Avia Aree

09/30/2026

A doorway. A detail in the stone. A block preserved in a photograph.

SOMETHING WAS STILL THERE follows Commerce Trust at 10th & Walnut through original photography, archival records and Faye’s clearly identified imagined day. Swipe through the story, then read or listen to all six chapters at AVIAAREE.COM.

Full feature: https://www.aviaaree.com/post/what-the-brick-remembers-commerce-trust-heist-kansas-city?utm_source=social&utm_medium=carousel&utm_campaign=something_was_still_there&utm_content=six_slide_story

Original photography and writing: LaRee Durden / AVIA AREE. Slide 3: Commerce Trust, circa 1928; Anderson Photo Company, Henry D. Green Scrapbook. Courtesy of Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections. Used with permission. It predates the 1934 robbery.

Faye and her notebook are fictional, not archival testimony. The complete audio edition uses AI-generated narration.

Thank you, Kansas City Public Library, for preserving the record. Keep the credits attached when sharing.

09/29/2026

COMMERCE TRUST, CIRCA 1928.

I began with my own photograph of the doorway. Then I needed to see the block before the afternoon I was writing about.

This image from the Henry D. Green Scrapbook is one of four Kansas City Public Library photographs included in our new feature, SOMETHING WAS STILL THERE. It predates the 1934 robbery; it is not a photograph of the crime.

The article follows Commerce Trust at 10th and Walnut through archival records and the reconstructed day of Faye, a clearly identified fictional stenographer. The documented people and events remain distinct from her imagined movements.

Read the feature in AVIA AREE:
https://www.aviaaree.com/post/what-the-brick-remembers-commerce-trust-heist-kansas-city?utm_source=social&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=something_was_still_there&utm_content=archive_credit

Photograph: Anderson Photo Company, circa 1928. Henry D. Green Scrapbook. Photo courtesy of Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections. Used with permission.

Thank you to the Library staff for preserving the record. Follow a collection link while you're there; another street is usually waiting on the next page.

09/29/2026

FALL, MADE HERE 🍂

Kansas City does not need another list of pumpkin-spice drinks to prove September is over.

Look closer.

Pumpkin with miso. Brown-butter apples. Kansas City brisket tucked into Swiss quiche. A bakery inside an old Parkville house. Clay pulled red-hot from a wood-fired kiln. A candle made to smell like the October you want to remember.

Fall has fingerprints on it.

Read the full AVIA AREE story:
https://www.aviaaree.com/post/fall-made-here-kansas-city-2026

09/29/2026

Story time. 🤎

Carved stone. Hats and gloves. Four o’clock on Walnut Street.

Come get in the mood for Kansas City—a little nostalgia, a little mystery, and a trip down memory lane.

My newest AVIA AREE story starts with a building that stopped me on the sidewalk. I took a photograph. Then I went looking for its past.

Let’s just say the stonework wasn’t the only thing worth a closer look.

Come downtown with me. We’re going back in time.

Read the new story on AVIA AREE.

09/28/2026

The stonework stopped me. The archives changed the photograph.

Listen to the opening of SOMETHING WAS STILL THERE, our Commerce Trust feature at 10th & Walnut. Then follow the story through the photographs, source notes and complete 26:40 narration.

Read and listen: https://www.aviaaree.com/post/what-the-brick-remembers-commerce-trust-heist-kansas-city?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=reel&utm_campaign=something_was_still_there&utm_content=doorway

Writing and original photograph: LaRee Durden / AVIA AREE. Audio is an excerpt from the article’s existing AI-generated Faye narration. Faye is a fictional narrator, not a historical witness; this is not archival footage.

Thank you to Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections, for the archival images used with permission inside the illustrated article.

09/28/2026

I photographed the name above the doorway before I knew about the man who walked out of the bank on February 27, 1934.

I had stopped for the architecture. The research brought me to Webster Kemner—and to a stretch of Walnut Street I will never look at quite the same way.

SOMETHING WAS STILL THERE
Commerce Trust at 10th & Walnut — Kansas City, 1934.

The new AVIA AREE feature brings original photography together with archival records and Faye, a clearly identified fictional stenographer whose imagined day takes us through the offices, lunch counters and bank lobby of 1930s Kansas City.

Read the feature: https://www.aviaaree.com/post/what-the-brick-remembers-commerce-trust-heist-kansas-city?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=something_was_still_there

Photo 1: LaRee Durden / AVIA AREE. Photo 2: Commerce Trust, circa 1928; Anderson Photo Company, Henry D. Green Scrapbook. Photo courtesy of Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections. Used with permission. Thank you to the Library staff for making these records accessible.

An archival addition is still in progress. We have requested further material from the Jackson County Historical Society; any added images will appear after reproduction permission and credits are confirmed.

Kansas City history groups, preservationists and museum readers: what building first made you stop and look up? Share the story with someone who knows these streets.

09/27/2026

fans… sorry about your luck. 🐬😏❤️

THE CHIEFS ARE ON FIRE THIS YEAR! 🔥🔥🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

LET’S GO, KANSAS CITY!!! ❤️🔴❤️🏈🚨

09/27/2026

KC IN RED.

Chiefs lead Miami 24–10 in the fourth quarter. Score check: September 27, 2:50 p.m. Central.

Red jerseys. Concrete concourses. Kansas City, wherever the Chiefs are playing.

Original Arrowhead archive photography by LaRee Durden for AVIA AREE, with a hard-red editorial edit. Today’s game is in Miami.

Live game center: https://www.chiefs.com/game-day/2026/reg-week3/chiefs-at-dolphins/

AVIAAREE.COM

09/27/2026

09/25/2026

Blue Springs, Missouri gives you room to trade pavement for water, woods and wildlife. Deer move through the trees. Bison and elk graze behind the fence. There’s fishing, firelight, sunsets, and mornings that begin by the lake.

A field note from AVIA AREE.
Explore more Kansas City and Missouri stories at aviaaree.com.