The term “fly over country” has always offended me, possibly because I have lived most of my life in what others refer to as fly over country. For my part, I’m glad that the folks who refer to it that way flew over it instead of stopping in while I was there. I suspect I wouldn’t have liked them much.
The first year that I lived in California it inevitably came up in conversation that I was a recent transplant. In polite conversation, the question about from where I moved was next. I learned to answer neutrally – “the Midwest.”
“Oooohh. Where in the Midwest?” was the next inevitable question.
“Kansas City, Missouri.” I would answer. And watch for the reaction, usually something akin to how grateful I should be to have escaped that hellish place.
“Oh, thank God you’re out of there! This is so much better.”
One evening at a dinner party, after receiving that reaction for the 1,024th time, I asked the man who said it if he had ever visited Kansas City. His response was an adamant negative. “Oh, no. I’ve never been there.” I looked at him for a moment and finally said, “Then I guess you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, do you?”
Until 2005, the whole of my life was spent in the Midwest – part in Minnesota, then 16 years in the environs of Kansas City. The Midwest is a green place. I grew up on farm acreage in a place of the world where dirt is really black. Kansas City has lawns that suffer only in the bleak heat of August.
When I left my job as a magazine editor and moved to the southern California desert, it was a moonscape to me. Anything green was that color because of irrigation. Everything else was buff, putty, brown or tan. Even all the houses were the same color – California beige – and large garage doors were the most prominent architectural feature.
So I love Kansas City. It’s comfortable, pretty, green, shady, cultured. There are scads of galleries and a couple fabulous museums (one encyclopedic, one contemporary) neither of which charge admission. There are bunches of theaters. A city ballet company. A symphony. A camerata. A small orchestra. A chamber ensemble or two. Choirs. Independent book stores.
There is also food. From where I lived in the Waldo neighborhood, I could walk to Planet Sub, Chipotle, 75th Street Brewery, Waldo Pizza, Sancho’s, that little coffee place on Oak, the bar and grill down Gregory from that. Independently owned businesses were the norm there – the canine friendly independent video store that kept dog treats on the counter, the designer consignment place on the corner, the small used car lot (a reputable one, no less) the list goes on. I could run miles on the leg- and knee-friendly packed sand of the Trolley Track Trail. I could rely on my neighbors for anything from dog sitting to car repair.
There is a general impression that Kansas City is a cow town. It was. In some ways it still is. Unfortunately, a lot of people there keep trying to deny that piece of history instead of celebrating it. But honestly, how can you have that much fabulous barbecue and not be a cow town? Puh-leez.
So here’s a little tour of some of my favorite places not only in KC, but in the world.
The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art is a comprehensive art museum and has one of the largest collections of Henry Moore sculpture in the country. My favorite piece is “Sheep Piece,” which I refer to as “The Humping Sheep.” You can see what I mean from the photograph. The Nelson-Atkins has recently undergone a fabulous remodeling and expansion. Some find the new galleries ugly as warehouses, but personally, I sort of like them. They snuggle into the berms of the sculpture garden as though they themselves are sculptures. They glow at night. They show off a lot of cool art in natural, indirect lighting. And the sculpture garden itself … well. You’ll notice a photograph of what appears to be a badminton birdie. It is. Only it is in a much larger proportion. Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen were commissioned to create these for the N-A and chose the design after seeing an aerial photograph of the site and thinking it looked like a giant tennis court. The ball thing was just too repetitive and boring so they chose shuttlecocks, lighter, more ethereal object which are also reminiscent of Native American headdresses in a way. (Van Bruggen recalls seeing a feathered Indian head piece in a gallery in the Nelson while brainstorming.) There are several lying around the yard on both the south and north sides of the building. Just think of the building as the net and you’ll get it.
The south lawn of the N-A as seen from the steps of the N-A. By the way, the Nelson-Atkins is named after William Rockhill Nelson who was the founder of The Kansas City Star newspaper who, when he arrived in the late 1880s, said that Kansas City was "incredibly ugly and commonplace". He set about making all sorts of civic improvement. Mary McAfee Atkins was another resident who inherited an substantial estate from her husband and started collecting art. The estates were combined in 1927 to form the Nelson-Atkins.
The Country Club Plaza is the creation of J.C. Nichols, an early KC real estate developer. After traveling through Europe, Nichols was determined to recreate something of Seville, Spain. He did it on the Plaza, which features a half-scale Giralda Tower. Architectural style throughout the area is European and Spanish, dotted with fountains and classical statuary. The Plaza is arguably the first regional shopping center created for people arriving in automobiles. Happily, parking is available in cleverly disguised multi-story garages, not in sprawling asphalt lots. The area opened in 1923 and according to New Urbanist land developer Andres Duany, the Country Club Plaza has had the longest life of any planned shopping center in the history of the world. The Plaza itself is beautiful, and it’s connected to other parts of KC that are gorgeous. Ward Parkway is known for its wide, manicured boulevard lined with vintage mansions of the Stover family (of Russell Stover chocolate), the Pendergasts (late 19th and early 20th century political bosses), etc.
Waldo Pizza - one of the places within walking distance of my former home, the wonder that is Waldo has never found an equal in my mind. Or stomach. If you haven’t been there, I can’t explain it to you. It’s like trying to explain sex to a nun. Plus, they serve Ted Drewes frozen custard.
Smoke Stack BBQ – If Kansas City is famous for one thing, it is most likely jazz or barbecue. Actually, those two things probably run neck-and-neck. But ever since Henry Perry started serving the stuff in the early 1900s, the art has been refined to the point of eccentricity. Several major barbecue competitions are held throughout the year, including the American Royal Barbecue Contest, held in conjunction with the American Royal which is a rodeo, cattle drive, general celebration of all the things that Kansas City continually tries to deny. More than 100 restaurants in the area specialize in the cuisine, and each one has its own unique sauce and smoking method. My favorite is Smoke Stack on the corner of 89th Street and Wornall, right next door to Flo’s Polka Dot Lounge, Rainbow Laundromat, and Rayz-R-Edge Barbershop. And while I know that saying something is better than sex is passé and cliché, it’s hard not to think “oh my god, yes, yes, oh god, yes” while you have a mouth full of Smoke Stack’s burnt ends and ribs.
Thanks to Priceline.com, I stayed at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center on my recent visit to KC at $60/night plus parking. The Hyatt has a little sad history. Some of you may remember the disaster in July 1981 when two atrium skywalks collapsed during a tea dance, killing 114 people and injuring 200 others. A friend of mine (who became a nurse) was there that night, dining in the hotel at The Peppercorn Duck Club restaurant with her family, including her father, who is a doctor. She said that there was a crash that sounded like a server had just dropped a cart full of dishes in the kitchen. The restaurant went silent for a few seconds, then conversation resumed. A few minutes later, a page on the PA system, “Would any physicians who are dining with us this evening kindly come to the coat check area?” Then ambulance sirens. Her father responded to the page, and nearby Children’s Mercy Hospital received casualties that evening. Ironically, the entire thing was captured on video because a reporter for one of the television station was there covering the tea dance as a human interest/community story. During an interview regarding that night, he said that he hadn’t wanted to cover that story because he liked to cover hard news. He got his wish that night. It was hard news, alright. Hard to believe, hard to accept, hard to understand.
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