Kansas City, Missouri: Power & Light

Missouri is a large state suffering a form of identity crisis.  In its northern region it is ostensibly Midwestern, with its plains and farms, its flat trajectories and highways extending straight and south.  Further in to this expansive part of the country, hills, rises and ridges gently roll in to view and under the wheels, as the tectonic plates of America shift incrementally to the final valleys before the Deep South.  In this way, Missouri straddles two contrasting parts of America: the liberal leaning Midwest and the folkloric beyond.  As a result, this district of disparity greedily but appropriately takes the best from both worlds and throws them together in to a melting pot of old-town sensibilities and modern, urban receptivity.

Splitting the state are the two iconic river systems of America: the Mississippi and the Missouri.  Each represents the magic and nature of this great land, their snaking paths offering finite staging points for navigating the southern hinterlands and western beyond of a nation still growing in to its immensity.  The journey south from Nebraska in to rural Missouri and, eventually Kansas City, is shared by the flow of the Missouri itself, accompanying the interstate roads as they work their way down from the higher ground of the northern states. 

From Omaha, Nebraska, to Kansas City, Missouri, Dean and I allocated ourselves four hours travelling time.  Slowly the white-coated Nebraskan fields of snow made for the browned allotments of Missouri as we travelled in parallel with the rolling rivers of American legend.  The final stage of this journey, as the lights of Kansas City finally emerged over the brow of a bucolic hill, saw the interstate bob and weave and eventually consent to the corresponding progress of the Missouri waterway, as if road and river were as tussling brothers, jostling for position and attention before ultimately subsisting in equal measure as equivalent tributaries to the city beyond.

Power and Light

Kansas City is oft acknowledged by reference to The Wizard of Oz.  The metropolitan zone of the town is, however, a far cry from the yellow-bricked roads of countryside lore.  This is not, in reality, a city of scarecrows and tin men, but bohemian cafeteria and trendy bars, of a bustling services sector and robust economy.  After hundreds of miles of uniform landscape, Kansas City projects its glass towers and brazenly angled architectural treasures with gusto on unsuspecting travellers.  Arriving is, therefore, a surprise, for this city has urgency, an imposing sense of grandeur, with its tall buildings and wide boulevards, its pretty fountains and pedestrianised districts and parklands. 

Confusingly, Kansas City bestrides two different states, with only half of the town in Missouri, and the other sitting in Kansas itself, accessible via a number of bridges over the Missouri river.  The main attractions are on the Missouri side, although much of the city’s industrial prowess comes from the Kansas state section of the metropolitan area.  This creates an interesting peculiarity for the city’s municipal politicians, dealing with two different sets of state law, as well as the localised regulations administered by the authorities at work within the Kansas City Limits region.  It would be possible, then, to break a state law in Kansas, flee across the river to Missouri where the same action is not a crime, and resist arrest unless the city police department, themselves spanning both sides of the river, decided to get involved and escalate the offence to a federal level.  It makes the unwritten British constitution look like the epitome of brevity, a political haiku.

Known as the New York of the Midwest, or the ‘Little Apple’ to many, Kansas City enjoys two extra attributes beyond its links to a twentieth century classic musical.  Firstly, Kansas City boasts more running fountains in one urban zone than any other city on the planet apart from Rome.  Secondly, it contains the second-highest proportion of officially designated wide boulevards in one city, losing out on top spot to Paris.  Yet this is no nearly man: Kansas enjoys its quirky, kooky claims to fame, embracing them to provide a warm and interesting welcome, which was extended further at the Hotel Phillips, where Dean and I checked in for the night.

The Hotel Phillips exists as a neat microcosmic illustration of Kansas City as a whole.  Built in the 1920s, the hotel lobby bears the hallmarks of swanky Jazz Age style, with marble and gold, shiny bronzed doors and Greco-Roman inspired artefacts and paintings.  That is not to say that the rest of Kansas City is modelled on prohibition-era New York, or the pomp of ancient Athens; rather, it helps affirm that the city retains a sense of sophistication, of status, of significance.

A good example of this rare case of civic and social pride and precision is borne out in the city’s Power and Light District, a pedestrianised arcade of neon-emblazed, sound-blasted bars, restaurants and clubs close to the core downtown area.  This is a district that lives up to its name, with sports bars adjacent to perambulated walkways and highlighted street-level routes, each multiplying to the perception that Kansas City is a pro-social paradise, deliberately designed for human contact and interaction.

Such communication is particularly nuanced at Kansas City’s version of ‘Howl At The Moon’, where Dean and I stopped by for a few drinks after a quick meal in the Power and Light District.  Howl At The Moon involves two pianos, both facing each other, as well as an array of other live instruments (albeit paying deference to the dual-pianos) and musicians, as they work through a succession of audience-requested, keyboard-friendly songs, each in turn giving one of the two pianos a slice of the limelight as the ivories fight it out for spectator affection.  The Kansas City chapter of this interactive, musical feast was a genial affair, and a perfect stopping point for two music fans (and players) from London. 

