In honor of the upcoming patriotic holiday, here's our list of local people and places that, for better or worse, constitute hallmarks of quintessential Americanness.
7. Stroud's. Classic American food (and classic American overindulgence every time we eat there).
6. General Motors' Fairfax assembly plant. We're just crossing our fingers that what's good for General Motors is still good for America.
5. The Steamboat Arabia Museum. Here's just one load of everything it took to build this country, in a context that shows how damn hard it must have been.
4. The Quindaro Ruins. A long-lost port town on the Kansas City, Kansas, side of the Missouri River was a stop on the Underground Railroad.
3. Haskell Indian Nations University. What once was essentially a concentration camp where Indian children
who had been removed from their families were taught the white man's
way of life is now a university where their descendants can re-learn some of what was lost.
2. The National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial.
The trench-immersion experience is only one of the ways in which this
museum pummels visitors with the tragedy of all wars; to visit this
museum is to truly understand the price we paid for whatever ways WWI
preserved America's freedoms.
1. The Mutual Musicians Foundation. Designated a National Historic Landmark, this one-time black musicians' union hall at 18th and Vine is a still-jamming monument to the one truly American art form.
Comments (0)