Best Fall Ever: September 2021

T W E N T Y Y E A R S L AT E R Personal 9/11 stories from notable locals

FA L L FA S H I O N Looks we love

B B Q F E S T I VA L S Changing tastes, changing formats?

BEST FALL EVER Kansas’ most haunted town, Patrick Mahomes’ million-dollar playground, the best cider in the city and 33 MORE GREAT THINGS to do this fall.

Campfire Rental at Liberty Corn Maze PAGE 58

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We love Kansas City like family. We know what makes it great, we know how it struggles and we know its secrets.

Through great storytelling, photography and design, we help our readers celebrate our city’s triumphs, tend to its faults and revel in the things that make it unique.

PUBLISHER

Kathy Boos kathy@kansascitymag.com EDITOR IN CHIEF

Martin Cizmar martin@kansascitymag.com EDITORIAL INTERNS

Sophia Lacy Evan Musil

PHOTOJOURNALISM INTERN

Kayla Szymanski

ART DIRECTOR

Katie Henrichs katie@kansascitymag.com SENIOR DESIGN CONSULTANT

Julie Babcock julie@kansascitymag.com DESIGN INTERNS

Natalea Bonjour Melanie Adlich Kaili Miller

COPY EDITOR

Kelsie Schrader SALES

Melanie Bremer melanie@kansascitymag.com Kyzer Ramey kyzer@kansascitymag.com WRITERS

Nina Cherry, Pete Dulin, Lauren Fox, Natalie Torres Gallagher, Rob Henrichs, Nicole Kinning, Hampton Stevens, Joseph A. Zagorski PHOTOGRAPHERS & ILLUSTRATORS

Shawn Brackbill, Caleb Condit, Joanna Gorham, Jeremey Theron Kirby, Chris Mullins, Rebecca Norden

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SEPTEMBER 2021

58 FALLIN’

44

74

80

Range Life

Where We Were

Fall Fashion

A traditional Brookside home gets a bold makeover by a designer-builder duo.

12

KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

Remembering 9/11 a generation later

Looks we love available at local shops and boutiques

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CALEB CONDIT AND REBECCA NORDEN

36 things to do in KC between now and Thanksgiving.

SEPTEMBER 2021

S WAY

T H E LO O P

21

Refresh, Rewind

39

TA S T E

Nailed It

Abstract art is the new French tip.

Big Day Blues

Why we feel a letdown after life events like weddings

44

Neighborhood Watch Eyebrows were raised when these designers painted their Brookside traditional flat black.

24

26

E V E RY I S S U E

Prairie Weeds

Book It

16 Editor’s Letter

A battle to decriminalize pot in PV hits a snag.

Ubiquitous sports betting is about to change American sports.

29 Calendar 34 Backbeat 104 Backstory

T W E N T Y Y E A R S L AT E R Personal 9/11 stories from notable locals

FA L L FA S H I O N Looks we love

B B Q F E S T I VA L S Changing tastes, changing formats?

BEST FALL EVER

FA L L F U N

Kansas’ most haunted town, Patrick Mahome’s million-dollar playground, the best cider in the city and 33 MORE GREAT THINGS to do this fall.

| T W E N T Y Y E A R S L AT E R | FA L L FA S H I O N

Campfire Rental at Liberty Corn Maze PAGE 58

O N TH E C OVE R

Liberty Corn Maze’s campfire rentals as shot

by Caleb Condit and Rebecca Norden

kansascitymag.com

14

95

Old Jersey

King G’s killer Taylor Ham breakfast sandwich

A Lewis and Clark mural in the West Bottoms is getting a touch-up. The artist reveals some symbolism you may have missed.

40

09.2021

A LL E V ER

In This Issue

KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

SPECIAL SECTION

51 Luxury Apartments/ Condos Guide 86 Private School Guide

96

Fire Emoji

98

The Middles

100

Half Glass

101 102

Clay & Fire makes great use of its wood-fired oven.

A new cookbook freshens up mid-century Midwestern classics.

3Halves new brewer is a familiar face.

Newsfeed

The latest in KC food news.

’Cue Card

Changing consumer tastes are bleeding into BBQ fests.

KANSASCITYMAG.COM SEPTEMBER 2021

15

FROM THE EDITOR

C O N T R I B U TO R S

Chris Mullins

PHOTOGRAPHER

The photos from this month’s featured home were taken by Chris Mullins, a former musician turned full-time commercial photographer.

He’s an avid golfer, art enthusiast and coffee connoisseur.

Joseph A. Zagorski WRITER

The Backstory about the longest game in NFL history was written

by Joseph A. Zagorski, a U.S. Army veteran, former schoolteacher, former park ranger and former sports writer for two newspapers in Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America and the author of America’s Trailblazing Middle Linebacker: The Story of NFL Hall of Famer Willie Lanier.

Kayla Szymanski

PHOTOJOURNALISM INTERN

This month’s fall fashion section was styled and shot by Kayla Szymanski, a photojournalism intern currently studying at Mizzou.

16

KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

MARTIN CIZMAR ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID BABCOCK CONTRIBUTOR ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOANNA GORHAM

A

couple months ago, I had one of those newfangled smart thermostats installed. It was a hassle-free process that will theoretically save me some money, and the installation guy got everything set up just how I wanted it.

“Sir, what temperature do you want the heat set on?” he asked toward the end.

“Not too warm, like sixty-eight degrees.”

“And what about the air conditioning?”

“Uh, well, also sixty-eight degrees.”

He grimaced, asked if I was sure, then grimaced again. My house has been at a steady sixty-eight since, bills be damned.

Which is a somewhat long-winded way of saying that I sure am happy to see the arrival of autumn. Oh, sure, summer is great. And spring and winter are not without their charms. But if we’re being honest, I’m a fall person. I like the temperature to top out around seventy and dip into the fifties at night. I want to be wearing a fleece, watching football, drinking crisp lagers and listening to Neil Young’s autumn albums (After the Gold Rush and Harvest Moon). I think it’s genetic: My mom stocks enough of her preferred pumpkin spice creamer to last the year.

I’m a little extra excited about this fall, given everything going on in KC. Last year, the activities that weren’t canceled were iffy. This year, with pretty much anyone who wants and needs a vaccine having got one, things are full go. We’ve got picks for Oktoberfests, pumpkin patches, a newly renovated Kansas City Museum, the return of the Plaza Art Fair and a couple months with all three of the city’s teams playing at once. As a Cleveland Browns fan, I’ll just go ahead and put myself on the record as predicting the Chiefs don’t have a strong start to their season, but Sporting absolutely looks like a championship caliber club.

For this month’s feature, we’ve sorted through everything going on and highlighted the absolute best events between now and Thanksgiving. Elsewhere in this issue, we’ve got a fall fashion photo essay with looks we love, analysis of what new laws that open up sports gambling will mean for local teams and a somber feature in which notable local people share their memories of where they were on September 11. Oh, and we found the best apple cider and doughnuts in town (page 66).

This is a big issue that’s packed with things we’re excited about. Here’s hoping Martin Cizmar it’s helpful as you plan what to do these EDITOR IN CHIEF next three months.

MARTIN@KANSASCITYMAG.COM

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COURTIER

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NUMBERS FROM THIS ISSUE

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Billions that an average NFL or MLB franchise could be worth in the era of legalized sports gambling.

PA GE 2 6

$500

What it costs for a pair of authentic handmade leather boots like those worn by the living historians who will appear at Raytown’s Festival of the Trails.

PA GE 2 9

14

Seasons the Kansas City Chiefs went without making the playoffs after losing the longest NFL game ever played.

PA GE 10 4

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KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

D U S T, O I L A N D B LO O D

The most talked-about story from our August issue was a feature on Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of journalist David Grann’s book. The story focuses on the systematic murders of what were probably hundreds of Osage people. The movie, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, is being filmed mostly in northeast Oklahoma, right along the Kansas line. The film crew has bought out the stock of antique shops in the Flint Hills to outfit the set with appropriate period pieces. Our story featured an interview with Geoffrey Standing Bear, Chief of the Osage Nations, who talked about his hopes for lasting changes to the community as a result.

“Thanks so much for sharing this article. I’m sharing it forward and hope that many people will see it.”

—Lani HosmannHalter “Such a good book about a terrible wrong. Can’t wait for the movie.”

—Linda Young-Teppo “Great story about how Martin Scorsese won the trust of the Osage people and the many ways the production itself is giving back to the people it portrays.”

—World Indigenous News “Interesting story about filmmaking with a conscience, discovering history and exposing greed.”

—Linda Hughes “I read it and always hesitate to see a movie based on a well-written book, but way more people watch movies and this is an important

“

The month’s cover was shot at Liberty Corn Maze in Liberty on a hot August day that featured sweatmopping breaks. Thanks to the staff for setting us up with a roaring fire.

BEHIND THE SCENES

history that too few know.”

—Sue Moen “European exploiters were and are still the biggest threat to every living species on this small planet. They can never right every wrong ever done everywhere.” —Denise Toleu “I want to see Louise Erdrich books brought to the big screen!” —Michaela Gillespie “I was in Texas for work in February of 2020. There were already commercials about how Martin Scorcese was going to be filming a movie nearby and the local news station was doing some type of cold case investigation into the story.

They were super hyped about it. —Major_Warrens “I still can’t believe we’re getting Brendan Fraser in a Scorsese movie. It rocks.”

—DeepSixWrestlin

Photojournalism intern Kayla Szymanski lays on the sidewalk on a ninety degree day to get her shot for this month’s fall fashion feature.

CORRECTION

Our August issue used the incorrect word to refer to the beef shawarma at Palestinian restaurant Baba’s Pantry.

CONTACT US

Kansas City

P.O. Box 26823 Overland Park, KS 66225-6823 (913) 469-6700 EMAIL: editor@kansascitymag.com

My concern grew out of the absurdity that being on the wrong side of the street could put you in the system,” —PRAIRIE VILLAGE COUNCILMAN IAN GRAVES, WHO SOUGHT TO DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA IN PV

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L E A D I N G T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N I N K A N S A S C I T Y

LIGHT TOUCH Subtle symbols of America’s ‘problematic history’ are mostly unnoticed on the River Market’s Lewis and Clark mural, the artist says.

BY L AU R E N F OX

KANSASCITYMAG.COM SEPTEMBER 2021

21

THE LOOP LIGHT TOUCH

As a landmark mural gets a touchup, the artist explains the subtle symbolism you might have missed.

H

I G H O N A B O O M L I F T in the heat of the summer, a Kansas City artist is touching up one of his old murals. José Faus has been repainting portions of the Lewis and Clark mural in Kansas City’s River Market neighborhood since early July.

Faus was one of three artists commissioned to create the mural for the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 2004. It stands more than a hundred feet high and about fifty feet wide, occupying the side of River Market Antiques.

In 2020, tuckpointing repairs to the building erased portions of the painting. So Faus was asked to touch it up fifteen years after painting it with fellow artists Jesus Ortiz and Alisha Gambino.

Faus said he’s enjoying restoring the mural and reminiscing about his experience painting it—but the mural represents a “problematic history,” Faus says. “We were very aware of that when we did the mural,” Faus says, “so there’s some sly things that we put into it.”

The painting depicts a general scene of the explorers along the Missouri River, but it’s not meant to be located in Kansas City. Sacagawea, who is pictured in the painting, did not join the expedition until the travelers reached present-day North Dakota.

22

KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

Here are four small details to note in the mural, which hint at the artist’s view of the expedition.

1

On the right-hand side are William Clark and Merriweather Lewis, standing above Sacagawea, Sacagawea’s son and York, Clark’s slave. The latter are positioned below Lewis and Clark as a symbol of their second class status, Faus said. They even sit on the same level as Seaman, the dog who accompanied the group on their expedition.

2

In the center of the mural, people involved in the expedition are seen taking items from the land and loading up their ship. Faus described this as foreshadowing. “Eventually there was going to be a lot more taking,” he said.

3

On the left-hand side of the painting, Toussaint Charbonneau, Sacagawea’s husband, is seen walking toward the group carrying a turkey and a rifle. Faus said the turkey represents the first Thanksgiving and how, if not for the hospitality of the natives, the colonists might not have fared as well.

4

At right, overlooking the scene, Clark’s thumbs-up pose glorifies the actions occurring and the future bounty to be taken.

T H E L O O P D E V I L’ S L E T T U C E

city codes. But it wouldn’t have prevented officers from enforcing state laws. Instead, anyone arrested for pot in Prairie Village would be tried in county court, which Graves ultimately felt might be worse for those charged. “You want as few people as possible to have records,” he says.

“And you don’t want to spark an unproductive lawsuit with the attorney general’s office.”

The lawsuit is not just theoretical. In 2015, voters in Wichita decriminalized marijuana.

However, the state’s conservative Republican attorney general, Derek Schmidt, who is running for governor next year, took the city to court and won a decision striking down the voter-approved measure on technicalities.

In Prairie Village, the matter of arrests in is not purely academic: Public Prairie Village records show that from 2019 include a marijuana charge to 2020, the city had one hundred and two marijuana arrests. That accounted for about seven percent of the city’s total arrests, though the city was unable to provide stats on how many included other charges.

Council member Selders still believes the opt-out method is the most direct way of addressing racial disparities in marijuana enforcement. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Black people in Kansas are nearly five times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites. Incomplete data suggests the number jumps to more than eight times more likely in Johnson County.

“If we had gone this route, it would have sent a clear message to our district attorney that we as a city no longer support this facet of systemic racism,” Selders wrote via email.

Police chief Byron Roberson, who told the council that the measure “will make our city more attractive to drug dealers and drug users“ rejected the equity argument. “I can only speak for my agency in my area, but I don’t see that marijuana is something that’s attributed to systemic racism,” he says.

Roberson says decriminalization would limit officers’ discretion in conducting stops and deter them from searching further. But he also doesn’t recognize marijuana as a top priority for the department. “In most instances, marijuana finds us,” he says. “It’s a random thing that an officer finds in a traffic stop.”

For now, the measure is stalled. Graves says a state-level approach would be the best path forward. “This is the state’s problem to solve,” he says.

PRAIRIE GRASS A bold proposal for decriminalizing marijuana in Prairie Village failed, but it may hint at a coming battle.

