Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090, making it the 37th most-populous city in the United States. It is the low density urban central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Missouri–Kansas state line and has a population of 2,392,035. Most of the city lies within Jackson County, with portions spilling into Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River from the west. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. Confusion between the two ensued, and the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish them soon after.
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area its core is in both Missouri and Kansas. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri and Kansas. With 8,472 square miles (21,940 km2) and a population of more than 2.2 million people, it is the second-largest metropolitan area in Missouri and is the largest metropolitan area in Kansas. Alongside Kansas City, Missouri, these are the suburbs with populations above 100,000: Overland Park, Kansas; Kansas City, Kansas; Olathe, Kansas; Independence, Missouri; and Lee's Summit, Missouri.
The Wing Luke Museum is a museum in Seattle, Washington, United States, which focuses on the culture, art and history of Asian Pacific Americans. It is located in the city's Chinatown-International District. Established in 1967, the museum is a Smithsonian Institution affiliate and the only pan-Asian Pacific American community-based museum in the country. It has relocated twice since its founding, most recently to the East Kong Yick Building in 2008. In February 2013 it was recognized as one of two dozen affiliated areas of the U.S. National Park Service.
The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM) is a privately funded museum dedicated to preserving the history of Negro league baseball in America. It was founded in 1990 in Kansas City, Missouri, in the historic 18th & Vine District, the hub of African-American cultural activity in Kansas City during the first half of the 20th century. The NLBM shares its building with the American Jazz Museum.
Wendell Castle was an American sculptor and furniture maker and an important figure in late 20th century American craft. He has been referred to as the "father of the art furniture movement" and included in the "Big 4" of modern woodworking with Wharton Esherick, George Nakashima, and Sam Maloof.
Kansas City jazz is a style of jazz that developed in Kansas City, Missouri during the 1920s and 1930s, which marked the transition from the structured big band style to the much more improvisational style of bebop. The hard-swinging, bluesy transition style is bracketed by Count Basie, who in 1929 signed with Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra, and Kansas City native Charlie Parker, who ushered in the bebop style in America. It has been said that while New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz, "America's music" grew up in Kansas City.
Albert Bloch was an American Modernist artist and the only American artist associated with Der Blaue Reiter, a group of early 20th-century European modernists.
The Kansas City Power & Light District, or simply the Power & Light District, KCP&L or the P&L, is a dining, shopping, office and entertainment district in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, United States, developed by The Cordish Companies of Baltimore, Maryland, and designed by Beyer Blinder Belle and 360 Architecture. The district comprises nine blocks on the south side of the downtown loop. It is located between Baltimore Avenue to the west, Grand Boulevard to the east, 12th Street to the north, and Interstate 670 to the south. The $850 million mixed use district is one of the largest development projects in the Midwestern United States, and is anchored by the renovated Midland Theatre, Alamo Drafthouse Mainstreet Cinema and the world headquarters of H&R Block. While the district was originally projected to generate enough tax revenue to pay for the bonds that were issued to finance it, the city has instead needed to rely on its general fund and refinancing to make debt payments.
The Paseo is a major north–south parkway in Kansas City, Missouri. As the city's first major boulevard, it runs approximately 10 miles (16 km) through the center of the city: from Cliff Drive and Lexington Avenue on the bluffs above the Missouri River in the Pendleton Heights historic neighborhood, to 85th Street and Woodland Avenue. The parkway holds 223 acres (0.90 km2) of boulevard parkland dotted with several Beaux-Arts-style decorative structures and architectural details maintained by the city's Parks and Recreation department.
The Arizona State Museum (ASM), founded in 1893, was originally a repository for the collection and protection of archaeological resources. Today, however, ASM stores artifacts, exhibits them and provides education and research opportunities. It was formed by authority of the Arizona Territorial Legislature. The museum is operated by the University of Arizona, and is located on the university campus in Tucson.
18th and Vine is a neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri. It is internationally recognized as a historical point of origin of jazz music and a historic hub of African-American businesses. Along with Basin Street in New Orleans, Beale Street in Memphis, 52nd Street in New York City, and Central Avenue in Los Angeles, the 18th and Vine area fostered a new style of jazz. Kansas City jazz is a riff-based and blues-influenced sound developed in jam sessions in the district's crowded clubs. Many notable jazz musicians of the 1930s and 1940s lived or got started here, including Charlie Parker. Due to this legacy, U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver said 18th and Vine is America's third most recognized street after Broadway and Hollywood Boulevard.
Patricia DuBose Duncan is an artist living in Topsham, Maine. She is best known for her work to gain support for designating some of the last remaining tall grass prairie land in the American Midwest, as the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. This land was publicized in a Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition (S.I.T.E.S.) in 1976-86 as a Bicentennial Exhibition. The exhibit has been digitally preserved by Kansas State University's Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art.
Sylvester "Sly" James, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 54th mayor of Kansas City, Missouri from 2011 to 2019. James has lived in Kansas City's Union Hill neighborhood. As mayor, he was known for wearing bow ties.
Smithsonian Affiliations is a division of the Smithsonian Institution that establishes long-term partnerships with non-Smithsonian museums and educational and cultural organizations in order to share collections, exhibitions and educational strategies and conduct joint research. Partner organizations are known as "Smithsonian Affiliates".
Michael Vance Toombs is an American artist based in Kansas City. He is a painter, arts educator, and arts community project director. Toombs is specifically known for his interactive community murals in Kansas City, Missouri. Toombs is the founder of Storytellers Inc., an artists collective that designs and implements work with inner city youth and children in urban communities in Kansas and Missouri.
The International Banana Museum was a museum located in Mecca, California, dedicated to the banana. The one-room museum contains more than 20,000 items related to bananas. In 1999, the museum set a Guinness World Record as the largest museum devoted to a single fruit. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum stated it would close. As of August 2023, it remained closed.
Diallo Javonne French is a filmmaker and photographer. His film May This Be Love aired on the BET program Lens on Talent in 2009 and won first place at the Urban Mediamakers Film Festival.
Lonnie Powell is a multimedia painter and community organizer. Powell's paintings and drawings are housed in the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art's permanent collection, the Arrowhead Arts Collection, and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. His paintings depict portraits of African American men and women. In 2001, Powell founded The Light in the Other Room, a collaborative of African American artists.
Sonié Joi Thompson-Ruffin is an American fiber artist, author, designer, community organizer, and curator. Ruffin creates quilts using fabric, symbolism, and references to African textile motifs that explore issues dealing with human rights, race, and gender. Her work has been exhibited across the United States, Africa, and Europe, at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the White House Rotunda, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. She has been a resident artist at the Charlotte Street Foundation and a resident curator at the American Jazz Museum. Thompson-Ruffin is one of the founding members of the African American Artists Collective, a group of African American artists in Kansas City. Thompson-Ruffin was selected to create the Nelson Mandela memorial coverlet by the South African Consulate and the Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral. Her work is held in collections such as the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas, and others. Her work has been featured on the front covers of New Letters literary journal and of KC Studio Magazine.