Dean and I were impressed by the musicians’ skill and rapport with the audience, as well as their willingness to try out a number of songs that they were not overly familiar with, at times relying on iPads with piano chords for sight reading new tracks.  Naturally we decided to test our hosts’ collective mettle with a succession of tricky requests, including Mumford & Sons’ Little Lion Man and Garth Brooks’ Callin’ Baton Rouge, a song – nay, an entire philosophy – of such pivotal intensity to our previous road trip.  After the show, the team members of Howl At The Moon stopped to chat with us about their musical and social history and background, offering the sort of friendly companionship that Dean and I have come to love and enjoy about this inherently polite and respectful country.  The British-American banter from our table in the audience to their positions on the stage was a particularly enjoyable part of the evening.

Drunk from the double assault on the senses that were the natural repercussions of good music and good times, that heady mixture of alcohol and music, whiskey and melody, and empowered by both the rhythm and the rye in our blood, Dean and I ambled slowly through the by-now quiet streets in search of a final nightcap and an ever closer harmony before settling in for the night.  Our tipsy travelling resulted in a troubadour tune or two as we slalomed down the roads towards a renowned dive bar called The Quaff, away from the neon of downtown, on 10^th and Broadway.  Locals may have been perturbed by two British boys’ at times pitch perfect and at other times atonal rendition of Walking In Memphis, arising as it did out of less of a connection to a different town in Tennessee and more because the chords lend themselves well to closely pitched harmonies.  They would have done well to point out to us that we were neither singing in tune nor walking in Memphis but, save for the fleetingly frightening feedback described below, the good people of Kansas City, Missouri, turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to a pair of Londoners taking too seriously the name of their earlier entertainment: howling at the moon, meandering under streetlights, skirting gutters and chasing stars.

“Don’t come in here”

As is physiological necessity when having consumed a considerable quantity of alcohol, the liquids pass through the human body quickly, often without respect for the exigencies of a given situation.  So it was that, mid Lonestar love-in, my bladder decided to exert a hitherto unappreciated level of pressure, and required some fairly drastic action.  Out loud I mused the possibility of relieving myself on a quiet corner, off the beaten track but near enough to my present location to avoid any embarrassing developments.  In reality I had no intention of committing such an act, but I happened to nevertheless lend voice to thought as Dean and I passed by a small courtyard next to the street.  Out of nowhere, a voice rose up from the ether, the great beyond, from the wind itself, bellowing and echoing a statement at once commanding and intractable, seemingly associated with and attributed to one of the courtyard dwellings, but equally entrenched to the entire episode: “Don’t come in here,” came the cry from this spirit, this Ariel of the airways, this anti-Sammy siren of seriousness.  I heeded the advice, the warning, the order, and, terrified, slunk away in to the night.

At The Quaff, a dive bar frequented by students and locals, and the last open drinking establishment in the city, Dean and I were able to calm ourselves from sprinting the final few metres to the bar from the haunted courtyard of Kansas by necking a final sambucca shot and chatting with some friendly patrons.  Already well on the way to all-out inebriation and with a busy day ahead, we eventually worked our way back to the Phillips Hotel, albeit not without Dean deciding to hone his best John Travolta moves on the sidewalk outside the hotel lobby, as he twisted and contorted his Jim Beam-fuelled body to the beat-driven slapped funk bass being piped through the hotel’s external sound system.  A sight for sore eyes and, a few hours later in the cold, bleary light of another February day, very sore heads.

Westport Bohemia

Hungover the following morning, Dean and I prepared to walk off the effects of the night before with a trip to the Westport part of the city.  This is a trendy and popular suburb, with cobbled market streets and outdoor refreshment zones, pedestrianised roads and smart squares.  Boutique, independent clothing and record outlets vie for attention against established labels and chain restaurants, while original and zany cafes and bars spring left and right with every turn, each and all housed within two-storey Georgian town-houses resplendent with painted shutters and white gables; an ostensibly American main street look and feel with a kitsch European edge, a mixture of Washington’s Georgetown and New York’s Greenwich Village with Parisian charm and the bustle of London’s Covent Garden.

We fed our appetites with a stop at the Westport Beer Kitchen, before feeding our fashionistas by perusing the stores of the area, taking advantage of the reasonably favourable exchange rate to purchase some new items in the Country Club Plaza district. 

We had half an eye on the rapidly passing time, aware as we were of a long drive ahead further in to Missouri.  As before our task was to trace the river, to chase the streaks of sunlight and ploughed fields ever southwards, to a town steeped in American history and imagery, of pioneers and frontiers, of the rolling Mississippi river and a gateway to the Wild West and Deep South.  St. Louis, Missouri, beckoned as Kansas City receded in to the rear mirror distance under darkening skies and hill crests.  A natural halfway point on our journey to the south, St. Louis would represent more than just the end of the Midwest and an arch to the beyond; it would involve reconciling a solemn truth: a change was gonna come. 

“You’re not in Kansas anymore”, I muttered to my travel companion as we sped away in to the enveloping night.

"Hungover, MO"

This heavy head, this unmade bed,

This city split in two,

Awake my soul as we slowly roll,

Past hilltops cutting through.

To another destination, another latest stop,

With frisky whiskey to clear the mystery,

Of what state we're in or not.

This foggy memory jolts me, as the peddle hits the floor,

With a weary sigh I wave goodbye,

I'm not in Kansas anymore.

Robert 'Sammy' Samuelson 

Kansas City, Missouri - 9 February 2012.