KANSAS CITY CROWN - DOWNTOWN KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

The Christmas crowns in Kansas City were first installed in 1959 and were a holiday tradition until 1976:  

Installation
The crowns were installed at nine intersections in downtown Kansas City, from 10th Street south to 12th, and from Walnut Street east to Grand. Each crown was attached to a street corner with a streamer that was custom-sized for the building and street.  

Design
The crowns were made of aluminum frames wrapped in gold foil and were about 13 feet tall and 14 feet in diameter. Each crown had 1,621 bulbs that could light up 30 homes.  

Maintenance
The crowns required their own electrical transformer to power the lights. The Mannequin Company, later renamed Manneco, Inc., was responsible for the crowns' maintenance and manufacturing.  
 
Demise
The crowns were eventually taken down because of the changing downtown landscape. The crowns required a building at each intersection to be installed safely, but many downtown buildings were being torn down as part of the urban renewal era. The crowns were last displayed in 1976.  

Current status
The crowns are in storage and it's unlikely they'll be used again because the supporting buildings are no longer standing. However, there are some replicas and recreations of the crowns:  

Commerce Bank: A replica of the crown hangs in the lobby of Commerce Bank at 10th and Main.  

Zona Rosa: The shopping center has a set of crowns that are modeled after the originals. Some of the crowns are suspended above intersections in the Northland shopping center.  

A history of the giant crowns that used to decorate nine intersections of downtown Kansas City during the Christmas shopping seasons from 1957 through 1976. Commissioned by the Downtown Merchants Association to attract customers to downtown department stores, Frank Mann of The Mannequin Company designed and oversaw the installation of the crowns. Coinciding with the decline of downtown retail and the demolition of many of the buildings they were originally hung from, the crowns were eventually left in storage during the winters. They were sold to Kansas City, Kansas in 1984 for display, and then sold to the city of Holton, Kansas in the 1990s, and redesigned as playground equipment. In 2004, the Zona Rosa shopping district revived the tradition and contracted the original company to create new crowns for display. (as appeared in the Kansas City Star Magazine)