Operation Breakthrough bridge over Troost symbolizes ‘real community’ at an intersection

With reflection in his voice, Alvin Brooks paused.

“The city has to be a partner,” the Civil Rights activist and veteran Kansas City Police Commissioner said as he spoke of the redevelopment of Troost Avenue — the well known racial dividing line, that has long isolated the east side of the Kansas City metro from the rest of the community — Brooks said.

A $17 million effort to expand Operation Breakthrough, a nonprofit on Troost offering STEM and maker opportunities to young children, is another piece of the puzzle, he said. A grand opening event is planned for 11 a.m. Sept. 18 at 31st and Troost.

Brooks’ words are reflective of a new era that looms over Troost and the neighborhoods — many multi-generational — that surround it. Brooks hopes the revitalization will see local lawmakers and community members stand in support of the often-forgotten, much-maligned, 10.7-mile stretch of road that once thrived as a business district as recently as the 1950s.

“It has great potential,” Brooks said as he dreamed of what Troost could be: a neighborhood full of shops, quality housing, and restaurants, he envisioned aloud.

Making the dreams of Brooks a reality could come at cost, said Father Justin Mathews, executive director of the nonprofit Reconciliation Services, which sits at the intersection of 31st and Troost. Mathews argued that redevelopment often forces families from their homes and replaces the community they’ve long known with a homogenous, big box aesthetic.

The needs of the community that surround Troost — 99 percent of whom live in poverty, Mathews said — are glossed over by gentrification, he said.

“Real community never looks the same in two places, just as two people never look the same,” Mathews said as he expressed his concern for the people who have planted deep roots on the city’s east side.

Operation Breakthrough is a major source of progress that has pushed Troost into the 21st century and toward the urban vision held by Brooks and echoed by Mathews, they said. The nonprofit — also at the 31st and Troost intersection — provides a safe space and educational opportunities to children from underserved communities.

Operation Breakthrough bridge in progress

In late June, Operation Breakthrough installed a footbridge over Troost as part of an expansion project and connected its existing building to a newly-renovated space — the former home of a Jones Store at yet another corner of 31st and Troost — symbolically bridging two worlds once divided, Brooks said.

Quinton Lucas, Jermaine Reed and Alvin Brooks

The Civil Rights leader, along with Kansas City council members Jermaine Reed and Quinton Lucas, spoke earlier this summer at a ceremony celebrating the Operation Breakthrough development.

Raised within the confines of the alienated avenue, Lucas reflected later that he believes the installation of the footbridge could tangibly turn the tide and erase decades worth of racial tensions.

“For those of us grew up on Troost, the bridge shows so much: change, opportunity, education, a bridge to a life that’s different than that which you already know,” Lucas said.

The bridge installation connects more than 300 Kansas City families — like the one in which Lucas was raised — with Operation Breakthrough resources, many of which are STEM-focused, said CEO Mary Esselman.

“We cultivate an environment which supports inventive thinking, problem solving and collaboration,” she said.  

Making STEM education accessible on the east side could help develop a generation of students who understand the history of Troost and carry it with them into a brighter future, suggested Lucas.

“We have far more work to do, but this ensures that from the early childhood level on up we are reaching low-income populations, students of color, and all Kansas Citians with new and centralized educational tools,” he said.

As a new day dawns over Troost and the simple, yet symbolic footbridge that now hovers above it — the city has been given a catalyst for change, Brooks said. Commitments to thoughtful revitalization should be considered by local leaders like Lucas and resources to better serve a population in peril should be developed, he suggested.

Filled with optimism, Brooks said, hope could one day fill the streets — a replacement for the violent, impoverished past that has long paved Troost.

Click here to read more from Startland’s original reporting on the redevelopment of Troost.

Stay or go? Social entrepreneurism at an intersection

• Defiant anti-gentrification voice: Clock is ticking on east side neighborhoods, Movement KC

• Troostapalooza aims to shed the old skin of city’s racial dividing line, says Kemet Coleman

• Thelma’s Kitchen cooks up pay-what-you-can cafe concept to preserve community

• Reconciliation Services hopes to heal trauma in the heart of stigmatized Troost corridor