BY E VA N M U S I L

P

R A I R I E V I L L A G E sits right between two sides of the marijuana decriminalization debate, literally. To the east, in Missouri, possession has been decriminalized in Jackson County and a full-on recreational legalization effort is planned for the 2022 ballot. But in Kansas, a gram of cannabis could land you in jail for six months.

Two members of the Prairie Village city council tried to change that with a proposal that would have made it the first city in Johnson County to decriminalize pot. Their proposal ran into a buzz saw of opposition that included the city’s police chief testifying that legalization would turn the leafy suburb into a destination for drug dealers. In the end, the measure was effectively tabled, and the decriminalization effort is at a standstill.

“My concern grew out of the absurdity that being on the wrong side of the street could put you in the system,” says council member Ian Graves, who proposed the issue along with council member Inga Selders.

The mechanism for decriminalization discussed was an opt-out of statewide marijuana possession provisions, which would’ve removed possession from

24

KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

ILLUSTRATION BY MELANIE ADLICH

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THE LOOP HUNTING REVENUE

BOOK IT The new NFL season is here, and it may mark a bold new era as the league’s new deal with sportsbooks remakes the sport.

BY H A M P TO N S T E V E N S

there was a Simpsons episode where Lisa and Homer bonded over watching pro football. At one point, Homer lets it slip that he bet fifty bucks on the game to make it more exciting. Lisa was shocked and disillusioned. “What could be more exciting,” she asks, “than the savage ballet that is pro football?”

America is about to get the same sort of wake up. This spring, the National Football League announced its first-ever U.S. sportsbook partnerships. Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings and FanDuel all reached agreements to become official sports betting partners of the NFL. They’ll offer retail and online sports betting and even bring betting content directly to NFL.com and the NFL App. The first impact of this will be pretty obvious. NFL owners, already among the world’s richest humans, are about to become even richer. Analysts predict the worth of the average franchise could jump three to fourfold, into the double-digit billions.

More relevant for the average fan, though, is that the look and feel of your favorite team’s game-day broadcast could be about to change. You can already get a glimpse if you tune into a Royals game—on a sports network now branded by the Bally’s gambling empire.

YEARS AGO,

26

KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

Frankly, it’s been a long time coming. For a nation that prides itself on individual liberty, the United States has long clung to its Puritan roots in regards to gambling. Attitudes, however, are changing. Over the past several decades, as the country has seen a general relaxation of mores in regards to sexuality and recreational drug use, the same has happened for betting.

Look at lotteries. The first modern, U.S. government-run lottery was set up in Puerto Rico in 1934, and it was thirty years before the second was established in New Hampshire. Today, most states have them. Or look at casinos. Nevada became the only state to allow legal casinos in 1931, and it took forty-five years before New Jersey followed. Today, most states have commercial or tribal casinos. Sports betting, though, was still mostly a no-no until three years ago, when a national law that banned sports gambling most places was struck down by the Supreme Court.

The floodgates opened. Major League Baseball and the NBA have both inked massive deals with FanDuel and DraftKings. A month ago, NBA commissioner Adam Silver gave an interview to celebrate the opening of a sportsbook at the Wizards arena in Washington where he explained their rationale. Silver claimed that league participation in gambling will protect the integrity of the game. They can track crooked behavior in sports gambling, Silver said, only by participating.

There are also, of course, a few extra billions to be raked in.

The NFL is the big boy on the block, though, and their new agreements could represent a sea change in how Americans interact with their favorite teams. We’re quickly heading for a future more like Ireland or the UK, where betting parlors dot the streets and people can legally wager on practically anything—even, say, the next president or royal baby name.

What’s really creepy, though, is the possibility of full scale integration into the broadcasts themselves. It’s easy to imagine a Black Mirror-esque, dystopian future where the TV networks include betting content in broadcasts. Already busy with graphics and data crawls, we might soon see gambling prompts as well. Imagine a graphic popping up that offers a chance to bet instantly, through your phone, on whether a kicker makes a field goal or the defense can get a third down stop.

Like it or not, this is the future. We’re looking at a U.S. where betting is ever-present, government-sanctioned, and—legally anyway—seen as simply another form of entertainment, no more or less moral than seeing a movie.

For me, come Sundays in the fall, I’ll take the Lisa Simpson route. When it comes to football, it doesn’t take any more than the savage ballet.

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WHERE YOU WANT TO BE IN SEPTEMBER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NATALEA BONJOUR

September

11

GO: The Festival of the Trails is September 11 all over Raytown.

Start at the Rice-Tremonti Farm Home (8801 E. 66th St., Raytown) or the Raytown Historical Society & Museum (9705 E. 63rd St., Raytown).

IT’S AN ACT

The first rule of interacting For example, they didn’t have zippers during with those people you’ll this time period. A costume might have see dressed in period garb at Raytown’s Festival of the hidden zippers, but period attire doesn’t.

Trails? Don’t call them “reenactors.”

“I paid $500 for my shoes,” Monaco says.

“They hate being called reenactors—they are living “They are perfectly handmade leather shoes.” historians,” says Ralph Monaco, a lifelong Raytonian Monaco can afford it—he’s a trial lawyer. and heavyweight in the hobby who is wrangling the Which brings us to the third rule of living historians for the festival. interacting with living historians: Don’t try The Festival of the Trails is “the Super Bowl to to get them to say offensive things, which Raytown,” in Monaco’s words, and this year’s installment chuckleheads have been known to try every also marks Missouri’s bicentennial and the bicentennial now and again. of the Santa Fe Trail. Expect the largest assemblage “There are certain words and phrases that of living historians in these parts this year, along with are not appropriate to use as a living historian,” storytelling, games, food trucks and live music.

Monaco says. “It’s a balance between Also: living historians don’t like the word “costumes.” educating and the perspective of the person “It’s period attire,” Monaco says. “We spend an awful you’re portraying and still being sensitive to lot of money on our clothing to make sure it’s authentic. things that are offensive to us today.”

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T H E B E AT C A L EN DA R

September

Chicago (with Nine Inch Nails and The Smashing Pumpkins) and Iowa (with Slipknot and Megadeth), which is a handy way of explaining the band’s sound. Friday, September 24. 7 pm. Grinders, 1826 Locust St., KCMO. $82.

Food Truck Frenzy Frank A. Theis Park, Oak and 47th streets, KCMO. $56 day-of tickets. Waterlanternfestival.com.

Dinosaur Jr. September 21

4

Dwight Yoakam September 4

The best top-to-bottom country album ever recorded? I’m not going to tell you Dwight Yoakam’s Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room claims the crown, but it’s surely in the conversation next to No Fences, At Folsom Prison and Wide Open Spaces. The Ohio-raised Yoakam was Johnny Cash’s favorite singer, and being weathered by age is only giving him more gravitas. Saturday, September 4. 8 pm. Uptown Theater, 3700 Broadway Blvd., KCMO. $45–$79.

Hannah Berner September 3-5 Pro tennis player turned podcaster and reality TV star (Bravo’s Summer House) Hannah Berner is a newcomer to stand-up, having started writing comedy via viral tweets. She’s already had contemporary comedy’s most important rite of passage: apologizing for insensitive comments about mental health made several years ago. Friday, September 3–Sunday, September 5. Various times. The Comedy Club of Kansas City, 1130 W. 103rd St., KCMO. $25–$35.

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KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

Water Lantern Festival September 18 Honor a loved one or a special memory, or simply share a happy message by decorating a water lantern and watching it float alongside hundreds of others. Live music and food trucks will accompany the tranquil sight of this traveling festival. And don’t worry about trash—staff will collect all the lanterns at the end of the night.

Saturday, September 18. 4:30–9 pm.

Alternative idols, Dinosaur Jr. has never faltered from the noise that comprised its original sound, instead refining it in ways other band revivals have failed. Their latest release, Sweep It Into Space, co-produced

by Kurt Vile, streamlines their edge into an enjoyable but still distorted ride. Tuesday, September 21. 8 pm.

The Truman, 601 E. Truman Road, KCMO. $28. thetrumankc.com.

Faith No More September 24 The long-awaited reunion of Mike Patton’s large-format rock band was delayed by the pandemic, but it’s now rolling. This show is sandwiched between festival gigs in

24

September 25 Lenexa Public Market is throwing what amounts to a food truck festival, but without the entrance fee. The City Center will have standout trucks including The Waffler, Barbwire Barbecue, Rolling in the Dough, Taste of Brazil and The Hungry Hatch. There will be live music by Holmes Street.

Saturday, September 25. 5–10 pm. Lenexa Public Market, 8750 Penrose Lane, Lenexa.

Latino Arts Festival at Arrowhead September 26 While you’re tailgating before the Chiefs game, stop by the Latino Arts Festival tent in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. Twenty artists of all ages will have their work showcased along with food, drinks and a lowrider exhibition. If you stick around for halftime at the game, you’ll catch performances from Mariachi Estrella KC and El Grupo Folklorico Atotonilco.

Sunday, September 26. 10 am. Arrowhead Stadium, 1 Arrowhead Drive, KCMO. Free, $45 for parking.

Oktoberfest Lee’s Summit September 24-26

The largest festival in the world, Germany’s Oktoberfest, is canceled again this year.

But bier is back in KC, with KC Bier Co.’s event in October and this smaller warmup in downtown Lee’s Summit the weekend before. This event is more family-focused, with food (pork schnitzel, sauerbraten) and children’s activities getting most of the real estate. There is, however, a sneaky good option for beer lovers: twenty bucks gets you three hours of unlimited tasting at the homebrew competition. Friday, September 24–Sunday, September 26. Hours vary by day.

Downtown Lee’s Summit. lsoktoberfest.com.

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY RESPECTIVE VENUES

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T H E B E AT C O OK C OU N T Y

HE’S DUE Chicago-born musician Liam Kazar is finding his groove—and the perfect porch—in Kansas City.

BY E VA N M U S I L

LIA M KA Z A R LOV ES L I VE MUSI C. It’s why he spent the past five years touring with artists such as Knox Fortune, Steve Gunn and Jeff Tweedy. It’s also what shaped the playful, groovy and catchy sounds of his debut album, Due North, which was released August 6.

Kazar started touring at seventeen,when he missed school to perform at South by Southwest in the hip-hop band Kids These Days, which included rapper Vic Mensa and trumpeter Nico Segal. When the band split in 2013, Kazar decided to develop himself as a songwriter while on the road playing other people’s music. With help from co-producer James Elkington, Kazar assembled a colorful palette of bouncy synths and vibrant guitars to paint a bright record.

The Kansas City transplant also opened a pop-up restaurant, Isfahan, in January, which serves a blend of Armenian and Persian food. The in-and-out pop-up format from city to city reminds Kazar of touring days. Its next stops are in Massachusetts and New York.

What brought you to Kansas City? My partner started the organization KC Tenants. She’s a mover and a shaker, and we both decided to give it a shot in KC.

Definitely happy to have been here during the pandemic instead of Chicago. Our neighbors are all lovely people, and what I like about KC is you all hang on your porches. We’ve got some good porches.

What was your favorite moment in your years of touring? I was doing a show with Jeff Tweedy in Tokyo. Jim O’Rourke lives in Tokyo, and I’m a big Jim O’Rourke fan. Jeff and Jim have a band together called Loose Fur, and those records are some of my favorite things Jeff’s ever done. We ended up doing two Loose Fur songs at the concert, including a twentyminute rendition of “Laminated Cat.” I was twenty-two at the time and playing on stage with some of my favorite guitar players in the world. Then we all went out to dinner and hung until 2 am talking about records.

How did your pop-up restaurant Isfahan come about? After about four months of sitting on the couch during the pandemic, my partner said, “Maybe you should do something, anything.” So around August, I hatched a plan to dive deep into Armenian and Persian food and make that my staple cuisine. I’ve always liked cooking, and I’m Armenian. I grew up eating some Armenian food, and I’ve been to Armenia. And Persian food is very similar, but with a bit more spice to it. I thought I’d maybe get a gig every once in a while. It totally blew up and it’s been a job ever since. I really have a new respect for anyone in the service industry.

KC FAVO R I T E S Yasmeen Cafe “Somali food, that place is unbelievable.

I think it’s the best food in the city.”

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Big Mood Natural Wines “We love that place. Going there was our ‘treat ourselves’ moment during the pandemic.”

Cliff Drive “I go around there all the time.

I shot my music video for ‘Frank Bacon’ there.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX A VISCIUS

What’s your favorite song on Due North?

The first single, “Shoes Too Tight.” After I made that song, I felt like I knew who I was as a person. That was the first song that came together, and it was the North Star making the record. I was like, “This is what I want my songs to sound like.”

All the other songs came into place once I had that song.

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KANSASCITYMAG.COM SEPTEMBER 2021

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B AC K B E AT G OI NG S OLO

says jazz vocalist and bandleader Eboni Fondren, remembering the first time she took a scat solo on the bandstand.

Fondren’s mentor, the late Everette DeVan, knew that she was hesitant to scat. DeVan was always pushing Fondren out of her comfort zone; that’s how you grow. “We went over improvising in lessons,” she says, “so I knew that at any moment he was going to make me scat.”

Fondren stood on the stage at the Drum Room inside The President Hotel. While going down the steps to enter the former speakeasy, patrons got a bird’s-eye view of Fondren and the band as they played in the back of the busy room. DeVan’s band was one of the first bands to have a steady engagement at the venue, and he always brought along his regulars.

DeVan’s band had played through the form of a tune, and it was coming around the time to take solos. Fondren knew she was the only one who hadn’t taken a solo yet that evening. DeVan started a groove, not soloing. Nobody else in the band was soloing either. DeVan looked over at Fondren with a smirk: “Scat!”

“I couldn’t leave it open like that,” Fondren says.

Fondren recounts an awkward scat solo with choked “shoo be doos.” It forced her to go home and find her own, distinct style.

“That is one of those lessons I’ll never, ever forget,” she says.

Now, a decade later, Fondren is making her solo debut at The Folly Theater with her band, Eboni and the Ivories. The performance takes place in the lounge of The Folly, an intimate listening room that’s perfect for Fondren’s lush, sultry voice.

Fondren is a jazz vocalist, but she has a wide variety of skills in her arsenal. She’s also a voice actress and wedding band singer, and she’s been involved in professional musical theater productions across town with both KC Rep and The Coterie.

She is also a professional stylist—she put on the American Jazz Museum’s first-ever fashion show in July.

