As great as NYC is, it’s important for New Yorkers not to get too arrogant – sometimes other cities beat us in certain things. One of them is Kansas City – and I’m not talking about the 2015 World Series where the KC Royals demolished the Mets in 4-to-1 games. No, KC is superior not only to NYC but just about every other American city when it comes to one of the best things to exist in any city – public fountains.
I love fountains. They provide such great psychological comfort, a momentary reprieve, from the concrete density and madness of the city. The water gushes up and out of a specifically designed structure, teasing the other manmade creations around it, tempting the people walking by with the inherent freedom, mystery, and sexiness that water provides. They also make for great meeting place, spaces where people can congregate, hang, commiserate, read, just feel better about themselves – the soothing sites and sounds of the water in the background permeating their minds and souls with residual comfort.
So what makes for a great city fountain? Why does KC do fountains so well? And what can NYC and other cities learn from KC about becoming a great fountain town?
I posed these vital questions to Kansas City blogger Ben Johnson, who wrote a great post about the fountains of his town. He was kind enough to answer these questions as well as provide even more great insights on the beauty, power, and meaning of city fountains.
For me, fountains – i.e. water spraying out in the middle of the metal and concrete city – is kind of magical. They seem to fuse the natural world with the man-made world. What is it that you love about public fountains?
Fusing of the natural and man-made is certainly part of it. They also can also signal in a very visible and audible way that a space is a gathering place. That’s an important thing, especially given the ways that this country has sought to undermine and destroy every conceivable public good over the past forty years, parks included. A few weeks ago I went to read on a bench next to a fountain about half a mile from my house, and as I was reading some folks were sitting on their lawn across the street having a drink, and some kids were playing a bizarrely lopsided game of hide-and-go-seek in the trees nearby (one kid was as bad at hide-and-go-seek as I’ve ever seen anyone be at anything; I wish I could have somehow placed bets against him). Regardless, without talking to anyone, I felt like I was part of a community—it was a really nice, low-stakes moment.
What makes for a good public fountain? The design? The way the water sprays? Something else?
I suppose “the way the water sprays” is pretty important—KC calls itself the city of fountains, but more than we would like to admit, it’s the city of out-of-order fountains. Beyond that, I guess context is a lot of what matters. There is a really lovely gently burbling fountain in a small courtyard in the back corner of the Kauffman Gardens in KC, while on the other hand that giant fountain out in front of the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas is pretty badass, but if those fountains traded places they’d both seem ridiculous.
How many fountains does KC have, and how did it become the city of fountains?
The “City of Fountains Foundation,” which is an organization dedicated to keeping the most prominent fountains in the city running, claims there are more than 200 “registered fountains” in the metro, which is a lot for a not-especially-big city. I suspect the actual number is higher. As far as how it came to be, while there are fountains in KC that date to before WWI, the real push for fountain-building came from JC Nicholls, who was a private land developer whose company designed a huge swath of the city from the 1910’s to the 1930’s. The commercial and residential areas he developed are very fountain-dense, and he definitely made fountains a “thing” in KC. Nicholls is a fascinating figure—he’s somewhat like Robert Moses in that he profoundly shaped the geography of his city for generations to come, and did so in very damaging ways. In the case of Nicholls, the damage specifically has to do with developing aggressively segregated neighborhoods.
What are some of your favorite fountains in KC?
The Romanelli Fountain is the one I discussed above—it’s a really wonderful example of the little fountains tucked into residential neighborhoods that can be found around KC. It’s also a clear example of the fact that little fountains tucked into residential neighborhoods cost money—the houses around there aren’t cheap. The Westwood Park neighborhood fountain is a relatively humble affair, but it’s a couple blocks from where I lived when I first moved to KC, so I’ve always been a little attached to it. The Plaza (the shopping area Nicholls developed in the 1920’s) is filled with lots of weird little statuary fountains. I’ve always really liked the Poseidon Fountain, especially in the fall when they put a red football jersey on the old bastard. Beyond that, there are some really beautiful fountains at Powell Gardens out on the edge of the metro, and the fountains at Kauffman Stadium are always fun to see.
What are some of your favorite fountains that you’ve seen in other cities?
The one that jumps immediately to mind is the FDR Memorial in DC. That’s a powerful, contemplative place to visit, and the waterfalls add a lot to the effect. The big fountain in Grant Park in Chicago has been somewhat ruined for all Gen Xers by Married...with Children, but it’s nevertheless very cool.
Did you ever see any fountains in NYC that you liked? How can NYC become a better fountain town?
Of course, as with everything about New York, it’s mostly about grandeur—the fountains in at Rockefeller Center are very cool, and the one I can’t help but think of as the Angels in America fountain in Central Park is gorgeous. Bryant Park would be a great space even without the fountain, but still, it adds something. I can’t say that I remember much in the way of “little neighborhood fountains” in NYC from my years on the East Coast, but of course, the nature of New York is to make Midwesterners slack-jawed rather than detail-oriented, so I probably just missed them. Lord knows NYC needs no advice from the likes of me.
Au contraire, NYC needs lots of advice from the likes of you.
Thanks Ben! Don’t forget to read his great blog at https://egrevue.blogspot.com/
Here are some of Kansas City's fountains:
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