After an equipment malfunction, my Downtown KC Photo Shoot was officially launched yesterday when I 1) headed downtown for the day, and, 2) actually remembered to bring my camera, fully charged this time.
The first stop was The Filling Station, one of my favorite Kansas City coffee shops. I love this place because the coffee and espresso are excellent (maybe second only to the Broadway Cafe as far as metro coffee shops go) and the atmosphere is unparalleled, especially when the weather is good.
With the glass doors rolled up, my favorite place to sit is on the indoor/outdoor seam… Technically, the 31st and Gilham road area isn’t downtown proper, but you can see downtown from the hillside and drive into the Crossroads District in literally a couple minutes. Good enough for me.
Maybe downtown could annex this area and claim The Filling Station? If you haven’t visited yet, be sure to swing by (2950 Mcgee Trafficway, Kansas City, MO 64108). Tell them you came after reading the shameless plug on AJ’s website and maybe I can get a few extra punches on my coffee card.
Making progress through Andy Crouch’s Culture Making, which is proving to be a fantastic read.
Reading some authors is like scanning a blank wall with occasional windows. Reading Crouch is like walking through a fully furnished downtown loft with picture windows that open on the Missouri River and urban arts district (showing my KC bias there). Point is, Andy Crouch can flat out write.
Culture Making is not that book you “read for content.” Some authors make the occasional good point. A few authors do it with personality. And a mere handful write with consistent insight, voice, and artistry. Crouch is in that minuscule group, and the fact that he’s writing about cultures, creativity, and the arts makes it extraordinarily appropriate.
OK, I’ll stop raving. Here’s a piece from chapter 2:
The fact that I can give you a fairly complete description of the Gryphon Cafe depends on its participation in a broader culture, one that includes coffee shops, ponytails, realtors and bourgeois bohemians. But the culture of the Gryphon Cafe—the things it makes of the world, the horizons of possibility it creates within its walls, the new culture that its denizens make in response—is not exactly like any other coffee shop. The Gryphon Cafe is not just making something of the vast world of coffee or the current boom in “third places” all over America fueld by Starbucks; it is also making something of the lovely building it inhabits at the corner of Wayne and Lancaster Avenues, of local artists who hand their work on its walls, of the availability of artfully scruffy twenty-somethings who somehow can afford to live in an affluent community on barista’s wages.
Great book, and very helpful in exegeting an urban context like Kansas City.
I just stumbled across KupOfJoe.com, a list of KC’s coffee places with comments, maps, and links. Not bad. This is in addition to KC Perky, a regularly updated coffee blog with more detailed reviews, but fewer places listed. In an hour I’ll be checking out Rev! Cafe & Gallery for the first time…which is a Christian place, The Pitch tells us. Who knew it?
If you’re not familiar with Lark News, this might be a good introduction. The secret of Lark News’ stories is that you can frequently just almost see them happening.