Fondren recently left her day job to go all-in on her creative pursuits full-time.

When it comes to gigs, Fondren is focusing on “quality over quantity” since reemerging from the pandemic. She will be a featured artist with the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra in their upcoming season, in addition to other specialty shows that are in the works. She is also focusing her energies on her emerging styling business, JzzySTYLE. Fondren does have one regular weekly engagement: Tuesday night jam sessions at Soirée Steak & Oyster House. Her career, like those of many jazz musicians, began at jam sessions like these. She took lessons with DeVan in the daytime and then cut her teeth at his jam sessions in the evening. Now, Fondren has come full circle. “You just learn so much from being on the bandstand,” Fondren says. “I’m happy to be that caveat for my students because that was there for me when I was starting out.

“I wanted to bring a consistent jazz project back to the Vine,” Fondren explains. “Some of the other places do a lot of R&B, a lot of soul, but not a lot of jazz. I wanted to make sure there was something consistent down on the Vine.”

THIS CAT CAN SCAT Local jazz vocalist Eboni Fondren is making her solo debut at The Folly Theater.

BY N I N A C H E R R Y

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GO: Eboni and the Ivories, The Folly Theater, 300 W. 12th St., KCMO. Thursday, September 9. 7 pm. $22. Seating limited to forty-five.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ADRI GUYER AND HEIRLOOM PHOTO COMPANY

“ I W A S L I K E A D E E R I N H E A D L I G H T S ,”

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AFTER THE ALTER What are post-wedding blues, and why do they happen?

BY N I C O L E K I N N I N G

it has been seventy-one days since I got married.

Unopened Target gift registry boxes still border the walls of my storage room, and cards from guests line my desk. My wedding dress hangs in my closet, still brown at the skirt’s edges from our reception’s beer-covered dance floor, but I can’t bring myself to take it to the dry cleaner. Part of me is still holding onto pieces of my wedding, grasping at everything that lingers from the best day of my life.

Before I got married, I had heard of the post-wedding blues and had even experienced them in mild form as a bridesmaid. But from a bride’s perspective, I had no idea what I was in for. Since the moment I stepped back into reality after my honeymoon in Mexico, AS I WRITE THIS,

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KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

I’ve felt a hard-to-shake, overwhelming feeling of sadness and loss of purpose. After a quick Google search and speaking with a few newlywed friends, I learned that I was not alone in my feelings.

Major moments in our life disappear in the snap of a finger. Licensed professional counselor Jessica Mostaffa says that people can grieve the end of happy life events as much as they can sad ones.

“It is common to feel a void or like all the air was let out of a balloon after a big event,” Mostaffa says. “People think grief is equated only with death, but we can experience grief and loss feelings after big events like a wedding.”

Mostaffa, who works at Wild Hope therapy services in Brookside, says possible reasons individuals feel depressed after their wedding could include unmet expectations or hopes for what the day might have been, feeling like they lost out on the joy of planning, missing the positive attention surrounding the big event, or unexpected or traumatic changes as a result of the event.

Along with plain sadness, other feelings recent brides and grooms might experience are worry or ruminating thoughts: Do I regret the flowers I picked? Should I have hired a videographer? Did I seem grateful enough or say hello to every guest?

Mostaffa also says that after a wedding can be a lonely time for individuals, which is something that they don’t expect or prepare for. “Planning and preparing for a big event, like a wedding or having a baby, gives individuals social attention and connection through important relationships,” she says. “When that’s over, people report feeling sad about not getting that special attention or connection anymore.”

My husband echoes this sentiment: “You think so much about the big event and everything leading up to that weekend that you never take the time to appreciate the fact that this is most likely the only time that you’ll have all of the most important people in your life in the same room.”

Licensed marriage and family therapist and owner of the Kansas City Relationship Institute in Independence Paul Busk says

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It is common to feel a void or like all the air was let out of a balloon after a big event.”

that this time in a couple’s life— “the honeymoon stage”—can also be challenging for relationships.

“Couples go through developmental stages, just like an individual would, and a wedding or any other major step or transition in relationships like moving in together, getting a pet together, getting married, having kids, changing careers—those transition moments can often shine a light on some growth areas that we might have as people,” he says. He adds that coming back from a honeymoon and realizing that, all of a sudden, everything is not perfect and people have to go to work, clean the house and take care of everyday responsibilities might create dissonance between reality and expectation.

Busk says that this, in turn, can cause couples to face challenges like failing to communicate with each other, shutting down, not having sex and experiencing lack of motivation to help

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with everyday duties like doing the dishes and folding laundry.

For couples experiencing any of these issues, Busk recommends addressing the situation with your partner.

“Start a conversation where you put your partner at ease,” he says. “Say: ‘Hey, I’m not trying to get you to save me. I’m not trying to get you to fix me. I’m not trying to get you to take responsibility. I’m not trying to get you to apologize, even. I’m just trying to get you to sit with me as I kind of talk through how I’m feeling.’”

Lately, I’ve found that the importance of romanticizing life or finding beauty in the mundane has helped me jump the post-wedding blues hurdle. To me, that means chiming Duke Ellington in the kitchen while I chop vegetables for dinner, biking to happy hour, taking my sweet time to browse Waldo Greenhouse alongside my husband or opening the windows to fill my home with the scent of rainstorm. I’ve learned that living for the smallest reasons, instead of the biggest, leads to a happier life.

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S WAY HOM E

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KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

BUG JUICE The owners of Cicada Co. made bold choices after gutting a traditional Brookside home.

BY M A R T I N C I Z M A R P H OTO G R A P H Y BY C H R I S M U L L I N S

W

H E N TA R A A N D K Y L E D A V I S started working on their traditional Brookside three-bedroom, their neighbors weren’t quite sure what to make of it. The couple, owners of Cicada Co. Construction Company, started by painting the exterior a striking and modern flat black.

“We decided to be bold,” Tara says. “It was a kind of quick decision, and at first it was kind of scary because it was aggressive. Even our mailman came by, and then went and found us because he was like, ‘They’re painting it the wrong color!’”

Five years and a lot of sweat equity later, the neighbors “have a little more faith” in the couple’s design chops, Tara says.

Kyle is from Alma, a little town west of Topeka. He got an architecture degree but prefers being hands-on. “That’s really our whole business model,” Kyle says. “I don’t know if you would really consider us a general contractor— we’re more of a design company that knows how to build stuff. It really helps us to make sure it gets done properly and within people’s budget. We’re designing it and then building it as opposed to designing it and then sending it off to someone else to figure out how much it’s going to cost to try to build it and then having them send it back to make a bunch of adjustments.”

Tara is from western Kansas, where she learned to drive “by my dad telling me to aim for that grain silo and wake him up when we hit the highway.” When they moved to KC, location was the most important thing.

“We wanted to be in Brookside, and we wanted something that we could completely gut, and this was the one house that we could afford that needed to be gutted where we could also afford the money that needed to be put into it,” Tara says. “We actually bought it on an FHA loan because this was our first home. In order to be approved, it needs to be inhabitable, and there were some things that would keep it from being approved, so before we officially bought it, Kyle actually came over here and started fixing it so it could pass inspection.”

The house was “meant to be,” Tara says, and unlike other people in their line of work, they have no intention of selling it and starting over.

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1

2

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1 KITCH EN The bright white kitchen, which is awash in subway tile, has a wood-paneled ceiling. That ceiling starts in the entryway between the dining room and kitchen, where the same wood also covers the walls to make what the couple calls a “wooden hallway.” “We didn’t want an open concept, but I entertain a lot, so having these rooms connect was really important,” Tara says. “I just got inspired by this one picture of this wooden door jamb. So we basically made this huge wooden door jamb. The wood on the ceiling was supposed to stop, but when we decided to do a white kitchen, we decided to run it through, just to give it some warmth.”

2 WATER F OU NTAIN The

built-in water fountain is a clever touch that’s popular with the couple’s three kids.

“I hate water cups,” Tara says. “All the kids say, ‘Can I have some water?’ and I can just say, ‘Go to the fountain.’”

3

3 EX TER IO R The sea of native prairie grass and bright yellow wildflowers in the area between the sidewalk and street are a more recent addition, planted by Kyle after the city cut down a dead tree. “That whole area was a mess and I wanted to do something with it,” he says. “It was an opportunity to do something that will be better than grass, and add a point of interest to the yard. And now we come out here every week with the kids and look at what is newly blooming. There are over a hundred varieties of flowers, so it should keep blooming throughout the summer.”

4 DINING ROOM The Davis family uses their dining room every day. They painted the room several times in an effort to bring in some color before deciding on white. Kyle made the table himself out of salvaged floor joists from a building in the Crossroads. Tara searched for just the right chandelier. “I wish I could tell you it came from some crazy place, but it’s actually just a Restoration Hardware chandelier,” she says. “I thought we needed something really funky to pair with the very traditional look. We wanted to elongate the space as much as possible and make it feel grand.”

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5

5 L IV IN G ROOM The former owner of the house had a company that installed windows and mirrors. “This whole fireplace was just a mirror,” Kyle says. “One whole wall of the bedroom was a mirror. They had a mirror company, so they just slapped up mirrors everywhere.” The room also has great light from a huge front window. “Most of the construction we did ourselves before we had our business or any money,” Tara says. “We had a lot of offers of free labor, and so we saved everybody up for the weekend we were installing the windows. My dad’s a farmer, so he’s pretty used to some crazy redneck construction. Kyle ordered these windows, and he wanted them just a little bit bigger than was what was in there. My dad said he just pulled out the Sawzall and started cutting directly into the front of the house, and my dad was like, ‘What the hell is this kid doing?’”

The floors are unfinished tongue-in-groove softwood ordered directly from a mill. “They need to be aged,” Tara says. “You see the dents and dings and it looks a lot better that way.”

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6

6 B ATH R OOM Kyle redid all of the plumbing and electrical in the house—something they often end up doing in older Brookside homes. “With these older homes, when you dig into them, you often find that things were done in kind of a half-assed way originally,” he says. “We try to treat these homes with reverence, so when we crack them open, we want to improve the situation but also utilize what we started with.” The tile and the console sink are original to the home. They changed out the faucet, light fixtures and wallpaper. The banana leaf wallpaper brings in some color, and the faucet and light fixtures were chosen to accentuate the original console sink.

7

7 NU R SERY The nursery has a darker color scheme than most of the house, with jewel tones and tan curtains. “This is a more moody room, but it gets so much sun in the winter that it just blasts in,” Tara says. “We just wanted to cover it with curtains.

There are a lot of little personal touches in there—like, I actually wrote that children’s book that’s propped up there.”

8

8 PLAYROOM The playroom is behind a door that’s covered in the same wallpaper as Davis’ two older daughters’ shared bedroom.

“All the things I wanted as a kid, I want to build for our kids,” Tara says. “I want the fun house.

Kyle built the front of the house.

We used cedar siding and some faux brick. We gave them a lot of different play spaces because we found that if you just give them a bunch of toys in one room, it becomes a crazy mess.

So they have a lot of space to use their imagination.”

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LUXURY APARTMENT AND CONDO GUIDE

2021

HIS NEW apartment community is like no other on the North side of the Country Club Plaza/South Westport areas. It sits just far enough off the beaten path that it offers a quiet neighborhood setting perfect for pets and quiet strolls, but it’s close enough to all the best entertainment and fine dining in the city.

The unit types range from studios to three-bedroom apartments complete with a bark park and paw spa. 44 Washington is one of the few spaces in this urban setting that has incorporated lush greenspace with pet-friendly amenities. Known for its grand private pool, 44 Washington’s swim area features ping pong and cookout areas and is truly private without any public entrances. There is also a wellness center for on-property pampering massage therapy.

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4 4 WASHINGTON 551 W. 44T H S T., KC M O 816-406-2456 44WASHINGTON.COM

VILLAS AT 4 4 WASHINGTON 551 W. 44T H S T., KC M O 816-406-2456 44WASHINGTON.COM/VILL AS

HEN COMPLETE, the Villas at 44 Washington, which sits adjacent to 44 Washington, promises to be the most desirable housing near the Country Club Plaza. The property, set to open this fall, will feature expansive, one-of-a-kind two-story homes with three bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, and access to all of the amenities at 44 Washington, including private underground parking. Some home plans will include private yards. From the amenities to the spacious floor plans to the custom, blue cabinets, every single detail of this community is unique and unparalleled in quality.

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his midtown oasis of indulgences sits adjacent to the chic Country Club Plaza and is just minutes from work and play in the heart of the city.

The signature swimming pool area features an open-air kitchen and a fireside lounge offering everything you could want for a relaxing day at home or a picnic just steps from your apartment.

The state-of-the-art fitness center, climate-controlled parking garage, dry cleaning pick-up and delivery services, and flexible lease terms are what take this apartment community to the next level.

The one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments are beautifully appointed with fully equipped kitchens, high-end stainless steel appliances, custom maple cabinetry and granite countertops. The open-style living room features woodstyle flooring and the bathrooms have a spa quality. You’ll also find in-unit washers and dryers and, for the speediest connectiosn, Google Fiber.

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45 MADISON 4445 M A D I S O N AV E., KC M O 816-399-3178 45MADISON-PRG.COM

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LUXURY APARTMENT AND CONDO GUIDE

2021

HE APEX IS the newest development at CityPlace, a growing apartment community in Overland Park just off I-435 and I-35. The mixed-use luxury apartment community features three hundred and seventy “smart” apartment homes atop 18,400 square feet of retail space.

Residents are afforded the ultimate convenience with control of their door locks, thermostat and lights via a smartphone app. For example, when a resident enters their apartment, they can issue a voice command like, “Alexa, turn the lights on.”

Gourmet kitchens, granite countertops, large walk-in closets, private balconies and in-home laundry elevate these spaces to the finest in high-end living.

The property includes an infinity pool with a swim-up bar, covered private cabanas, a bark park for your furry friends, a digital sports lounge with a sports simulator, a twenty-four-hour fitness center, a yoga studio and a beautifully landscaped natural greenspace that winds throughout the entire community linking to the Indian Trails.

Living at the Apex with its close proximity to highways means you are only twenty minutes away from any area in the greater Kansas City metro. You are just twenty minutes away downtown, twenty minutes away from the Legends, ten minutes to Leawood and just twenty steps away from on-site retail, which will include a liquor store, salon and other merchants opening within the next year.

