☰Country Club Plaza

Developed in the 1920s by J.C. Nichols and modeled loosely on Seville, the Plaza was the first shopping district in the United States designed for the automobile — though it does not feel that way walking through it. The Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, the tiled fountains, and the public art give the neighborhood a coherence that most American commercial districts entirely lack. The Nelson-Atkins Museum is a short walk north. On Thanksgiving night, the Plaza lights are switched on — hundreds of thousands of lights outlining the buildings — a tradition going back to 1925 that draws enormous crowds.