowd, with hands folded in front of his long robes, Altschul knew many of the visitors by name. The driving force behind the annual Troost Festival, Altschul is the director of Reconciliation Services, a religious charity at 31st Street and Troost Avenue, and the most prominent visionary for the struggling corridor.

The amateur historian first started researching the area's heritage in 1985. In 2001, after being ordained in the Serbian Orthodox Christian tradition, he returned to the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2001 to pursue a master's degree in social work and wrote a 69-page study about community building on Troost Avenue.

"We can't create a new sense of village if we've not faced the traumas of the past," he says.

Traumas like the displacement of Native American communities, the use of slaves on the Porter Plantation, the discriminatory tactics that turned Troost into a dividing line between the city's Caucasian and African American communities.

"200 Years on Troost" exhibit

​The "200 Years on Troost" exhibit highlights those darker episodes while also describing the avenue's hey-day as a thriving business district flanked by lavish neighborhoods inhabited by the city's most wealthy and influential residents. Though fascinating in its own right, the exhibit, Altschul says, is meant to be a catalyst for further dialogue.

In coming weeks, he says, his group is hosting a series of "Transformative Conversations," focusing on different aspects of Troost's history. Representatives from the Osage Nation, the Jewish and Greek communities, among others, will describe their ties to the diverse corridor. "All these pieces, we've lost touch with," Altschul says of the area's heritage. "This is an opportunity to bring them back together."

The exhibit runs until the end of October, but bookmark this Web site to stay in the loop on upcoming conversations.