One year ago, smoke filled the sky on east 28th St. in the historic Santa Fe neighborhood. The stately former home of baseball legend Satchel Paige went up in flames in an alleged case of arson.
"Smoke came into my house," William Washington, a neighbor of 35 years, said. "My daughter had to get up and run to my room. It was crazy."
Ever since the fire, Washington and others who live on the street have watched the Paige house deteriorate further. When our cameras were rolling last July, a large piece of the roof even fell to the ground, prompting the city to put up fencing around the property.
"It's an eyesore, it really is," Washington said.
Neighbors' concerns aren't lost on the city.
"I think what's frustrating to many people here is, 'Well why has it been a year and it's still like that?'" John Baccala, a spokesman for KCMO Neighborhoods & Housing Services, said.
Although the house remains in bad shape, work has been underway behind the scenes on the property. In February the Kansas City Homesteading Authority bought the property by paying outstanding debts and liens against it.
"The plan from this point on is to stabilize the structure, clean it up, put a new roof on it and then eventually open it up to RFPs, requests for proposals," Baccala said.
The city has been in contact with the Paige family and hopes a plan to preserve the house can be formulated with the help of entities like the MLB and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. In the past the NLBM has expressed a desire to do just that, but our request for comment Monday night was not returned.
Less than a month after the fire at the Paige house, another building named for a Monarchs star was damaged. A vandal cut a water pipe at the Buck O'Neil Education and Research Center near 18th and Vine, causing $500,000 in damage.
In December council members approved a loan of federal grant money for repairs. At the end of April, they voted to take over ownership of the former YMCA, with plans to use state tax credits and $1 million in PIAC funds for restoration.
