Thoughts On Kansas City, Part One

Great city, very nice people.  Then again, that's true of just about every city I've ever visited:

• Can't help but compare K.C. with St. Louis, the other big city in Missouri.  To me, it feels like Kansas City is a bit more progressive than the Loo.  Maybe it's because I saw a few more pro-Obama bumper stickers when I don't remember seeing any at all in STL.  But I don't remember seeing hipsters in St. Louis, nor finding out the cool places where young twentysomethings hang out.  I didn't hear a whole about Kansas City either, but I heard some, and that's a lot more than St. Louis.
• Guess that is an extension of each city's origins.  St. Louis is known as "The Gateway To The West," where pioneers seeking a new life west of the Mississippi stocked up on their provisions and said goodbye to civilization.  That's why St. Louis has so much tradition; remnants of its place in U.S. history as the jumping-off point to America's Manifest Destiny, let alone its beginnings as a river town as well as the headquarters of many old corporations, not the least of which includes Anheuser-Busch, are everywhere you see, and although you feel its importance in the maturity of this country, you sometimes feel that it's wedded, even shackled to its past.  Not to say that K.C. doesn't have a vivid history; after all, it's considered the nerve center of jazz and barbecue, not to mention the place with a whole shitload of fountains.  But that leaves a lot for the city to make its own history.  Maybe it was because I was in a booming suburb just southwest of K.C. proper, on the Kansas side, but things that are booming.  And even though the boom manifests itself in huge stripmall after huge-ass stripmall, things are modern, or at least newer.  So Kansas City is the flip-side to St. Louis in that regard; the city can reshape itself to fit the times, but they have no history to fall back and show the world what it really is at its core.
• The week I was there the latest issue of that city's alternative weekly, The Pitch, had as their feature story a debate on whether Kansas City needs a new terminal.  All I can say, from what little time I had to walk in, through and outside the place, is that I can see why it needs to be blown up and why it should stay.  On the one hand it looks very old (it may be the most 70's-looking airport terminal in the world) and the haphazard way they have cordoned off the inside to accommodate the gates, security and concessions make it look very, very crowded and messy.  (For example, when I got off the plane and wanted to catch the bus to the Museums At 18th And Vine, I was following the signs to "Ground Transportation."  No joke, I saw one sign making me continue my way around the circular terminal, and the very next sign pointed me in the opposite direction.  I took a few seconds to stand inbetween these two signs, pointing "Ground Transportation" at each other.  And the only thing I saw were these half-partitioned security gates with no exit whatsoever.  Finally I went up to a security guard on one of those high swivel chairs, who looked so bored he looked like he wanted to spin on the chair he was sitting on like he was a kid again but had to look professional.  Apparently, the way out of the gate for those on arriving flights is to go through one of the series of emergency exit doors manned by Transportation Security Administration officials.  You're never supposed to go through emergency exit doors, but I guess that's Kansas City International for you.)  Then again, the Hooters girl I chatted it up with the early afternoon on my flight back home said that, for some reason, there has to be room in this cramped footprint for security lines every three to five gates, not three or four huge ones that serve the whole terminal, such as Minneapolis-St. Paul International.  Therefore, even though the check-in gates are going to be just as long as any other airport, once you reach security it's virtually a cakewalk because there can never be too many people at a security line.  Moreover, and also confirmed by my observations before my flight back, because the airport is separated into three "C" shapes clustered together as if you're tracing the outline of a three-leaf clover (well, kind of), the Hooters girl says that the time it takes from either parking your car or getting off the bus or shuttle to reaching your gate can be counted in seconds, not minutes.  Add the fact that airlines have reduced the number of flights to all airports but especially not-too-big ones like Kansas City's, and I think it should be lickety-split using that to catch or come back from flights.  Some officials promise that a brand-new terminal will bring in new flights and revenue, but if it means more time waiting in lines, I'll deal with the leaking roofs and tacky decor and keep what they've got instead, thanks.