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THE APEX 1 0 4 0 1 C O L L E G E B LV D . , O V E R L A N D P A R K 913-557-8916 THEAPEXATCIT YPL ACE.COM

THE PEAK AT S O N O M A 8900 MAURER COURT, LENEXA 913-379-1900 THEPEAKATSONOMA.COM

HE PEAK AT SONOMA features 338 luxury apartments, including one- and two-bedroom floor plans and Oddo Development’s first premier penthouses. Located in the heart of Lenexa, residents enjoy beautiful views of Lenexa City Center to the west along with easy highway access.

It is a short walking distance from Sonoma Plaza, also managed

by Oddo Development, with incredible on-site dining, shopping and entertainment. A short drive will take you to the beautiful Shawnee Mission Park, where you can walk, hike, bike and play as well as enjoy the summertime Theater in the Park events.

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The Peak captures a luxury lifestyle with in-home features that include latch security, black stainless steel appliances, expansive windows, dramatic ceiling heights and designer materials. Additionally, this community is pet friendly, even offering on-site pet spa amenities. The clubhouse holds a professional kitchen, coffee bar, bar and pub room, with the outdoor space featuring an infinity-edge pool along with barbeque stations and abundant greenspace.

This community explores the essence of extravagance with its smart-home technology and resident concierge while staying locally owned and professionally managed.

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Luxury Living,

Reimagined AMENITIES

913-601-6855

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THE GRAND 1125 G R A N D AV E., KC M O 816-656-8500 THEGRANDKC.COM

OCATED IN THE HISTORIC

Traders building, The Grand’s closest neighbor to the south is the T-Mobile Center, placing it smack dab in the heart of downtown and within a short walking distance to all the excitement downtown Kansas City has to offer. Just a quick stroll will get you to the Power & Light District and a cornucopia

OCATED IN THE ever-

expanding city of Lenexa, where I-35 and Alternate 69 converge, the Villas at Waterside provides the benefits of suburban life with easy access to all the best hot spots. The Villas at Waterside are centrally located, whether you’re commuting downtown or heading south to Olathe. Just off 87th and Quivira, the property lends itself to easy access to Lenexa’s popular City Center and it’s a massive community center complex.

It’s also just a quick jaunt away from historic Shawnee and its myriad museums, parks, breweries and dining.

The Villas at Waterside feature three beautiful courtyards, a zero-entry pool, massive sundeck with private cabanas, firepits, grilling stations, a bocce court, a bark park and a hammock garden. These fun amenities are set against a backdrop of three ponds, with a one-third of a mile walking trail. If the shorter trail doesn’t quench your hiking thirst, look no further than just down the road, where you’ll find the city’s best parks and bike trails inside the massive Shawnee Mission Park complex.

1, 2, or 3 Bedroom Apartment Homes Available!

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Climate-controlled garage Luxurious pool and spa Outdoor kitchen and fireside lounge 24-hour fitness center Gated dog park

4445 Madison Ave. Kansas City, MO 64111 816-399-3178 www.45madison-prg.com

THE VILLAS AT WATERSIDE

of stores, restaurants, bars, entertainment spots and offices.

The twenty-one-story modernized tower boasts having the highest rooftop pool in the city and is a short KC streetcar ride to the Rivermarket, the Crossroads Art District, Crown Center and Union Station.

The Grand features spectacular views of downtown Kansas City and offers impeccable executive suites, oneand two-bedroom apartments, and penthouse floor plans.

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BLOCK MULTIFAMILY GROUP Changing Multifamily One Block at a Time.

4 4 WA S H I N G T O N 44washington.com | EMAIL: 44washington@blockmultifamily.com

T H E V I L L A S AT 4 4 44washington.com/villas | EMAIL:44washington@blockmultifamily.com

CONTACT US TODAY! blockmultifamily.com | marketing@blockmultifamily.com 56

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THE GRAND thegrandkc.com | EMAIL:thegrandkc@blockmultifamily.com

THE APEX theapexatcityplace.com | EMAIL:apex@blockmultifamily.com

T H E V I L L A S AT WAT E R S I D E thevillasatwaterside.com | EMAIL:wsvillas@blockmultifamily.com KANSASCITYMAG.COM SEPTEMBER 2021

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Meet the infamous Ratman of the West Bottoms, sneak peek at the refreshed Kansas City Museum, and sip the best cider in the city (it’s not where you think).

Our guide to the

BEST FALL EVER in KC

WO R D S BY Martin Cizmar, Rob Henrichs, Nicole Kinning, Sophia Lacy,

Evan Musil, Hampton Stevens

P H OTO G R A P H Y BY Caleb Condit and Rebecca Norden

I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY Katie Henrichs

FALL FUN 9.21 // JUMP SCARES

KANSAS CITY 61

BOO-KET LIST

THE LEGEND OF RATMAN

By Evan Musil

L

URKING THE LINES at the Edge of Hell haunted house in West Bottoms, Harry Lewetzow targets people averting their gaze from him. “A lot of people will not look at you if they’re scared,” he says.

But when Lewetzow sticks live rodents in his mouth, people generally split into two camps: Some get scared and actually run while others laugh and push the most scared person toward him.

Ratman, 47, has worked at the Edge of Hell since he was around thirteen, and he’s played nearly every character. “One of the first things I did was stand in a closet and flip a switch that moved a candlestick across the mantel and a pillow across the couch,” he says.

He developed the Ratman character in the early nineties, and it’s since become a staple. He’s famous among generations of high-schoolers who huddle together waiting for the ghoulish fiend in a gothic suit with rats in his pockets.

Why rats? “They’re the ones that fit my mouth easiest when I’m hungry,” Lewetzow says. The current rats in his rotation are named Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. But Ratman also buys three new rats each year on the day the house opens. “I have to get scared, too,” he says. “The only thing I get scared by anymore is if the

FIVE of our absolute favorite fall events

Exiled in Bonner springs

rats are going to bite me or not.” By the end of the season, they’re fully trained and acquainted. He switches between rats whenever they need to drink water or cool down.

He has his pregame routine down to a science. Five minutes to apply makeup, no more and no less. “If I took my time, it’d probably look like crap and no one would recognize me,” he says.

In his nearly thirty years of “eating” rats, Ratman has scared generations of families. “I’ve seen the adults grow up and have their kids, and their kids grow up and start bringing their kids,” he says. His family has grown through the haunted house as well.

That’s where he met his wife, who’s also a performer. They have four daughters, and one of them currently performs alongside Ratman on the street as RatBrat.

Ratman is an enduring figure in the Kansas City haunted house scene. When he’s on break, fans beg to see him. He’s been spotted by enthusiasts in Chicago, Denver and San Francisco. As Harry Lewetzow, he doesn’t enjoy big crowds. But as Ratman, he savors them. “That’s the magic of being in character,” he says.

“You’re not yourself.”

GO: The Edge of Hell is one of five haunted houses in the West Bottoms.

It opens September 10. 1300 W. 12th St., KCMO.

Wear your hiking shoes because this frightening trail in Bonner Springs is a mile long and not for the faint of heart. Upon entering the trail, you’ll be given a small red flashlight to help you navigate your way through unpredictable terrain. Ghouls hide at every turn, and every few yards the nightmare shifts into a new form. It takes about twenty minutes to get through the trail: There’s even an abandoned school bus lodged between trees that you’ll have to climb through. 12829 Loring Road, Bonner Springs. exiledkc.com.

KC Bier Co. Oktoberfest Kansas City’s largest locally owned brewery focuses on traditional lagers, and this year brings back its beloved Oktoberfest, a weekend of giant steins, polkas and lederhosen at Crown Center. The official bier of the fest is a malty Vienna-style lager, and among the entertainment scheduled are the promisingly named Bram Wijnands’ Polka on Steroids. General admission tickets are $10, VIP is $55. Small mugs are $3.

Hermann Oktoberfest In the center of the “Missouri Rhineland,” Oktoberfest in Hermann gives you the feel of a small German village without actually traveling to Germany. The nearly fifty-year tradition celebrates the town’s German roots and wine history every weekend in October. experiencehermann.com.

Worlds of Fun Halloween Haunt Is one haunted house not enough? Well, then, Worlds of Fun’s Halloween Haunt is your place. During select nights from mid-September through Halloween, the theme park transforms into a nightmarish scene where you’ll encounter scare mazes and zones filled with hundreds of monsters. Each zone has a different theme, from clowns to voodoo to corn killers, and they’re just as good as KC’s West Bottoms haunts. Need more screams? Hop on a roller coaster and you’ll be leaving the park with a nonfunctioning voice box. worldsoffun.com.

Shawnee Town 1929's Historical Hauntings Johnson County’s historic village, Shawnee Town, hosts a one-night Halloween party that has many of the same attractions you’ll find at commercial pumpkin patches, but for just one dollar per activity. On Saturday, October 26, from 6 pm to 8:30 pm you can trick or treat, take a hayride or enter the costume contests. 11501 W. 57th St., Shawnee.

FALL FUN 9.21 // MUSIC

Thank U, Alanis

By Martin Cizmar

I

WISH WE HAD STREAMING in 1995 simply so I could see my play count on Jagged Little Pill. I bought the breakthrough sophomore album

by Alanis Morissette sometime in between hearing the incendiary “You Oughta Know” on 107.9 The End (everything was an edge or end in those days1) in July and beginning high school in August. I listened to it every day of ninth grade.

Every day. Sometimes more than once a day.

You ought to know, and hopefully you do, just how massive and influential Jagged Little Pill was. JLP is the second-best-selling album of the nineties, just behind fellow Canadian Shania Twain’s Come on Over. It doubled up Nevermind.

But that doesn’t really tell the story. People like me only bought it once—and played it a thousand times.

That doesn’t tell the story, either. Because while every mega-selling quazillion platinum record has its own charms2, Jagged Little Pill is singular.

“Anger”—the primal howl of the first single about the frustrations of dating Uncle Joey from Full House3—brought people through the door. Some commentators dwell there, in the moments of alt rock angst. But taken in full, with a couple decades of hindsight, the album stands out from contemporaries for its rejection of rage and resentment and its embrace of brighteyed idealism. All Alanis really wants is common ground, patience, justice, a wavelength. There is anger—about Uncle Joey being a bad boyfriend, about the Catholicism of her youth—but that’s the noise, not the signal.

The album’s title comes from “You Learn,” a song in which Alanis celebrates the nobility of smiling through failure. The pill, jagged though

it may be, is to be swallowed not bitterly but gratefully. It feels so good, swimming in your stomach. When she performs the song now, after decades of Buddhist practice and having had an experience that revealed to her that our existence is illusory, she channels blissedout enlightenment.

In the first single from her next record, "Thank U," Alanis thanks the universe for a smattering of things, both good and bad, while walking around the streets of Los Angeles naked, fully exposed in a non-sexual way. The moment she jumped off was the moment she touched down.

I don’t know if Alanis Morissette made a perfect, timeless record. But she certainly made the right record for a generation that, in a few years, would find itself standing in the parking lot of a Best Buy talking with college buddies about whether they’d enlist to go to Afghanistan to avenge 9/11, or, many fast-moving years after that, having their child’s first day of kindergarten canceled because of a pandemic.

For this tour, marking the anniversary of the landmark album, Alanis planned a perfect moment of triumph with two worthy contemporaries, Liz Phair and Shirley Manson’s Garbage. It was to be a galvanizing moment of female empowerment in the runup to the presidential election. It was scuttled by the pandemic, of course. A few weeks ago, Phair dropped off “due to unforeseen circumstances.”4 The jaggedness of it all really is even more appropriate. Thank you, frailty; thank you, consequence.

GO: Alanis Morissette, Cat Power and Garbage at the T-Mobile Center. Sunday, September 19. 1407 Grand Blvd., KCMO. $46-$670.

1) This particular Cleveland station is infamous for playing an on-the-nose R.E.M. song for twentyfour straight hours on its last day of operation. 2) With the exception of Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell— that album’s success will forever remain a mystery. 3) The best detail of this story isn’t that “You Oughta Know” is about Joey from Full House but that Danny Tanner himself, Bob Saget, claims to have overheard the fight when Morissette called during dinner. 4) It is perhaps too on-the-nose here to note that this space was originally slated to go to an essay about Liz Phair.

67 KANSAS CITY 63 Show Time FIVE can’t-miss fall concert picks

Ludacris at the Tacos & Tequila Festival Legends Field, the home to the new Monarch’s minor league ball club, will have a daylong festival with tacos, tequila and the patron saint of road rage, Ludacris. They will ROLL OUT more than fifty different tacos and forty types of margs—get one and move out the way. Twista, Mario, Bobby Valentino and Petey Pablo are also on the bill.

Saturday, September 25. Legends Field, 1800 Village West Parkway, KCK. $39–$99.

Ben Folds with the Kansas City Symphony The standout rock pianoman of his generation will perform both alone and with the Kansas City Symphony on the In Actual Person Live For Real Tour, one of the first large-capacity events at the Kauffman Center since the pandemic began. Folds has long been a great live act. Tuesday, October 5 and Wednesday, October 6. Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, 1601 Broadway Blvd., KCMO. $70-$160.

Pitbull and Iggy Azalea For elder millennial clubgoers, this show on the I Feel Good tour is sure to be a therapeutic night.

It’s been about a decade since the Miami and Australian pop-rappers were at their peak, but both seem eager to get back on the road. Wednesday, October 6. Starlight Theatre, 4600 Starlight Road, KCMO. $40-$150.

Pri mus cove rs Rush A virtuosic jam-adjacent alt rock band covers the hits of a virtuosic jam-adjacent classic rock band in this show on this tour, a hesher’s dream. Saturday, October 9. Grinders, 1826 Locust St., KCMO. $40-$99.

Japanese Breakfast

,

Korean-American indie-pop act Japanese Breakfast, the musical project of Michelle Zauner, is on a steep upward trajectory. Zauner’s memoir, Crying In H Mart, debuted at number two on the New York Times’ bestseller list in April, and her new album, the joyful Jubilee, is drawing rave reviews. Saturday, October 9. The Granada Theater, 1020 Massachusetts St., Lawrence. $25.

FALL FUN 9.21 // GALLERY SZN

6 great art and museum shows in KC

In its ninety years, the Plaza Art Fair has only had two disruptions.

