AROUND TOWN

Zona Rosa Skating Rink / Photo by Nicole Bissey Photography

CROWNED IN ZONA ROSA

WRITTEN BY JULIE BURTON

ansas City is called Crown Town. Crowns are everywhere. Kauffman Stadium’s scoreboard is crowned for the Kansas City Royals. Hallmark’s logo is a crown. Hallmark’s headquarters is in Kansas City’s Crown Center. Zona Rosa adorns their streets with crowns every Christmas season. Kansas City was not built by kings and queens, though. The Kansas City Royals are named after The American Royal. Hallmark’s crown logo is based on old typography that resembled a crown. And Zona Rosa’s crowns? They were inspired by the 1950s regal decorations in London, England. The crowns weren’t always hanging above the streets of Zona Rosa. You have to go back to 19621976 photographs of downtown Kansas City to see the original majestic crowns above the streets (or maybe you are lucky enough to remember seeing them in person). The 2021 crowns are not crowns from 1962. For one thing, modern energy conservation has changed. And two, no one knows where the

K18-foot-wide by 14-foot-tall crowns went. There are rumors they were made into a jungle gym in the city of Holton, Kansas. The crowns you see at Zona Rosa are replicas of the crowns previous generations enjoyed in downtown Kansas City.

Crowning Downtown KC

George Purucker specialized in illuminated retail displays in 1959. Purucker handled the outdoor holiday displays for numerous surrounding cities. While on a trip to England during the holidays he

noticed large, illuminated crowns in the retail districts. Purucker thought something like that would be perfect to help drive shoppers back to downtown businesses in Kansas City.

Kansas City was losing its shopping luster to new developments such as Ward Parkway Center and Johnson County. Purucker approached the Downtown Merchants Association with the idea of hanging large crowns in the middle of downtown.

The Merchants Association loved the idea and ordered a set of nine crowns at a cost of $38,000. In 1962, the original crowns went up every Christmas until the late ‘60s. Each crown had 1,621 bulbs, putting out enough illumination to “light 30 homes” according to the Kansas City Star. Energy conservation was not considered at the time. The crowns drew so much wattage that KCPL had to bring individual transformers to power the crowns. But to get the crowns up, the Downtown Merchants Association needed help. The association reached out to the Mann family to help create something “spectacular” during the holiday season. Frank Mann owned Mannequin, a business that offered indoor displays and outdoor Christmas products to area businesses such as Macy’s, Jones Store, and Rothschilds. Hallmark was just coming into its own and the crown was beginning to become an iconic Kansas City image.

The logistics of getting the crowns up was a major undertaking. Holes were made in buildings and the cables were mounted on the floor inside the buildings. Mann’s son, Hoot, says, “Sometimes these property owners lived in places like Australia, and it was not like you could just email them.” But the Mann family did it. Downtown Kansas City was crowned.

Photo by Ryan Bruce

The Rest of the Crown Town Story

In the late 1960s, energy conservation came to mind and the crowns were changed. This second generation of crowns, called the Imperial Crowns, were lighted with 10-watt lamps. By the mid-1970s, Kansas City was not the bustling downtown it once was due to the economy and suburban shopping malls. Fewer businesses meant no Downtown Merchants Association. No association meant no crowns. The crowns were gone by 1976.

In the late 1990s, the Mann family shortened their company name, Mannequin, to Manneco. Manneco became a business that only offered outdoor displays, general outdoor lighting, and security and parking lot lights.

Then in 2004, Zona Rosa called Manneco. The new shopping area in North Kansas City wanted to revive the crowns and asked if Manneco could make a new set. Mann remembers, “It was pretty exciting to get the call. We still had the prototype of the crown Dad had made. So we pulled it out of the rafters and based the new crowns on it. Although they are not as enormous as those first crowns, they were still large, about 15 feet in diameter and 11-12 feet tall.”

Two crowns now hang in the intersections of Zona Rosa. A third, smaller crown sits atop Zona Rosa’s 55-foot Christmas tree. They encompass the Christmas spirit, but they also let Kansas Citians and visitors know—Kansas City will always be Crown Town.

Photo by Ryan Bruce