• Oh yeah, speaking of Kansas City airport ... guys, there can be only one fucking airport code.  I tried figuring out a bus schedule once I hit town, and so I used Google Maps for that, but when I hit what I thought was K.C.'s airport code, MCI, the site said its code is actually KCI.  After being corrected one too many times, I checked what it really is, according to the Internet Bible, Wikipedia.  I don't know why the International Air Transport Association gave Kansas City Airport MCI, but they did, and officially, it still sticks.  Besides, an airport in Indonesia has been assigned KCI; I guess that Kansas City figures that Indonesians don't give a shit, probably don't even know where the fuck Kansas City is, so they're going to take KCI as their own, even though they have MCI, because hey, they're K.C.  I understand how natural it seems, but hey, Kansas City, a lot of cities have airports that don't have the same abbreviations as their cities.  Deal.  Otherwise you fucking confuse people.
• The bus is only $1.50 one-way, compared with $1.75 in the Twin Cities (which bumps up to $2.25 for all buses during rush hour).  So there's that.
• As I kind of guessed, the Museums On 18th And Vine seem to be subsidized.  I walked from the closest stop to the post office (to mail something that had to be sent that day), down the street to Arthur Bryant's, which sits in the middle of an industrial area.  I then had to walk eight, nine blocks west to get to 18th and Vine, which wasn't the most revitalizing stroll (I was walking with a heavy bag, but still) to this beautiful are whose preservation, considering the area surrounding it, probably has been heavily subsidized by the city.  I don't blame them; from what little I learned from the history of the city, this area is vitally important to the origins and identity of Kansas City.  Nevertheless it still feels like a part of the town modern residents have forgotten.  With the caveat that this was a Wednesday, I think I was the first person to go through both the Negro League Baseball and Jazz Museums (which are housed in separate wings of the same building) that day.  (The NLBM was buoyed by a class of 60-some elementary school kids on a field trip.  Man, I miss field trips.)  I sometimes wonder if museums are worth it; the artifacts those places hold are important, but they come at a monetary price, and if so many people hold it in such disregard, why even bother?
• According to the AAA guide, the Negro League Baseball Museum should take at least a half-hour.  I took about three and I don't think I got halfway through.  The museum is very compact, yet I still read every blurb and stared at every old uniform and reprint of photographs they had.  I'm a huge baseball fan, which may explain why I went through it so thoroughly.  But the treasure trove of a part of America that was ignored by so many Americans for so long fascinates me.  I was very bummed out that I didn't think I could devote more time to it, so along with the strip club situation (which I should blog about another time), the NLBM is another reason I want to go back to Kansas City and make things right.
• AAA said that the Jazz Museum would take at least an hour to get through.  I had about two, 2 1/2 hours and I almost got done.  I love jazz as well, but I got through nearly all of it, for many reasons; I think the Jazz Museum is a lot smaller than the Negro League Baseball Museum; the museum was mostly photographs; and, this being a museum dedicated to an aural outlet, there were a lot of listening stations where you just listen to jazz greats such as Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong.  I didn't have time to sit down and watch the looping presentation nor see the window panels featuring what I think was jazz on the radio, but other than that, I was good.  I am not saying that because I got through it I hate jazz more than baseball.  I love both equally.
• There's a coatroom in the atrium between both museums.  I sure as hell did not want to lug my bag around both museums, but I could not afford to have the bag stolen as well.  In the end, I took a risk, mostly because I was one of the few people that was there.  Just in case, I stood up my bag in the corner, then re-positioned the folded-up wheelchairs so they were kind of in the way so that it wasn't so obvious from someone just looking into the dark and unattended coatroom that there was a bag in there.  Maybe I got lucky, maybe I was too fearful, but I did check back on my bag a few times around lunch -- I went to Arthur Bryant's after going to the Negro League Baseball Museum and before heading into the Jazz Museum -- and it was there, untouched, every single time.  Want to credit the staff of the Museums At 18th And Vine for all their help, or for not doing anything.  Either way, thank you very much.

This is getting very long.  I thought about writing about everything I wanted to talk about Kansas City here, but that would make for an extremely lengthy blog post, so I'll stop it here.  More another time.