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Cliff Drive is located in George E. Kessler Park (formerly known as North Terrace Park) and is part of the Kansas City, Missouri Park and Boulevard system. This park and boulevard system is comprised of over 10,000 acres of park property, and approximately 140 miles of boulevards and parkway spread over 320 square miles of area within the corporate city limits. The system is overseen by a Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners. A total of five commissioners are appointed by the Mayor, and serve voluntarily until successors are appointed. The Board functions administratively and appoints a Director who serves as the chief executive officer for the organization.
Cliff Drive , in Kessler Park ( North Terrace Park ), and connecting boulevards were designed and constructed during the period of 1893 to 1915. They were planned, and their construction guided, by landscape architect George Edward Kessler (1862-1923) and the Kansas City, Missouri Board of Parks Commissioners. Cliff Drive was a key component in an 1893 Plan for Parks and Boulevards, an ambitious and progressive scheme that launched the idea of a comprehensive city parks and boulevards system to guide and coordinate Kansas City's urban growth.
George Kessler, and the first park commissioners, wrote that "it is far better to plan comprehensively and broadly and proceed with actual construction leisurely, than to attempt economy in the original plans, expecting on that account more ready assent on the part of the public, and more rapid progress of construction." Their plan lived up to this goal; it was visionary in scope and took decades to build. The plan presented in October 1893 did not spring from a vacuum. It was the result of a generation's agitation for parks in Kansas City .
NOTES
Board of Park and Boulevard Commissioners, Kansas City, MO, Report of the Board of Park and Boulevard Commissioners of Kansas City, MO., Embracing Recommendations for the Establishment of a Park and Boulevard System for Kansas City, Resolution of October 12, 1893.
CREDITS
All historical pages written by: Kansas City, Missouri Board of Parks & Recreation Commissioners |
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