The first was during the flood of 1977, which happened just ten days before the fair was set to take place. Then, organizers pulled through to still make it happen. The second was last year, when Covid peaks prompted the fest to cancel. Luckily, the beloved nine-block fair is back in its original form this year.

September 24-26. Country Club Plaza.

From his headquarters in Osawatomie, abolitionist John Brown led the anti-slavery side of the Bleeding Kansas confrontations that presaged the Civil War. A traveling exhibit dedicated to him will be on display at Lawrence’s Watkins Museum of History in September and October and will explore everything about his tumultuous history, from his early life in Ohio to his role in the Harpers Ferry raid that sparked the Civil War. 1047 Massachusetts St., Lawrence.

67 KANSAS CITY 65

Renaissance Redux The Kansas City Museum has outgrown its Igloo Era.

By Nicole Kinning

I

since a visitor has walked past the Corinthian pillars into the grand front entrance at the Kansas City Museum. The French Renaissance estate at the corner of Gladstone Boulevard and Indiana Avenue was built in 1911 by prominent lumber baron Robert A. Long.

After his death, the mansion—now called Corinthian Hall, named for its pillars—became a museum of science, anthropology, natural history and history. The museum consisted of a planetarium, taxidermied animals and, most famously, a life-size igloo made of chicken wire and plaster. The igloo is still the most askedabout thing in the museum, says spokesman Paul Gutierrez, even though it’s “long gone.”

After many years of exhibit changes and deterioration, Corinthian Hall got an exterior facelift in 2006. As of its party on September 4, the museum is ready to unveil a complete interior overhaul with a twenty-two-milliondollar price tag.

“The new focus will be about Kansas City history and culture,” Gutierrez says. “And that's what our collection reflects. We have over ten thousand objects we started collecting back in 1938.”

The rehabbed first floor of the museum closely resembles what the mansion looked like when Long and his family lived there: You’ll find antique architectural fixtures and moldings filled in with contemporary touches

August marked Missouri’s two hundredth year in business, and to celebrate, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art will display a collection as an ode to the bicentennial.

Runs September 16– February 20. 4420 Warwick Blvd., KCMO.

T’S BEEN THREE YEARS

One of Nelson-Atkins’ fall displays, Art of Illusion, is an eye-trickery display of photography by twenty-five artists who did not have the help of darkroom manipulation or Photoshop.

Think of it like a more talented Leaning Tower of Pisa photo opp. Runs October 22–April 25.

4525 Oak St., KCMO.

like can lights and a modern cafe. The floor’s rooms will explore the history of the Long family and the architecture of Corinthian Hall as it made its way from private estate to Kansas City’s once-biggest museum.

The second and third floors didn’t get off so easily. Water damage and deterioration prompted a full gut, so fresh floors, plaster and design will be filled in with modular panels and displays. The second floor will have five main exhibit galleries covering time periods from Rivers to the 1980s. The third floor will be dedicated to artifact-based exhibits, a room on the history of Kansas City’s neighborhoods and an auditorium.

The basement, which once held a single-lane bowling alley and the laundry room, is where you can see the home’s original elevator and lounge in the mid-century-decorated billiards room on comfy Womb Chairs. “Fun fact: In [the movie] Legally Blonde, Elle Woods has that exact chair in pink,” Gutierrez says.

Right now, there is no set opening date, but the museum’s annual Derby Party, which takes place on September 4 this year, will give guests a sneak peek into the much-anticipated renovated Corinthian Hall.

GO: The Museum’s reopening Derby Party will be held September 4 from 3-7 pm. 3218 Gladstone Blvd., KCMO. $70-$125. kansascitymuseum.org.

Nelson-Atkins itself is the subject of another fall exhibit from the museum.

Origins showcases pieces from the Nelson’s first ten years of existence, which explores the early identity, decisions and people behind the Kansas City institution. Runs August 14–March 6. $18. 4525 Oak St., KCMO.

Through the works of local artists, With Liberty and Justice runs at Charlotte Street will tell stories of important moments in American history and how they relate to the inequities of and infliction of violence on people of color while also recognizing the hope for progress and justice that the future holds. September 10-October 23. 3333 Wyoming St., KCMO.

FALL FUN 9.21 // Cider & Doughnuts

KANSAS CITY 67

Runnin‘ The Mills

THIS CIDER HOUSE RULES

FOUR great spots for pumpkins, doughnuts and cider in KC

Louisburg Ci der Mi ll

The best cider and doughnuts in KC are at Dunn’s Cider Mill.

By Martin Cizmar

J

ON DUNN is from Berkley, Michigan—it’s at Eleven Mile Road outside Detroit, three miles past Eminem Avenue.

“Where I lived, there were about forty cider mills within an hour’s drive of my house,” Dunn says. “In Michigan, it was a big autumn thing to do, go to the cider mill and have cider and doughnuts. Around here, when I started, there wasn’t much interest in doing that, but for whatever reason we did it anyway.”

That was way back in 1977. Forty-five years later, Dunn’s Cider Mill (17003 State Route D, Belton, MO; 816-331-7214) draws huge lines for cider and doughnuts. Dunn’s doughnuts are fried fresh daily from a cake batter using cinnamon and sugar. They’re good. But the cider is what sets it apart.

Unlike some other mills in the area, Dunn’s juices its apples on-site using a twenty-four-inch hand-operated press that is “pretty small by cider mill standards.” The apples come from a fourth-generation farm outside Waverly, Missouri, which Dunn calls “the best-tasting apples anywhere in the area.” Dunn’s press uses wooden mashers and a stainless steel basin. They use no preservatives or flavorings, and the cider is not pasteurized to remove the ambient yeast that will turn soft kid-friendly cider hard. Dunn’s cider is refrigerated immediately to be sold within three or four days. Fresh-pressed small-batch cider is nothing like what you buy at the grocery store or from larger operations.

“Once they taste it, they’ll know the difference right away,” Dunn says. “We don’t add anything to the cider. We start with tree-picked apples. They are sanitized and washed, and then we rinse them off and they go to the press.”

Dunn’s cider is meant to be drunk right away, but if you’re of a different mindset, you could pour a little off the top, set the jug’s top on loosely and let it ferment in the fridge for about two weeks, as is tradition up in Michigan.

The iconic red face of the Louisburg Cider Mill and its waterfall of apples are the symbols of eastern Kansas autumn. The annual Ciderfest returns this year with an inflatable slide and pony rides for all kids.

Venture through the ten-acre corn maze, or pick out handcrafted gifts at the arts and crafts booths. And you can’t forget the doughnuts and cider, hot or cold.

14730 K-68 Highway, Louisburg, KS.

Faulkner's Ranch Faulkner’s Ranch in Raytown is a rowdy, country-fried alternative to more demure pumpkin patches, boasting several large bouncy attractions, pony rides, petting goats and a corn cannon that blasts cobs across a pond. There are also fresh doughnuts and chilled cider for sale.

October 1-31. 10600 Raytown Road, KCMO.

Deanna Rose Farmstead Deanna Rose Farmstead in south Overland Park has its own annual Pumpkin Hollow event. There’s a lot of hay to be had: a horse-drawn hayride, a hay pyramid and a hay slide. There’s also a spider web maze, lawn games and pumpkins for sale. October 1-31. 10 am-3 pm weekdays, 10 am-4 pm weekends. 13800 Switzer Road, Overland Park.

Carolyn's Pum pki n Patch Tucked away between highways 210 and 291, the Raasch family provides fall family fun at Carolyn’s Pumpkin Patch and the Liberty Corn Maze. From wagon rides to petting zoos, the two attractions aren’t tailored only to younger visitors. At the Liberty Corn Maze, you can enjoy Sauced and Lost, an adults-only event combining beer tasting, campfire rentals and mazes at night. There’s also local wine and pumpkin doughnuts. 17607 N.E. 52nd St., Liberty, MO. carolynscountrycousins.com.

—Rob Henrichs

FALL FUN 9.21 // SPORTS

KANSAS CITY 69

Being Bad at Football Is a Sign of Moral Virtue, Actually.

Field Days Big upcoming contests for each of KC’s pro teams

By Hampton Stevens Chi efs vs. Browns

E

of a team that began last season by losing its home opener to Coastal Carolina, Kansas is coming off a particularly gruesome offseason.

In March, the school had to part ways with coach Les Miles after previous sexual harassment allegations came to light. This was followed by athletic director Jeff Long stepping down, after which came a deeply disturbing story about a player allegedly bought off by the university when he was threatened and harassed by teammates.

Suffice to say, it’s a less-than-ideal situation for new coach Lance Leipold.

This stuff is nothing new. One could argue, in fact, that Kansas is the single worst major conference college football program in the country. Scandals and firings are just the inevitable symptoms; apathy is the disease.

KU football is ultimately a mess because, deep down, Kansas fans just don’t care. At heart, KU is a basketball school. Duh. KU may be the most basketball-y school that’s ever basketballed. There isn’t another place in the country, with the possible exception of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, to watch a sport in the place where it was born.

Compared to that, what’s the occasional bowl game? I’m old enough to remember when Glen Mason and Mark Mangino fielded winning teams. Those clubs didn't get half the love of an average Big 12 win in basketball.

The Jayhawks don’t actually want to be good at football. They want to be adequate. Which is an impossible dream: Winning at the highest tier of college football means ruthless recruiting, shimmering new stadiums and gyms that look like a billionaire's playpen. Anything less is a recipe for losing 6-3 to a team that plays in a conference below bowl eligibility.

Something else is at work here, too. Maybe it’s just an excuse for all the losing, but some Jayhawk fans seem to see football as déclassé.

The more we learn about what football does to young bodies, the harder it is to watch the game with a clear conscience. That’s perhaps doubly true for the chardonnay-sippers on Snob Hill. At least, Jayhawk fans can tell ourselves, basketball doesn’t give the kids chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Maybe this is all rationalization. For that matter, maybe Leipold, unlike Miles, David Beaty, Turner Gill and Charlie Weis, can finally build a winner in Lawrence. If he does, will anyone really care?

VEN BY THE STANDARDS

Tyreek Hill is talking 20-0. Andy Reid has a sparkling 7-1 record in openers with the Chiefs.

Patrick Mahomes has never lost a game in September. Career backup Chad Henne beat these Browns in the playoffs. The offensive line that fell apart in the touchdown-less Super Bowl nightmare has been fixed. Chiefs fans begin the season confident the “New Patriots” are headed back to the Super Bowl. By about 7 pm, that will look likely or it won’t. Sunday, September 12. 3:35 pm. GEHA Field.

Royals vs. Twins It’s been a season of disappointment for both the Royals and the Twins, who expected to be contending for the division title in this series and instead look extremely likely to play game 162 for pride. But if you’ve never been to a season-ender, you should. It tends to have a great atmosphere, as the most loyal of fans gather to celebrate the team and the sport before the winter break.

Sunday, October 3. 2:10 pm. Kauffman Stadium.

Sporti ng vs. Real Sporting KC has looked great through the first half of the MLS season and gets to end the regular season at home against hated rival Real Salt Lake. A playoff appearance should follow shortly thereafter and, hey, maybe a third cup. Sunday, November 7. 5 pm. Children's Mercy Park.

Mave ricks vs. Heartlanders The Mavericks hockey club started last season strong before a late collapse ended their playoff hopes early. Mavericks owner Lamar Hunt Jr. is anything but quick on the trigger, but big changes followed, with the club sacking the only GM they’ve ever had along with their fourth-year coach. This is the start of a new era against Iowa’s ECHL club. Saturday, October 23. 7 pm. Cable Dahmer Arena. —Martin Cizmar

FALL FUN 9.21 // HAUNTS

SPOOK-THREE THREE spots to do a little ghost hunting this fall

Atchison is making a name as KaNsas‘ most haunted town.

By Sophia Lacy

The Alexander Majors House on State Line Road is one of only four surviving antebellum homes in the city, built by the proprietor of an overland shipping company that helped supply western settlers and co-owned the Pony Express. Along with the John Wornall House, which was used as a hospital during a bloody Civil War battle, it’s now a museum that offers seasonal ghost tours. wornallmajors.org.

Fort Osage Nat ional H istoric Landmark Fort Osage was built in 1808 under the supervision of William Clark as a trade center and military garrison. With much history happening in the Fort, including the travels of Lewis and Clark, the War of 1812 and more, paranormal investigators take visitors along for a look. October 9-30. fortosagenhs.com.

Belvoir Wi n e ry Voluntarily getting spooked sounds a lot more fun with a glass of dry red in hand, doesn’t it? Belvoir Winery, which occupies the former Odd Fellows District on a two-hundred-forty-acre farm in Liberty, was a charity residence for poor orphans, widows and elders in the early twentieth century. Grab some vino in the main tasting room and walk the trails throughout the property, where you can get a peek into the estate’s abandoned living quarters. Monthly guided paranormal investigation tours are also offered. 1325 Odd Fellows Road, Liberty, MO.

A

TCHISON, KANSAS, is probably best known for being the hometown of aviator Amelia Earhart. But lately, it’s also become a big draw for ghost hunters, who go to the small city an hour northeast of downtown KC because of the numerous places there that report paranormal activity and hauntings. Atchison is now advertising itself as “the most haunted town in Kansas” and running the city’s trolly between attractions like the 1889 McInteer Villa and the Sallie House.

The McInteer Villa is a stately Victorian home built for John McInteer, an Irish immigrant and businessman. Nine members of the family died in the home, and visitors say they’ve felt the deceased’s presences. People have reported hearing conversations between spirits, seeing a “shadow” person with glowing eyes and hearing footsteps casually walking around at night.

“The voices are the most uncomfortable for me,” says Stephanie Neal, the current owner. “You can hear them having full on conversations and you don’t see anyone and you don’t know who is talking.”

The Sallie House was the home of an Atchison physician. Sallie was a patient who came to the home with her mother, who was seeking help for Sallie’s severe abdominal pain. The doctor believed it to be appendicitis and, thinking the appendix was about to burst, cut Sallie before the anesthesia had spread.

Sallie screamed in pain before dying on the table during the operation.

At the Sallie House, you have to sign a waiver before your tour. Visitors have reported numerous feelings and seeings that they believe are Sallie, but some of the most bizarre experiences have been with men.

“There are many cases of men reporting being scratched on their back, stomachs and arms through their clothes, leaving visible, unexplainable marks,” says Andrea Clements, director of Atchison’s chamber of commerce staff. “Many report Sallie does not like men.”

