(Kansas City: The City of Fountains)
The Kansas City metropolitan area is one of the 30 largest in the nation, with more than 1.6 million residents. It compares in size to Seattle and Denver, but is larger that Atlanta, Miami and our eastern neighbor St. Louis.
Every city has something that they are proud of. Often these things are something that outsiders have no idea about. It is seldom the thing people think of first when they think of that city. Having grown up under the shadow of Kansas City I am not sure what non Missouri / Kansas residents think of KC. But I would bet it has more to do with farming or the fact that we use to be the second largest slaughter house center in the united states, than it has to do with Kansas City as a beautiful urban center.
We have more fountains than any other city in the world except Rome and more miles of boulevards than any other city except Paris. We are known as the "City of Fountains". When you think of Roman fountains you have the right idea. We have a variety of Roman style fountains along with many modern styled fountains. There are about fifty major fountains and hundreds of smaller residential sized fountains in the city.
Yard art: different cities specialize in different things for yard art. When I think of Miami I think of pink flamingos. When I think of Baltimore I think of statues of the Virgin Mary and once you have come to Kansas City you will always think of fountains as our distinguishing form of yard art. It is sometimes tacky and sometimes quite beautiful but it is always a reflection of Kansas City.
The Kansas City Parks and Boulevard system.
George Kessler landscape architect and designer began to develop a system of boulevards in Kansas City in the 1890s, until he started his work on the Kansas City Road system Kansas City was mostly a frontier town with dirt roads. Working hand in hand with some of the most prominent citizens of the city George Kessler transformed the city. Many of these citizens left behind legacies that still grace the city today. The Nelsons, the Atkins, Rockhills and the Meyers, their names grace our boulevards, museums and public buildings to this day. Though no boulevard in the world could rival the Champs Elysee and other Paris boulevards in fame and beauty the boulevards in Kansas City are an unexpected echo of these famous Parisian landmarks
Kansas City also has a long association with the arts. We may have started as a rough frontier town but by the twentieth century we had embraced the arts in it many forms. We played a large role in the history of jazz music and we still are a great jazz town. All of the great jazz artists including Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong have worked in KC on their way to stardom. We are also the home of a great art museum. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, one of the most comprehensive art museums in the nation, was founded in the 1930's. When I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City I was surprised by how similar in layout, breath and depth the two collections are. We are also home to several other museums encluding the Kemper Museum of Modern Art, and The Negro League Baseball Museum. (We were home to one of the most famous Negro Legue teams, the Kansas City Monarchs) We are also home to the Black Archives of Mid-America.