The Return of KC Pride
It was a Wednesday around 5pm and the office was quiet….real quiet. The Kansas City Royals magical October run had made this erie silence commonplace about 3 nights a week as they continued to win. I decided to pack up and start making my way home, it was game 7 in the World Series, a stage most teams only dream of.
Traffic was exceptionally bad that evening (for a midwestern town) and I decided on an alternate route back toward Waldo. I shot down Broadway and quickly neared Westport. The popular bar district was alive and jumping…something that isn’t common on a Wednesday evening. Lines of blue clad Kansas Citians queued up at their favorite bars and the same could be said at the establishments I drove by in the Plaza, Brookside and eventually Waldo.
I won’t rehash what turned into a painful result (and a nearly remarkable comeback) but as citizens of KC, we all have a lot to be proud of. The recent successes of our professional sports teams have eleveated the KC brand in the last year. From Sporting KC’s MLS Cup to the Royals World Series run (and even the Chief’s inspiring regular season play over the last 2 seasons), they have all given us something to cheer about. But push those all aside and one thing is clear… Kanas City has it going on.
Not so quietly, our city has come alive. Bars and restaurants continue to pop up all over the city with innovative concepts like Thou Mayest, Bier Station, Julep, The Hi-Dive Lounge and Milwaukee Delicatessen being just a few who happily accept my money. Masters of the culinary arts bring home James Beard awards and KC bartenders like Caitlin Corcoran and Ryan Maybee receive national acclaim.
Kansas City continues to end up on the short list of entrepreneurial destinations because of infrastructure like Google Fiber and Cisco’s Smart Cities but more importantly for the community/support being built through programs like 1 Million Cups or entrepreneurial centers like the KC Startup Village, Think Big Partners, The Sprint Accelerator and BetaBlox. Beyond tech, you have people quitting their day jobs to launch startup breweries (upwards of a dozen will have opened by the end of 2015) and Andy Rieger, a former investment banker, is re-launching his great, great, great grandfather’s J. Rieger & Company Distillery in the East Bottoms.
The announcement of 90.9 The Bridge moving to town signaled a turning point in the Kansas City music scene. People like Jon Hart have long seen a burgeoning community of musicians who were continuing a long line of musical history and now those artists as well as those passing by float freely through the airwaves of this public station. Bars like the Phoenix, the Majestic and the Green Lady Lounge pay homage to our jazz roots while venues like the Riot Room, the Record Bar, Grinders/Crossroads KC and Knuckleheads showcase more of our up and coming acts.
The First Friday of every month brings a fresh dose of our visual/performing artists in the Crossroads District with thousands of people wandering the streets view galleries and street performances spanning from painted canvas, pottery, jewelry and slam poetry. Wandering down to the West Bottoms will open up city blocks of towering warehouses full of picked antiques, reimagined furniture and unique crafts.
Historical fountains run blue, amazing mid-town monuments like Union Station and the Liberty Memorial celebrate 100th birthdays, a young couple in Daniel & Ebony Edwards take on the challenge of cleaning up the Workhouse Castle, the iconic Kansas City Power & Light building will soon re-open with hundreds of housing units available for rent as our skyline continues to be refurbished, rehabbed and reimagined.
And you know what I haven’t mentioned? BBQ (because I don’t need to…it’s awesome…we already know that).
What the Royals did was amazing and we’re excited to see them return in the spring. But that October run signaled something much larger for our city. For an entire month, a movement swelled. The people of Kansas City proudly donned their blue gear with the letters “KC” emblazoned on everything they wore as they headed out to meet friends and cheer on our city together. The brand of Kansas City has long been represented by our sports teams performances or the BBQ that we make or the “flyover” country that we’re smack dab in the middle of. It’s upon each of us now to show the world, starting with our close friends/family, what we’re really made of.
For those of us out there who are proud of the things going on, your job is simple: Evangelize/Advocate/Patronize. Attitude is infectious (both positive and negative), set a great example for your fellow citizens. For the rest of you? Get off the couch, grab your family or a friend and participate in what’s going on around you. As my friend Yosef says….Explore
Join the conversation! What did I miss? Have a favorite hotspot, person or group of people, moving our city forward? Comment now!