GO: Both houses have more information online about their upcoming events, as well as events in Atchison this fall season. visitatchison.com.

Photos by Kaycee Slough

Wornall/Majors House Mus eums

KANSAS CITY 71

FALL FUN 9.21 // OUTSIDE

Photo by Versasport

Happy Trails THREE spots for great fall hikes around KC

Swope Park For hikers who crave traditional dirt trails, Kansas City’s many paved and crushed limestone trails aren’t quite right for scratching the itch. Swope Park is one of the city’s forgotten gems—as you’ll find on the three-mile Rancho D-Lux Loop via Wudchuk Run. Park at the Wudchuk trailhead at the foot of the hill on Oakwood Road and then hike uphill to the Sweet Suite yurts, then head west along the glade. There’s only about a hundred feet of elevation gain, but that’s respectable for an unpaved trail in KC, and the fall colors will pop against the limestone cliffs.

KANSAS CITY 73

Most Valuable Playground A new $1 million playground comes to KC with the help of Patrick Mahomes.

By Martin Cizmar

K

ANSAS CITY’S Martin Luther King Jr. Park has been noted in the news a lot over the past couple years. The public space at the corner of Woodland Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (formerly Swope Parkway) was frequently mentioned in connection with the battle over renaming the Paseo for the martyred civil rights leader, with plenty of commentators noting that the park hadn’t seen much attention.

That’s about to change in a big way thanks to the charity founded

by Chiefs superstar QB Patrick Mahomes, 15 and the Mahomies Foundation, which donated one million dollars to build an inclusive new playground there.

“A million dollars is absolutely a large playground for this municipality,” says Erica Flad, a senior landscape architect working on the project for Landworks Studio. “It is a very inclusive playground, so that means that children with disabilities are able to play next to children without, so it’s an exciting project.”

Among the touches designed to pay tribute to King are pavers on the walkways that include notable quotes from his speeches and an interpretive sign that talks about his legacy.

There’s hope that the playground will be just the first step in a revitalization of the park, says Christina Gunter, who runs the company building the playground.

“Mahomes was very intentional in selecting this site,” she says. “You can see this playground from Highway 71, from Cleaver. It’s very visible, you’ll see it.”

Parkvi lle Nature Sanctuary Parkville is home to some of the area’s best fall colors, and the city’s Nature Sanctuary offers a nice dense forest and a small waterfall on the trail.

The nearly three-mile trail starts at 12th Street off Highway 9 and is open from sunrise to sunset everyday. On October 23, there will be a ghost story telling at the sanctuary.

Weston Ben d State Park Weston Bend State Park is jam-packed with camping, biking and hiking.

The West Ridge Trail is the best: A large portion of the two-and-a-halfmile loop abuts the Missouri River and gives hikers amazing sweeping views of the other side of the state line. There’s a lookout point a few feet from the West Ridge Trailhead—we recommend saving this for the end of your hike as a reward for your efforts. The scenic overlook, a planked deck tapered around a tree, gives panoramic views of the state line river and Fort Leavenworth’s clock tower.

Y E A R S

KANSAS CITY . SEPTEMBER 2021

T W E N T Y

74

Anyone old enough to remember 9/11 has a story of where they were when the world trembled.

Here are eight from Kansas Citians.

76

KANSAS CITY . SEPTEMBER 2021

HE WROTE THE STAR’S FRONT-PAGE STORY ON THE ATTACKS—AND SOON AFTER LEFT FOR AFGHANISTAN.

Today your stock market is on hold, your gasoline is a question mark, even your mall may be closed. Disney World is shuttered, baseball is suspended, and this morning even those travelers who would fly cannot. So much of what America takes for granted, at least for a time, vanished.

IS

THAN

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MYSELF.”

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ME “THESE

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REMIND

OF

HOW

I stood looking up at a television in the Kansas City Star’s newsroom a little after 8 am local time, when a second plane struck the World Trade Center. Soon, I teamed with two other reporters for a story concluding that the attack came from a sophisticated terror group for a special afternoon edition of the newspaper. This was when print was still king.

Next, for the next morning’s paper, I wrote quick nine hundred words that started:

Those words largely hold up.

Looking back, I’m struck by the fact that the tone of my story focused on the inconveniences ahead. It missed the brutality of the moment and the near future.

Terrorists killed nearly three thousand people that day. More carnage would follow. For starters, nearly twenty-three hundred U.S. troops would die in Afghanistan. Another twenty thousand would return wounded.

The Afghans, of course, got it worse. At least fifty thousand civilians died in the forever war that continues, even as U.S. troops leave—as they left a generation before, when Afghanistan ended up a Cold War battleground.

Several weeks after 9/11, I got dispatched to Pakistan to cover the war, including a few weeks in southern Afghanistan embedded with Marines.

I returned to Kansas City early the next year to find a country where yellow ribbon support-the-troops magnets clung to the backs of so many cars but where the sacrifice was wildly uneven.

The years that followed saw most of the unity generated by 9/11 dissolve into resignation and disinterest about what was happening in Afghanistan, partly because we soon found ourselves sending troops to another war that went badly.

—Scott Canon is the managing editor of Kansas News Service, which is affiliated with KCUR 89.3 SHE WAS ON A ROAD TRIP. Twenty years ago, I was on a road trip with my mom. We were checking out of our hotel in Denver when the first plane struck the World Trade Center. We shared a moment of disbelief—there are so many protocols, how does an accident like this happen?—before the second plane hit and reality collided along with it. It wasn’t an accident.

Now, as a member of Congress, I have a sworn duty to protect our Constitution against all enemies. Last session, I joined my colleagues in a moment of silence on the Capitol steps to remember the thousands of innocent lives lost and honor the brave first responders who put their lives on the line to help others.

These moments remind me of my place in history and how much bigger my service in office is than just myself. I strive to remember that each day that I have the honor to serve the people of our community.

—Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) HE WAS WATCHING TRAINING DAY .

I had finished packing my bags and was headed to the Toronto International Film Festival on that Wednesday. I had a film to get in before I left, so on Tuesday morning, I had a screening of Denzel Washington’s Training Day at 9 am at the tiny private screening room in Old Film Row. As I was leisurely driving to the screening, I was listening to NPR. A report came on saying that a small engine

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—Chase McAnulty is the owner of Charlie Hustle

JUST

I was in history class and just remember sitting in the front row because I was a little bit late. But I walked in and everyone was glued to the TV. Kids were crying, kids were missing because their parents had come to pick them up. It was most certainly an extraordinary day in the worst way. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before.

AND

HE WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY CLASS.

NEWS

—Kristin and Thomas Danner work at Kansas City International Airport

REMEMBER

On the early morning of September 11, my husband and I were awakened by a phone call from his co-worker. At the time, my husband was an operations supervisor at Southwest Airlines at KCI. His co-worker told him a plane hit the World Trade Center and he was needed at work. We turned on the television just as the second plane hit the tower. We both remember being confused and trying to process what he had been told and what we were seeing. Was it replaying the crash or was it live? We had been married less than six months. Our parents and siblings lived in other states. I felt an immediate need to be with them. He knew what he needed to do: get to work and help. There was no way I was staying home. I worked in airport operations at KCI. I called work and told them I was coming in. I didn’t know what I would do, but I needed to be near him and help out however I could.

When he arrived at the airport, it was very chaotic and everything was rushed.

There were a lot of planes en route to KCI, but they had no idea how many. The Southwest team began the continual process of pulling the planes into the gate, telling the passengers to gather their belongings and exit the plane. No details of what had happened were relayed as they deplaned, just empty the plane, push it off the gate, bring another plane in, repeat. He recalls passengers crying as they watched the televisions in the gate area. So much confusion. Passengers had no idea how they were going to get home and what they should do, where they should go. He helped however he could—the ramp, bag claim, gates, coordinating where the planes would be parked and doing what he could for the many passengers stuck in Kansas City. At the time, Southwest used six boarding bridges. A total of twenty-seven Southwest aircraft landed at KCI that day. Southwest employees were all working hard to rebook passengers and find hotels for as many as they could, not knowing if the planes would even be able to fly the next day.

I reported to the emergency operations center at Airport Police. The airport plans for many types of emergencies, but how do you plan for an emergency that’s not happening at your airport? I filled a position as a call taker. The phone didn’t stop ringing for hours. People from churches, other nonprofits and just individuals from the area were calling offering to house passengers, to bring food, cots, take them to hotels. There was no time to think about the kindness that was pouring in. I remember seeing the images on the news and just having to keep the emotions from setting in so we could help the passengers and airlines. What we both remember as we left that night was the stillness of the airport. It was so quiet as he walked onto the ramp. For the first time, he could hear the cows on the other side of the runway. Something we’ll never forget.

“I

THEY SCRAMBLED TO HELP HOWEVER THEY COULD AT THE AIRPORT.

THE

—Shawn Edwards is the film critic for Fox 4

COULD

plane had accidentally hit the World Trade Center. Two hours later, after the film ended, I found out that both towers no longer existed due to a terrorist attack. I sped home and watched the news nonstop. Needless to say, my trip to Toronto the next day was canceled. Nothing has been the same since, especially New York and in the film industry.

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FROM THE AIRPORT, HE SPENT THE DAY SHARING WHAT LITTLE INFORMATION HE HAD. The first thing I recall about 9/11 was driving to work at Kansas City International Airport, passing the downtown airport, when a radio breaking news report came on announcing that an aircraft had hit the World Trade Center. Immediately, I assumed there was an accident and a private aircraft had crashed into the building, as had occurred years before at the Empire State Building.

I arrived at my office and turned on the television. As elements came together, I learned that it was a commercial airliner that had crashed into the building. My phone lit up with calls from the media as local reporters attempted to localize the story. I recall that I was giving a live phone interview when I saw a second aircraft hit the other tower at World Trade Center. I could not understand what I just saw.

I truly do not know if I paused or missed a beat while speaking live on the radio, but I had to power through. Once I ended the call, I knew what was occurring were not a succession of accidents but the hijacking and intentional crashing of airliners. Who did this and why? I could not understand what was happening, why, and how I felt about it. I would be so busy speaking with staff and media all day that I would not have the time to come to grips with what occurred until much later.

Two more hijacked aircraft loaded with people crashed into the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. No one had good information, and I certainly had little information to share with the media and the public. Then the federal government ordered all aircraft in U.S. airspace to immediately land. I stepped outside.

I looked up. I could see dozens of crescent-shaped aircraft condensation trails in the clear-blue sky. These were aircraft making turns as pilots worked with air traffic controllers to expedite landing at nearby airports. As it turns out, there were nearly eighty aircraft destined for KCI Airport with upwards of ten thousand people on them.

An unprecedented situation such as this would be a challenge any time, but upper managers of most U.S. airports were at their annual meeting in Montreal.

This was true for us, but our deputy director and airport manager were in town— plus some seasoned veterans. We gathered operations, security and police staff and quickly discussed what we knew and hashed out a plan. The room was tense, but I was proud to be in the room with level-headed people who improvised as best they could. Thousands of people who were not destined for our airport would need hotel rooms, rental cars and, possibly, food, water and cots. We needed to contact area hotels, the hotel association, rental car agencies, the Red Cross and other partners to assist with stranded passengers. Aircraft began landing and the gates at the terminal quickly filled up. Aircraft were being parked out on the airfield so we needed to divert our parking lot buses to the airfield to offload passengers. Rental cars were quickly snatched up. I heard stories of people in rental cars cruising slowly through the terminal areas and shouting out cities they were headed to, carpooling with strangers. This spirit of cooperation was amazing.

The need for cots was not to come. Since the events happened early in the morning, diverted passengers had the day to find transportation or accommodations. The terminals were deserted by midday. The hustle and bustle became a few clusters of media vehicles and reporters. Standing outside the terminal was spooky. Nothing was moving. There was a dead silence, with no vehicles and no aircraft operating. There were no condensation trails in the sky, crescent-shaped or straight. It was surreal.

My day was consumed with collaborating with staff and partners and sharing what information I could with the media. I did not know much and it was stressful.

I dug from within and got through it. At some point in the evening, there was no more I could do. I decided to go home. Traffic was light, so the twenty-five-mile trip home gave me little opportunity to think. My mind was just reviewing what had occurred, not processing it. I opened the door and saw my wife and young daughter, Emily. In a flash, there in the doorway, I realized that many lives had been lost that day and that many families would never be the same. I realized that I had much to deal with that day, but it was nothing compared to what others had endured and will endure. I went to my little family and I held them. That is when I lost it. What had these people done to our people? What will happen? What sort of life will my daughter have? What will be our new normal?

—Joe McBride is the spokesman for the Kansas City Aviation Department

KANSAS CITY . SEPTEMBER 2021

WAY.” SAME THE IN 9/11

AND

DAY THE

SHOT, WAS KENNEDY

REMEMBER WILL

—Jane Tedder is a resident of Lawrence

PRESIDENT

As I see again and again on the news the disastrous collapse of the residential tower in Surfside, Florida, my thoughts go back to that sunny Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, in New York City. I was attending the annual meeting of the National Association for Business Economics, scheduled for September 9 through 12 at the Marriott World Trade Center Hotel, which sat between the bases of the Twin Towers.

Suddenly that morning, our hotel building shook sharply and the lights flickered. As alarms sounded, we and other hotel guests were ushered down long flights of stairs, out the doors and across a wide avenue. Once there, we looked back to see flames and smoke pouring out the windows of the highest floors of the north tower. As we stood in disbelief, we heard the roar of an approaching plane, accelerating as it slammed into the south tower.

Rushed by police out of the immediate area to nearby Battery Park, we watched with horror as the south tower collapsed in a monstrous cloud of smoke and debris. Not long after, we heard—but couldn’t see through the debris cloud—the remaining tower fall, reinforcing the dense fog enveloping us. All manner of watercraft approached to evacuate people from the area, and we boarded a ferry and were transported across the river to safety.

Now, twenty years later, as I see news clips of rescue crews searching in this most recent mountain of debris for survivors and remains, my mind goes to that day in 2001 and particularly to the images of those who chose to jump from upperfloor windows rather than die in the flames. But that’s just part of the memory.

I’m also reminded of the kindness of strangers during the days we were stranded in New York before planes began flying again, and of the welcome and comfort provided by friends and family once safely back home.

