The Paseo, stretching away from you, is one of Kansas City's grand boulevards and a centerpiece of the park-and-boulevard system that planner George Kessler designed for the city beginning in the 1890s. The Paseo runs for several miles through the eastern part of the city and was conceived as Kansas City's answer to the grand promenades of European capitals — a wide, tree-lined corridor with fountain and garden features at intervals, designed to provide residents with a public space worthy of a modern city. The name 'The Paseo' is Spanish for 'the promenade,' echoing the influence that Mexican culture exerted on early Kansas City through the Santa Fe trade.
In January 2019, the stretch of The Paseo near 18th and Vine was renamed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard — a decision that generated significant controversy and a successful referendum campaign to reverse it, restoring the Paseo name while adding a separate designation. The episode revealed ongoing tensions in Kansas City over how public space, history, and honor are allocated. The boulevard itself remains beautiful: the mature trees that arch over the roadway and the ornamental features that interrupt the median are a tangible legacy of the City Beautiful vision that shaped this city's bones.