Needle and Button (Garment District)

Kansas City once made a large share of America's clothes, and a stainless-steel needle stitched into a red button now marks the district where it happened. The sculpture, called The Needle, stands in Garment District Place, a small park that Kansas City Parks & Recreation says was dedicated in 1990 at the end of the Eighth Street Tunnel. It is by Dave Stevens, is made of stainless steel and aluminium, and was installed in 2002; the City of Fountains Foundation gives its dedication as 4 October 2002. The parks department describes the button as red with four holes, tilted down towards the north and bolted to two black angled forms, with the needle entering at 60 degrees and white metal thread looped through its eye. A bronze plaque is on the north side of the base. The City of Fountains Foundation gives the needle as 16 feet tall and the button as 5 feet across (KC History describes the sculpture as 22 feet tall). The parks department says the needle symbolises the nearby buildings, once the heart of the garment district, which made over 25 per cent of the clothing in the United States; its park page puts it differently, estimating that one in four women's coats worn in the country was made in Kansas City. KC History adds that the industry was the city's second-largest employer after the stockyards, and that by 1945 there were more than 80 garment factories employing 6,000 to 7,000 people. The park also has the Eighth Street Fountain, dedicated in 1989. The parks department gives the location as 8th and Broadway; the City of Fountains Foundation places it at 8th and Bank Streets.