In the years since, I retired in order to pursue volunteer work as a way to partially repay the generosity of those New Yorkers. I have a feeling Floridian residents will be just as helpful to those who have lost so much in this most recent disaster.

REMEMBERS

SHE WAS AT A CONFERENCE AT GROUND ZERO.

MOTHER

—Peregrine Honig is a KC-based artist

“MY

I woke up for the second time on September 11, 2001, dreaming about the morning's tragedy. I was in Kansas City and I had an 8 am meeting. The night before, I had gathered film reels, carefully salvaged the naughty flocked wallpaper from the bathroom and unwired the candelabras out of the Old Chelsea with Ron McGee and Late Night Theatre—the building was scheduled for demolition the next day.

When I got home, my first husband was still sleeping off his jazz gig.

My meeting dispersed after the second tower billowed into flames on the tiny television we'd gathered around. I returned home and climbed back into bed, attempting to explain what was happening. Mark rolled over and told me everything was OK. What I was saying was unbelievable. I wanted to believe him. I woke up again and turned on his radio. America felt very close and far away.

My tall friend Nicole Nadeau and her twin sister, Coryn, were called the "twin towers" throughout their childhood. Something we had taken for granted, two matching shapes in a cityscape, that the sky was safe, went up in smoke. My grandmother called from Eastchester that day to tell me she was OK. I went to the empty tower's space when I visited her months later and wondered if how I was feeling matched false limb syndrome. Plastic flowers and sun-bleached photographs were stuffed into fences.

My mother remembers the day President Kennedy was shot, and I will remember 9/11 in the same way—what I was wearing, the sweet natural smell of my partner's sleepy head, light pouring in through the window as I attempted to dream off the unforgettable—that the sky I knew was not safe.

I

SHE TRIED TO DREAM IT AWAY.

79

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2021

If you’re looking to send your child to private school, there are a few factors to consider, from budget to teaching philosophies to student-to-teacher ratio. Our private school handbook has all the tools you need to get started on your private-school journey.

WHAT’S IN OUR GUIDE?

How to make the most of your Shadow Day

A detailed timeline for scheduling and applying

A list of notable Kansas City people’s schools

ILLUSTRATIONS BY KAILI JIMEI KANSASCITYMAG.COM SEPTEMBER 2021

87

HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR SHADOW DAY Shadow days are a way for students and, sometimes, parents to get an understanding of a private or charter school. The experience covers a day in the life of a typical student at the institution and helps prospective students see what the school offers. Because shadow days are such an important part of determining what school is the best fit for a student, we talked with Mike Comiskey, the director of admissions at Rockhurst High School, who explained how to make the most of shadow days and prepare for admissions.

Q: What are admissions like when applying to a private school?

A: One unique aspect of our application process is it opens the fall of [a

student’s] eighth grade year, with early decisions going out in February of eighth grade, which may be different or early for families not familiar with the private school process. Our admissions process is streamlined through our online application portal and consists of the application, student statement, parent or guardian statement, middle school transcripts, teacher recommendation from one of their middle school teachers and sitting for the High School Placement Test. All of these aspects are evaluated by our application review committee.

Q: In preparing for a shadow day, what advice would you give to prospective parents and students?

A: We always expect some nerves from our shadow visitors and their parents— totally normal! Our shadow day is an experience just for the applicant and is another way for our applicants to get a feel of Rockhurst. We hope they ask themselves, “Can I see myself here for the next four years?” Our shadow visitors interact with students, faculty and staff, sit in on class time; enjoy social activities and lunch.

Q: How can students make the most out of their day? What makes the day effective for them?

A: I hope they come in with an open mind to get a feel for life as a student at Rockhurst. We advise all interested eighth graders to shadow in the fall semester, if possible, but we also offer days in the spring semester.

Q: What is the process after shadowing?

A: The process after a shadow visit will depend on when they shadow. If

they’ve already applied, then the shadow experiences could be a validation of their interest in Rockhurst, but for those that have not applied, we hope it’s an experience that inclines them to apply.

88

KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

ROCKHURST HIGH SCHOOL

47 PERCENT 2.7 MILLION DOLLARS OF STUDENTS RECEIVE

IN FINANCIAL AID

40,000 ANNUALLY 5

SERVICE HOURS DONATED

IMERSION SERVICE TRIPS OFFERED YEARLY

950 95 115

STUDENTS FROM ZIP CODES REPRESENTING GRADE SCHOOLS

FOLLOW THE ROCK

@RockhurstHS @RockhurstHS @RockhurstHigh WWW.ROCKHURSTHS.EDU

TIMELINE FOR APPLYING TO A PRIVATE SCHOOL Finding the right private school for your child can be tricky. Below is a timeline to help you better understand the process and how to prepare for private school.

While every institution is differet, this is a standard guide for your benefit.

SUMMER8TH GRADE

• Research. Figure out what size, location, values, etc. you are looking for in a school.

• Develop a list of schools that interest you.

• Finalize the list of schools you are going to apply to.

• Take any admissions tests needed.

• Visit open houses and school fairs, and go to scheduled tours.

• Attend your shadow day (typically schools prefer to only have shadow days in the fall).

OCT

•Don’t miss deadlines!

During this time, it is critical to pay attention to due dates and turn in all materials.

JAN

SEP

• Contact the schools for admissions and finacial information.

• Register for any required standardized tests.

• Mark calendar for any admissions and finacial aid deadlines • Prepare forms needed for applications, like recommedation letters.

• Call the school to arrange individual or group tours, interviews and a shadow day.

• Watch for admissions events, tours and application deadlines.

• Work on application (complete by deadline).

• Communicate with admissions and anyone with background on the process.

NOV

• Visit schools, participate in a shadow day, or attend admissions events if you haven’t already.

• Continue to research and prepare to pick one school if accepted.

FEB

APR

•Sign enrollment contracts and deposits.

90

KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

• Request transcripts at the end of the semester.

• Watch for deadlines and complete applications: most applications are due at the end of the year (some even earlier for early decision).

DEC

• Expect school and financial decisions beginning in mid-March.

• If your student has been excepted by one or more schools, narrow down preferences and prepare to make a final decision.

MAR

MAY-SEP

•Attend new parent and student events and begin to get to know the families and faculty of the school.

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NOTABLE KANSAS CITY PEOPLE’S SCHOOLS Janelle Monáe

Calvin Trillin

F.L. Schlagle High School, KCK Class of 2001

Southwest High School, KCMO Class of 1953

Paul Rudd

Tim Kaine

Shawnee Mission West High School, Overland Park Class of 1987

Rockhurst High School, KCMO Class of 1986

Josh Hawley Rockhurst High School, KCMO Class of 1998

Tom Watson The Pembroke Hill School, KCMO Class of 1967

Heidi Gardner Jason Sudeikis Shawnee Mission West High School, Overland Park Class of 1984

Thomas Frank Shawnee Mission East High School, Prairie Village Class of 1983

Tech N9ne Southwest High School, KCMO Class of 1991

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KANSAS CITY SEPTEMBER 2021

Notre Dame De Sion High School, KCMO Class of 2001

EXPLORE A LITTLE SUNSHINE’S PLAYHOUSE AND PRESCHOOL NEAR YOU!

“Starting at the front door and continuing throughout the day, we have enhanced our already robust cleaning procedures to exceed the CDC guidelines. We are committed to maintaining the health and safety of our students, community, and team as it is our top priority.”

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Howard Hanna isn’t yet sure what to call the processed porcine meat offered at King G (500 E. 18th St., KCMO, kinggkc.com). “In North Jersey, it’s Taylor Ham,” the chef says. “In the south side of the state, they call it pork roll.”

Whatever the name ends up being (“Trenton Pork Roll” is also a contender, being favored in the capital), it’s the base for a mean egg and cheese sandwich at the deli side of the new Crossroads beer bar and deli. Taylor ham—think of it as a salty megahotdog or a round and porky Spam—is a Mid-Atlantic deli staple, one of several simple but uncommon sandos on offer at King G, along with trendy Japanese egg salad sandwiches and a muffaletta. The breakfast sandwich starts with thin slices of the pork roll, which are fried on a simple induction burner and topped with a slice of American cheese after the flip. “We tried a better cheese from a local maker, and it was just too much,” Hanna says. “I probably hadn’t touched a Kraft single in, like, twenty years, but it’s right for this sandwich.” — M A R T I N C I Z M A R

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TA S T E R E V I E W

T

KICK ASH Sparks are catching at Clay and Fire, where Near Eastern dishes triumph.

BY N ATA L I E TO R R E S G A L L AG H E R P H OTO G R A P H Y BY C A L E B C O N D I T & R E B E C C A N O R D E N

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HE

HOUSE

AT

815

W.

17th St. was never meant to be a restaurant.

Built at the turn of the twentieth century, the architecture of this historic Westside structure is probably still best suited to its original purpose—a duplex. The granite steps that lead from the sidewalk to the front door are narrow and steep. A catalpa tree takes up a sizable portion of the patio, which can accommodate a handful of tables.

The upstairs bathroom still holds a clawfoot tub. And on busy nights, the charmingly petite interior can feel claustrophobic.

Such complaints drove numerous former tenants (Novel, Fox & Pearl) to other spaces. But Adam Jones, who has owned this building for the last twenty years, always wanted to open his own Near Eastern restaurant there.

Jones is one of Kansas City’s longtime developers and entrepreneurs. Noori, his wife, is Iranian, and Jones has traveled extensively through the region. He owns property throughout Kansas City—many of them historically significant buildings that he’s resurrected—and several businesses, including an organic farm that provides the bulk of the produce at Clay and Fire.

With his unruly beard and dusty T-shirt and jeans, he mostly looks the part of a farmer: On a Saturday evening dinner, he ambled around the garden-cum-patio, beer in one hand, watering can in the other.

Clay and Fire is the restaurant Jones envisioned, but it didn’t roll out in quite the way he anticipated. Jones had tapped Turkish restaurateur Orcan Yigit to lead the kitchen, but the pandemic threw plans off course, and Yigit was stuck in Turkey.

Meanwhile, Jones was building a long mangal grill and getting to know chef Brent Gunnels, who was hosting backyard pizza parties via his pop-up, Cult of Pi. They started talking.

“It was synchronicity,” Gunnels says. “Near Eastern cuisine was a direction I was going in—I just didn’t realize I was going there.”

Kansas City, with all its barbecue legacy, has recently seen an uptick in restaurants with menus built around a wood-fired hearth, notably The Town Company and Fox and

Top: Gunnels sources his duck from Barham Farms in Kearney, Missouri. Bottom: The mezze is rarely the same from one day to the next, but is always served with Gunnels’ pockmarked flatbread.

He uses the same dough recipe for each leavened item on his menu, only adjusting ratios and rise times.

Pearl. There is something to this: Live-fire cooking is the oldest form of food preparation. It is instinctual—primal—and inherently comforting.

Naturally, perhaps subconsciously, we are drawn to what we know.

And Gunnels knows fire. Before opening Neapolitan pizzeria Il Lazzarone in River Market in 2015, Gunnels traveled through Europe, where he camped in Copenhagen and cooked on a Schwenker in southwest Germany. Clay and Fire opened in August 2020, and while the menu is part collaboration with Jones, it’s also deeply personal for Gunnels.

There are two pizzas on the menu at Clay and Fire. One features salty Persian piknik cheese and basturma (a spiced Armenian version of bacon) and the other—the Grandma Pizza, whose mozzarella base is topped with chunky tomato sauce and basil—is Gunnels’ ode to the NYC pizzeria he worked at a decade ago. It’s a rapturous combination of bubbly cheese and fresh tomato on a perfectly singed, chewy crust.

But before you get there, you should order some mezze. If you are with a group, get “the whole shebang”—an order that will overwhelm your table with a barrage of small snack plates and homemade flatbread (spongey, spotted, good with everything). I could taste the char in the garlicky baba ganoush— Gunnels roasts the eggplants on coals Don’t be fooled by the burnt-looking top until they turn black—and I loved the on your slice of Basque cheesecake: The

peppery pop of the guajillo hummus. Snow-white Bulgarian yogurt could be mistaken for luxury face cream (only in texture, not in taste—it’s all tang). And if you spot butter-poached radishes on the menu, order doubles: Gunnels slowly ladles hot butter over skinned radishes until they are just cooked through, sublimely textured and as precious as the pearls they resemble.

Of course, there is kebab. Noori gave Gunnels a hands-on tutorial on the legacy of kebab, and her instruction paid off. In homage to Turkey’s Aleppo region, Gunnels rolls minced lamb and beef into happy meatballs seasoned with tomato, cumin, mint and—if you opt for the spicy version (you should)—a blend of half a dozen chili peppers from Gunnels’ garden.

Entrees are meant to be large-format dishes.

They succeed—except for the duck, which is too delicious to share. This combination of duck breast is so achingly tender it will make your knees weak, swathed in crispy peppered skin and sliced into bites so pretty you will want to pick them up gently between two fingers. (You will need utensils, though, to enjoy that duck with a mouthful of charred cabbage, understated burnt orange yogurt and tart maple-smoked pickled strawberries.)

You’ll want to settle down with the wood-fired chicken brined with a symphony of imported spices—Aleppo pepper, allspice and star anise—and finished with a bright Armenian-style barbecue sauce made from just-ripened tomatoes and red pepper. Your server will give you a sturdy knife to carve this bird, but you’re better off following your baser instincts by ripping the juicy flesh right off the bones and dragging it through a valley of velvety hummus.

And the smoked short rib—outrageously delicate beef nested in a bowl of blue corn polenta with tomato sauce, mushrooms and flame-licked walnuts—is one of Gunnels’ most dynamic plates.

On second thought, the house at 815 W. 17th St. could never have been anything but a restaurant.

This one, specifically. The cloistered tables lead to connections—something we spent fifteen months longing for—and the clawfoot tub now hosts a school of goldfish. On the courtyard, resilient blades of grass creep up between bricks, and a string of lights runs through the catalpa branches. It is the perfect setting in which to linger over a bottle Romanian wine and debate who has earned the last bite of cardamom and rose cheesecake.

interior is as light and luxurious as silk.

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TA S T E PER FECT DAY

Courtney Hill’s new cookbook features mid-century Midwestern favorites.

