River Market, Kansas City

In 1971, Rockhurst University professor Marion A. Trozzolo began redeveloping historic buildings on the riverfront and nicknamed the area River Quay. In contrast to its long-standing reputation for organized crime and other illicit activity, Trozzolo envisioned the revitalized River Quay as a family-friendly commercial district. With the increase of popular shops, restaurants, and attractions, the city began a marketing campaign for shoppers, with free shuttle bus rides from downtown. In 1972, Fred Bonadonna, son of an organized crime member connected to the operations of Nicholas Civella, was allowed to open a restaurant in the River Quay. Tensions between Bonadonna's desire to follow Trozzolo's family-friendly vision for the River Quay and the mob's desire for adult establishments led to the murder of Bonadonna's father, and a series of bombings that destroyed two bars.[2] This and other mob violence ended Trozzolo's River Quay revitalization project.[3]

The large riverfront warehouses have become increasingly developed into residential lofts, restaurants, bars, shops, cafes, and ethnic markets. Since its inception in 1857, the City Market has been one of the largest and most enduring public farmers' markets in the Midwest, linking growers and small businesses to the Kansas City community. More than 40 full-time independently owned shops and restaurants are open year-round. The farmers' market features local vendors every weekend. The Arabia Steamboat Museum at 400 Grand Blvd. is a tourist attraction displaying thousands of artifacts from a steamboat and its cargo that had sunk nearby in 1856 and was recovered in 1987–88.

KC Commercial Realty Group manages the market on behalf of the City of Kansas City. The official neighborhood association for the River Market neighborhood is the River Market Community Association.