Saturday, May 13, 2006

Christ the King, Kansas City, Kansas

The current church for Christ the King , at 3024 North 53rd Street in Kansas City, Kansas, was built in 1954. It replaced an earlier church perhaps 200 yards away, which has since been converted to school use. I could not find a cornerstone or a date on the old church. Note that the new church has the "shark gill" stained glass windows that aren't visible to the congregation except when returning from Holy Communion. All and all, this one isn't much of an architectural treasure--it was big, and it was contemporary in its day. That's all I'll say.

Choir practice was going on when I was in this building (it was a Thursday a couple of weeks ago) and so I was able to round up the kids, slip inside, and take a couple of interior shots. Alas, with only the sanctuary lights on, and not enough light coming through the windows in the dying day, only one interior shot turned out.

The neighborhood is fair, as Wyandotte County goes--not a lot of ethnic character like the eastern WyCo neighborhoods feature, but not a lot of gang-land-type blight, either.

Feel free to chime in with any interesting history on this parish or this church building. As for the present...well...it's being served by the same priest who's taking care of the novus ordo part of Blessed Sacrament (the rap-for-redemption crowd) and also St. Rose of Lima. Like all the other parishes in the 'Dotte, this one is theoretically eligible for the pastoral wrecking ball, but (and this is just me guessing) I doubt it's on the secret closure list that the Archbishop and his consultants must have prepared; after all, it's geographically distant from any other parish, and frankly, it's just too newfangled to be closed.

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