Ingram’s September 2022

B E T W E E N T H E L I N E S

favorite—but people offended that easily do well to avoid the history of anything. For most kids, boys especially, a field trip to a museum, any museum, is usually pure snooze. But just about all kids, boys especially, love airplanes. With the impending pilot shortage, and the urge by airlines to diversify

their pilot ranks, a field trip to the restored museum just might launch a career or two. Better still, this would be the rare new museum in which visitors are not hectored for screwing up the environment or profiting from someone’s misery. Anyone who has suffered through the Special Exhibit at the Johnson County Museum— ”Redl ined: Cit ies, Suburbs, and Segregation”—knows whereof I speak. The organizers have presented a formal business plan to the Kansas City Aviation Department. A business plan is a start, but in an area fractured by state and county lines, not to mention identity politics, the TWA people need a champion. In a sane world, a living, vibrant museum with the potential to attract all of the region’s residents and visitors would have real appeal for an aspiring politico. But by definition, a museum that interests everyone appeals to no “special interest,” and special interests grease the gears of politics. Special interests have always gre ased those gears, but throughout Kansas City’s history—dating back at least to the opening of the Hannibal Bridge in 1869—there have been mom- ents when civic leaders rose above their parochial concerns and pitched in for the common good. This could be one of those moments. The price shouldn’t be an issue: the whole shebang might cost about as much as 30 yards of streetcar line. Literally. By 2024, visitors to the city could deplane at the shiny new KCI, drive right by the spruced-up airline museum, and glide into town over the spiffy new Buck O’Neill Bridge. The stars are in alignment. The quicker we move, the more it will seem like we planned this trifecta from the get-go.

They need help. A gussied-up and expanded museum would be perfectly positioned to catch the attention of all visitors by air that head Downtown. This will be a museum for everyone, one that anyone can find and no one is afraid to go to. The only possible item that might cause offense is the “stewardess” exhibit—my personal

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The views expressed in this column are the writer’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Ingram’s Magazine. Jack Cashill , Senior Editor, Editorial @ Ingrams.com

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I n g r a m ’ s

September 2022

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