My additional thoughts on Kansas City. Comments welcome.

1. As to the 21c Hotel, see previous post. Add to it the following: room and bed comfortable. But no shampoo in shower shampoo holder. Did not change towels second night. No trash bin at front door of hotel. Stay there again? Nope. Eat there again? Sure.
2. As to American Jazz Museum (see previous post for Negro League Museum), it is fine, but doesn’t compare to Negro League. A museum that concentrates on sound is tough. There’s a lot to listen to, but who has time? And some neat artifacts. But the museum is a bit schizophrenic – is it an American Jazz Museum or is it a Kansas City Jazz Museum? I think it’s a Kansas City museum with an American name. The exhibits concentrate on Kansas City musicians like Charlie Parker and on musicians that played Kansas City. Those featured are 99% Black musicians. I say 99% because I did hear two clips from Benny Goodman and Woody Herman. But no one else. Not that I find that a museum problem, just a problem with the name of the museum.
3. The Nelson-Atkins Art Museum. Clearly a good museum, we were able to see about half of it in the time we had. There is a special Giacometti exhibit, and we saw the modern and European sections, but missed the ancient and middle ages and American art. Did have time for excellent peach cobbler, a highlight of the museum, no doubt.
4. Wow, what a friendly city. Three examples: (1) Our second day for breakfast at Succatash (see earlier post for the first day), Edie ordered scrambled eggs, has brown potatoes, and toast. When the order came, there were also two strips of bacon, which quickly left her plate. When one of the servers came by our table, she asked if everything was OK. I told her all was good, but that there was a bacon mistake. She was very apologetic and asked what she could do to help (“Isn’t there ANYTHING I can do?” I think was the quote.) We told her all was fine, that we just wanted her to know. She said: “Weren’t you here yesterday, too?” We said, we were, but we were leaving town the next day. She was very friendly and, as we were leaving, she came up to us and gave Edie a large glass of fresh orange juice to make up for the mistake. We couldn’t say no, as we were walking out the door and were very appreciative. (2) We went to the Jazz Museum the day after we went to the Negro League Museum. The two museums share a lobby, and there is one “greeter” for both museums. The greeter who we had spoken to the first day was on duty the second day. Sure, he was very friendly; he’s a greeter. But, beyond being friendly, he started by saying “I remember you. You were here yesterday, weren’t you?” and (3) As opposed to most museum guards in DC museums who stay mum, every room guard at the Nelson-Atkins Museum says hello and smile at you when you walk into their room.
5. What a confusing city. I don’t know if you know Kansas City, but – on a map – if you start downtown and want to go to the museums (either the Negro League/Jazz area or the Nelson-Atkins), you go south. And if you want to go from one of the museums to the Country Club Plaza area (the largest tourist area of Kansas City), you go either further south. You would think that was easy – but it isn’t. For one thing, the major north-south street, appropriately called Main Street, is broken up for construction that something to do with a new transportation system, so you can’t drive it. And that’s the only street that goes through. The most important other north-south street, Broadway Street, takes you, for a mile or so, onto and then off I-35, a major 65 MPH interstate highway. Every other street is interrupted by a park or a similar blockage. What this means is that, whenever you want to go anywhere that we wanted to go from our downtown hotel, we were directed by Ms. GPS onto a major highway. It is clear that the city is broken up by highways, and that neighborhoods have been torn apart. When I was an undergraduate at Harvard, I knew Boston as a group of subway stops, but I had no idea how these various neighborhoods related to each other. That’s the way I felt in Kansas City.
6. A lot of Kansas City is very nice. The Plaza is an area any city in the world would be proud of, the museums (the ones I have mentioned, plus the World War I museum we saw the last time we were there) are outstanding, and downtown is extensive and filled with important and impressive buildings. But that does not mean that everything is peachy. Downtown, there are a lot of vacancies – retail and we think maybe also full office buildings; we don’t know if this has always been the case, if it is a pandemic result (DC has this problem, for sure), or what. And, there are a large number of homeless-looking, vagrant-appearing, drunk or high-seeming people on the street in many neighborhoods. It isn’t a pretty site.
7. Kansas City has a type of construction we have not seen anywhere else. There are many buildings, especially homes, built of stone, gray or tan. But not only this, there are many part stone homes – homes with stone first floors and brick or shingle or frame second floors. Or homes built of other materials with a stone foundation or a stone front porch or even stone columns. Just odd architecture and we think unique.
8. Two small points: (1) All of my relatives, and everyone we know in Kansas City live in suburbs in Kansas, but we stayed in Missouri the entire time. (2) In three days in Kansas City, how many Teslas did I see? One. And (3) Next time we are there…..the Truman Presidential Museum and House in Independence.