The neighborhood trees have spread their sheltering canopy above. As you look down at your cool drink, laughter from the occupants of your neighbors’ porches floats off the leafy fronds, and onto the street. It’s summer in Kansas City, and after a long winter, the city breathes a collective humid sigh, and relaxes into a sultry seasonal posture.
Where is your favorite summer leisure space, and what makes it so? The architects and planners of Kansas City, both creators and observers of the ethereal qualities of the spatially sublime, have their favorites.
“For me, the quintessential Kansas City summer space is the City Market,” says Michael Frisch, AICP, associate professor at the UMKC Department of Architecture, Urban Planning and Design. “It reflects our region, and our agriculture, farm and food, barbecue. It’s the place to be on a Saturday or Sunday, celebrating the bounty ofthe region.”
If there is a recipe for successful summer space, the intersections of good food, good weather and our basic human need to interact with each other are certainly among the ingredients, seen at the outdoor cafes or patios of the Crossroads, 39th Street and the Country Club Plaza. Arguably, the region’s sporting parks hosting baseball, soccer, or auto racing fulfill a similar social summer desire.
Our favorites range from the most private – like a backyard oasis – to the street-embracing front porch of an iconic Kansas City bungalow, to the expanses of our landmark parks. Public gems like Swope Park and Kessler Park, gifts of the City Beautiful planning movement, still offer leisure opportunities today.
But it is the “leafy green suburb,” Frisch says, that makes up a large part of Kansas City’s summer soul. Most notably apparent in the settlement pattern of the Nichols-era neighborhoods surrounding the Plaza, the best summer areas are well connected for biking, walking and exploring the city, while offering a connection with nature. Vicki Noteis, AIA, of Collins Noteis & Associates, cited similar observations.
“We are lucky to have the urban tree forest still intact here, with a lot of older, fully grown trees,” Noteis says of the city’s meandering greenways and fully-foliaged neighborhoods.
The relative ease with which one can explore these areas either by bike or foot allows a quick route to summer leisure. And if you need to get further than your foot power can take you, the system of parkways and boulevards offers a myriad of options for car travel with a view.
“Even if you didn’t have a particular destination in mind,” Noteis says, “the city itself is a great summer place.”
–Sally Wurtzler