BY S O P H I A L AC Y

Southwest Missouri, Courtney Hill was taught everything about cooking from her mother, who learned from her mother. With relatives who are farmers, Hill was surrounded by good food and loved to create dishes with her family. After getting her master’s degree in family and consumer sciences, she taught high schoolers for four years before getting married in 2005. Now, she and her husband own 8183 Studio in downtown KC, a commercial production studio.

As a mother of fraternal twins, most of her time was devoted to Hill’s children and being a stay-at-home mom.

Her new project, Homemade: The American Family Cookbook, out in January via Mascot Books, was a way of getting a little time GROWING UP IN

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and experienced cooks how to create simple, delicious meals. With the pandemic, she found the time to turn the project into the cookbook she had always wanted to make.

What’s in the cookbook? The cookbook is a general cookbook with classic Midwest American recipes, as well as many of my own. Like most American cooking, there is a mixture of ethnicities and genres all rolled into one. They are simple recipes, with real ingredients, that you’ll actually make.

Who is the intended audience? The cookbook is for any and everyone. It is a collection of easy-to-prepare recipes, staples for every pantry. It is great for beginners as well as longtime cooks because there are a lot of cooking tips.

I hope it will inspire and teach people to cook more meals at home.

How does your love of both nostalgia and modernity play out in the book?

I think a good example of this mixture is the SP(Courtney) recipe (spaghetti with meat sauce). It is a simple, classic meal many of us have had all of our lives. You can either use storebought sauce or make the included sauce recipe from scratch, and it gives a modern, low carb-option of replacing pasta with spaghetti squash. There are many recipes that tie the vintage with the modern in the book.

FAVO R I T E P L AC E S I N KC West Bottoms “I love to thrift and antique, and going to first Fridays with my best friend is a monthly tradition.”

Midland Theatre “The Midland Theatre is one of my favorite buildings in the city. The architecture just transports you to another era, and it is truly magical to see and experience.”

Antiquing Hill loves antiquing for vintage and mid-century pieces at places like the River Market Antique Mall, the Shawnee Antique malls and Brass Armadillo Antique mall.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RYAN HILL

THE MIDDLES

to herself. Hill loves anything with a mid-century vintage vibe, and this book channels it into cooking. “While I was a stay-at-home mom, I found myself slipping away a bit,” she says.

“I was knee-deep in dirty diapers and schedules. I needed to do something for myself as a creative outlet.”

In 2015, Hill started a video cooking blog to share her recipes and show new

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TA S T E DR I N K

HALF AGAIN 3 Halves Brewing taps veteran Bucky Buckingham to fill big shoes.

BY P E T E D U L I N

100KANSAS KANSAS CITY CITY SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER 2021 2021

announces that gregarious brewer Bryan “Bucky” Buckingham is at 3 Halves Brewing, which shares space with Jousting Pigs Barbecue on the courthouse square in Liberty.

If you’re into local craft beer, chances are you’ve consumed something made by Buckingham over the course of his two decades in the business. Buckingham worked behind the bar at long-gone brewpubs McCoy’s Public House, Power Plant Restaurant and Brewery and River Market Brewing Co. He brewed beers at 23rd Street and Free State in Lawrence and 75th Street Brewery in Waldo.

Recently, Buckingham amicably wrapped up a seven-year stint at Cinder Block in North Kansas City and, in June, joined 3 Halves.

“Bucky was the best possible fit for what we do here,” says 3 Halves owner John Kennebeck. “It fell into place. Our personalities gelled. Bucky brings a wealth of experience, and I’m learning everything I can from him.”

Buckingham wanted to get back to his roots at a small brewpub. 3 Halves needed an experienced brewer after the sudden passing of 3 Halves’s founding brewer, Rodney Beagle, of a medical event. The position appealed to Buckingham, who wanted “more interaction with customers in a restaurant and brewpub setting.” He also wanted to learn—even with his career now being old enough to order a beer.

“If you meet a brewer who says they know everything about brewing, they’re full of shit,” Buckingham says. Buckingham has already brewed several batches at the three-barrel brewhouse in Liberty, including Continuation West Coast-style IPA. It’s the smallest setup Buckingham has ever used but, he says, “a good brewer can brew on a one-barrel or hundred-barrel system. You just have to dial it in.”

Buckingham adjusts his eyeglasses and raises a pint of Continuation IPA past his scraggly beard. The aroma is heavy with Sabro, Equinox and Galaxy hops. The piney taste evokes the coniferous forests of Eugene, Oregon, where Buckingham lived before moving to the Midwest.

Upcoming beers include a Belgian golden strong ale and an Oktoberfest lager. Expect consistent, clean and true-to-style brews.

“The beer should taste the same every time,” he says. “That’s the number one factor to successful beer-making.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHAWN BRACKBILL

A N U N M I S TA K A B L E B O O M I N G L A U G H

TA S T E B I T E S

NEWSFEED

WHAT’S NEW IN KANSAS CITY FOOD & DRINK Electric Youth The Reiger distillery has built its brand by mining long-forgotten local history, and they’re going for broke with their new patio, which is being dubbed Electric Park Garden Bar (2700 Guinotte Ave., KCMO).

Electric Park was the name for a succession of amusement parks run by the city’s pre-Prohibition Austrian lager brewery, which prominently featured its beer gardens.

Electric Park is today best remembered as Walt’s inspiration for Disneyland.

The distillery is using the branding for its eleventhousand-square-foot patio space, which includes both an outdoor area and an enclosed atrium. The space will have fire pits, an adult swing set, boozy snow cones, cocktail floats and other Peak Millennial faves.

Mo’ Bettahs

Bam Boozle

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY RESPECTIVE VENUES

Better Bros?

Hawaiian Bros is about to get some stiff competition. The local chain, founded by two brothers who moved from Oregon to open their own version of their family’s plate lunch business, has expanded rapidly across KC. Now, a chain from Utah is looking for a slice of the spam: Mo’ Bettahs Hawaiian Style Food (mobettahs.com) has twenty-two locations in Utah and Idaho, and it’s opening at least four spots in KC, according to the Star, including northern Overland park and Olathe.

The menu is a little smaller and less spicy than the Bros menu and includes some different items, like teriyaki steak and fried chicken. Everything comes with rice and mac salad, natch.

Speaking of island vibes: There’s a new Tiki-influenced bar at Park Place in Leawood. Bamboo Room is the rooftop bar from the also-newish Thai restaurant Bamboo Pennys (bamboopennys. com). There’s “private elevator service” (ooh la la) to the top, where you’ll find a retractable rooftop. There’s a small menu of snacky stuff (think shrimp in a blanket), plus a cocktail menu that’s exclusive to the space and is headlined by the Beached Butterfly made with house-infused butterfly pea-flower tea, rum, melon liqueur, lemonade, and lime and pineapple juice—it changes colors. There’s also the Rapa Nui made with Bacardi banana rum, dark rum, orange juice and coconut milk.

Mac Attack

Home from the Range On the subject of inbound businesses: Brookside is now home to a new branch of Wichita-born HomeGrown Kitchen (338 W 63rd St., KCMO). HomeGrown, best known for its “pop tartlets,” puts a focus on “local” goods that come from within six hundred miles of the restaurant (Lansing and Denver are within this range; Baton Rouge and Austin are just outside). “It’s important to our entire team that we enjoy what we do, and part of that comes with working on a brand that has soul and purpose,” the owner told Feast magazine. “Local partnerships are who we are and it’s served us well.”

Top food halls always have someone coming and someone going, and at Parlor in the Crossroads, there continues to be a healthy amount of churn. Among the newcomers is KC Mac & Co., which built its entire menu around its own version of macaroni and cheese, a recipe the owner has been developing since 2017.

“We’re turning a classic side dish into a premium entree,” the owner told IN. “You will leave full. The mac is a focal point of our concept.”

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The birria tacos from Joseph Quellar of Houston at Harp BBQ Festival were mind blowing.

FESTIES Two new local barbecue festivals point to a fresh way forward

BY M A R T I N C I Z M A R

B

R I A N W A H B Y W A S in Tennessee, at one of the nation’s top barbecue festivals, when he had a realization.

Wahby, who owns the company behind the recent KC BBQ Festival at Arrowhead, had been having a grand old time in the VIP section, where the brisket was sliced thick and juicy out of the butcher paper and fine Tennessee whiskey flowed like water.

“For some reason I wandered out of the VIP area, to the general admission area, and this woman walks up to me and says, ‘There’s not much going on out here, how do I get back there?’ and I told her I didn’t really know what she could do to get that experience,” he says.

That stuck with Wahby, who owns Eximus Productions, the company that throws St. Louis’s Soulard Mardi Gras festival.

“If you’re in the VIP section, back with the pitmasters and sponsors, some of

102KANSAS KANSAS CITY CITY SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER 2021 2021

these barbecue festivals are an amazing time,” he says. “But if you’re just a regular person who shows up, it’s not necessarily a great experience.”

It’s something I’ve been thinking about since attending my first fest, about 15 years ago now. I complained about it bitterly in a blog post, and was invited (“invited” might not be exactly the right word) to compete at another event in the area. That was a lot more fun—these festivals are a totally different deal when you’re behind the proverbial velvet rope. That’s a dynamic that should and will change in the Insta era, where more people approach sampling with a food critic’s zeal. After a year off, there seems to be renewed energy behind changing the dynamic at these festivals so that the great food isn’t reserved for VIPs, fellow competitors and the judges table, but is sold and served to regular folks, too.

Wahby’s festival drew a decent crowd in its first year and featured some absolutely outstanding ‘cue from locals (Todd Johns of Plowboys helped program the event and smoked up some buffalo) and visiting Texans (all hail Black’s of Lockhart and 2M of San Antonio). If you’re a regular Joe with forty bucks, a couple buddies wanting to drink a few cold ones and split up some brisket, it’s where I’d send you next year.

And that wasn’t even my favorite new BBQ barbecue festival of the summer.

Tyler Harp has been pushing to upgrade the familiar in Kansas City ‘cue since starting his Saturday pop-ups in 2019.

Two years ago, when we did our biennial ranking of the cities best barbecue, he came out on top—and it seems like most media and onlookers have come to agree, with PR people, influencer types and investors attempting to brand it as “craft barbecue.”

Harp’s inaugural festival, which he threw at a farmers market pavilion in downtown Independence, just blocks from where he grew up, drew many of the best new pitmasters in the city, plus some world-class out-of-towners. Harp teamed up with Joseph Quellar of JQ’s Tex Mex BBQ of Houston to do birria tacos— they have been called the best tacos in the country, and I’m not in position to disagree. Other best bites were the brisket torta from the new Sunbird Barbecue of Longview, Texas, and the sausage from Fox and Pearl chef Vaughn Good.

It was an amazing night in Independence, and everyone I talked to walked away blown away by the quality of the dishes served (the $150 ticket for charity included bites from a dozen-plus places plus “two” beers).

The goal, Harp says, was to “showcase the evolution of KC BBQ during the last two years,” which many have missed because of the pandemic. And, indeed, even as somebody who has been immersed in it, seeing it all in one place left a strong impression. I walked out of the event both stuffed with brisket and duly impressed with how much things have evolved recently.

Kansas City is a place where the old guard dies hard, of course, and I don’t expect to see the competition fests take down their tents anytime soon, but these new consumer-focused festivals are coming on like a summer storm.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMEY THERON KIRBY

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BACKSTORY

1971

“

The Chiefs play the longest game in NFL history, setting the tone for the next quarter century of the club.

BY J O S E P H A . Z AG O R S K I

P R O F O O T B A L L marks its years with memorable games and records that withstand the test of time.

The epic playoff game between the Miami Dolphins and the Kansas City Chiefs at the old Municipal Stadium on Christmas Day, 1971, certainly ranks as memorable. Fifty years later, it is still remembered and celebrated—and still holds the record for the longest game ever played.

The game featured practically every instance of drama and excitement that a pro football fan could imagine. It featured a breakout game by a barely known running back named Ed Podolak, who would become a legend within the space of several hours. It featured a young underdog team from Miami trying to make a name for themselves against a favored team that had won the Super Bowl two years before and was full of veterans looking for that one last taste of glory. It featured a sensational placekicker in Jan Stenerud of the Chiefs, a man who would have to deal

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with the sting of failure when success was just one kick away. And it featured a record of eighty-two minutes and forty seconds of elapsed playing time between the opening kickoff and the end of the sudden death overtime.

Neither team established control in the contest, as unexpected mistakes and turnovers helped to keep Miami close. Just as Podolak was accumulating yardage and the Chiefs were taking the lead, the Dolphins mounted several comebacks to tie the game at 10-10 at halftime, 17-17 at the end of the third quarter, and 24-24 at the end of regulation. Right before the end of the fourth quarter, Stenerud missed what was considered a very makeable twenty-two-yard field goal, which would have given Kansas City the victory. The game entered sudden death overtime, where the winner would be decided by whichever team scored next.

A full fifth quarter of action was played without either team scoring. Finally, after seven minutes and forty seconds

of the sixth period, Miami placekicker Garo Yepremian won the game for the Dolphins with a midrange field goal.

“It was just a very unique day and one that I will always have a great place in my memory for it,” admitted Kansas City Hall of Fame middle linebacker Willie Lanier many years later. “That was the first true time that I can remember that you played every play as if it were the last play because it was.”

The game’s aftermath lasted even longer. By winning, the Dolphins practically punched their ticket to the Super Bowl.

The next season, they created a new standard for greatness, one that has yet to be duplicated—a perfect, undefeated season in 1972. For the Chiefs, it was the last playoff game until 1985, a full twenty-five years later. Kicker Stenerud still regrets his moment of failure to this very day—even as, in 1991, he became one of only two pure kickers enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In fact, fourteen future Hall of Famers would play in that Christmas Day playoff game in 1971. Ed Podolak’s total yardage record of three hundred and fifty all-purpose yards still stands as the playoff record, even in today’s era of spectacular offenses.”

— Joseph A. Zagorski is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America and the Pro Football Researchers Association. He has written four books about pro football, including The NFL in the 1970s: Pro Football’s Most Important Decade (2016, McFarland and Company, Inc., publishers), and America’s Trailblazing Middle Linebacker: The Story of NFL Hall of Famer Willie Lanier (2020, Rowman & Littlefield, publishers).

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY THE K ANSAS CITY CHIEFS

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