The 18th and Vine district offers a walking tour of the physical landscape of Black Kansas City in the 1930s and 1940s, when the neighborhood was the cultural heart of one of the largest African American communities in the Midwest. The route passes the former sites of jazz clubs, barbershops, restaurants, and rooming houses where the men who built the Negro Leagues and the Kansas City jazz scene lived their daily lives.
The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the American Jazz Museum anchor the district. Walking north on Vine Street from 18th you pass the building that housed the Monarch Billiard Parlor, where Satchel Paige held court. The Charlie Parker Memorial stands at the intersection of 17th and Paseo. The Gem Theater, opened in 1912, is one of the few remaining original buildings. Maps for a self-guided tour are available at the Jazz Museum.