KCQ shines a light on the Plaza holiday tradition, and what you need to know this year
It’s time to add another chapter to the long history of the Country Club Plaza holiday lights, but this year brings a very different flip of the switch.
Thousands of Kansas Citians whose Thanksgiving tradition usually includes a trip to the Plaza for the illumination of the lights will need to adjust their plans. Because of the pandemic, the 91st annual lighting ceremony is designed as a broadcast-only event.
In this unprecedented year, “What’s your KCQ?,” a partnership between The Star and the Kansas City Public Library, is here to answer a reader’s question about the history of the lights and share details about this year’s ceremony.
Turn on your TV
The hour-long production, sponsored by Evergy, will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday and will be carried by KMBC. The show will feature virtual appearances by past switch flippers, including Royals star Alex Gordon and funny man Jason Sudeikis, as well as historical performances from the Kansas City Ballet, the Kansas City Symphony, Casi Joy and others.
Rather than the usual celebrity, the flipping of the switch will pay tribute to frontline workers in the COVID-19 pandemic, such as doctors, nurses, grocery store clerks, delivery drivers, utility workers, teachers, farmers and others. A two-minute fireworks accompaniment will mark the moment when the lights turn on.
“We have a unique opportunity to use this annual tradition to spotlight the special people who’ve provided help and hope during a challenging year,” Plaza general manager Kasey Vena said. “Kansas City’s essential workers have continued to put the community first and move the city forward, and we look forward to celebrating this tremendous group.”
If you go, large groups discouraged
All Plaza shops will be closed on Thanksgiving, although some restaurants will be open. The Plaza says socially distanced spectators can view the lights, but large groups will be discouraged.
Since the tradition started in 1930, the only time the Plaza lights were dark was in 1973, when then-President Richard Nixon discouraged Christmas lights to reduce dependence on foreign oil.
The lights will be on display through Jan. 10.
The history of KC Plaza lights
The Plaza has one of the most notable holiday lights tradition in the country, and it harkens back to Christmas Day in 1925.
The Plaza shopping center had been conceived by J.C. Nichols in 1912, when the area known as Brush Creek Valley was just an uninhabitable marsh with a nearby hog farm. Nichols, already a prominent real estate developer in areas south of Kansas City, believed that automobiles (and not electric streetcars) were the future of local transportation. The architects he hired, Edward Buehler Delk and George E. Kessler, therefore planned wide streets and allotted considerable space for parking.
The location, five miles south of downtown Kansas City, seemed to pose a challenge. In an era in which virtually all upscale shopping occurred in the heart of cities connected to surrounding residential areas by streetcar, would shoppers drive their vehicles to stores that were not downtown? When Nichols announced his plans in 1922, skeptics derided it as “Nichols’ folly.”
The Country Club Plaza, which is now considered the nation’s first suburban shopping center, turned out to be spectacularly successful after its first buildings opened in 1923. The Plaza’s attractive, Spanish-style architecture, green spaces and scenic location drew plenty of customers.
In 1925, Charles “Pete” Pitrat, maintenance supervisor for the Nichols Company, hung Christmas lights on the Mill Creek Building for the first time. The display was hardly impressive by modern standards: a few strands of lights over a doorway with some small Christmas trees arranged along the sidewalk.
From those humble beginnings, Pitrat oversaw the installment of more lights each year. When the Plaza Theater opened in 1928, he marked the occasion by stringing several strands of lights to the rooftops of opposing buildings along 47th Street, creating an illuminated tunnel effect. Later, in 1929, lights were added to the edges and roofs, establishing the building outline pattern for which the Plaza lights have become known, and the first formal lighting ceremony was held.
Have a question of your own? Ask at kansascity.com/kcq or email kcq@kcstar.com.
This story was originally published November 25, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
