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105-595: Thomson was born in Kansas City, Missouri . As a child he befriended Alice Smith, great-granddaughter of Joseph Smith , founder of the Latter-day Saint movement . During his youth he often played the organ in Grace Church, (now Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral ), as his piano teacher was the church's organist. After World War I, he entered Harvard University thanks to a loan from Dr. Fred M. Smith ,

210-620: A 1997 article in American Music , Suzanne Robinson writes that Thomson, motivated by "a mixture of spite, national pride, and professional jealousy" was consistently "severe and spiteful" to Benjamin Britten . Miles records that Thomson agitated for more performances in New York of new music, including his own. Thomson's definition of music was "that which musicians do", and his views on music are radical in their insistence on reducing

315-542: A Colony in 1713 and The Route to Be Taken to Ascend the Missouri River in 1714. In the documents, he describes the junction of the "Grande Riv[ière] des Cansez" and Missouri River, as the first adoption of those names. French cartographer Guillaume Delisle used the descriptions to make the area's first reasonably accurate map. The Spanish took over the region in the Treaty of Paris in 1763, but were not to play

420-521: A Confederate triumph. Once again their victory proved hollow, as Price was decisively defeated in the pivotal Battle of Westport the next day, effectively ending Confederate efforts to regain Missouri. General Thomas Ewing , in response to a successful raid on nearby Lawrence, Kansas , led by William Quantrill , issued General Order No. 11 , forcing the eviction of residents in four western Missouri counties – including Jackson – except those living in

525-640: A highly educated family, her father being a distinguished geologist. A graduate from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania , Hubbard studied music and poetry in Paris and was also secretary of the local Suffragette Society . Following their marriage, Frances Flaherty became a crucial part of Robert's success in film. Frances took on the role of director at times, and helped to edit and distribute her husband's films, even landing governmental film contracts for England. In 1909 he shared stories about information he

630-584: A historically Italian American neighborhood , the UMKC area and in River Market, in northern Kansas City. The Historic Kansas City boundary is roughly 58 square miles (150 km ) and has a population density of about 5,000 inhabitants per square mile (1,900/km ). It runs from the Missouri River to the north, 79th Street to the south, the Blue River to the east, and State Line Road to the west. During

735-625: A landing point for West Port, with Lykins as the first postmaster. He found it more convenient to have his goods offloaded at the Prudhomme landing next to Chouteau's landing than in Independence. Several years after Gabriel Prudhomme's death, a group of fourteen investors purchased his land at auction on November 14, 1838. By 1839, the investors divided the property and the first lots were sold in 1846 after legal complications were settled. The remaining lots were sold by February 1850. In 1850,

840-418: A legal discovery of living outside city boundaries, he was soon succeeded by Johnston Lykins as the second (but first legally elected) mayor. The city had an area of 0.70 square miles (1.8 km ) and a population of 2,500. The boundary lines extended from the middle of the Missouri River south to what is now Ninth Street, and from Bluff Street on the west to a point between Holmes Road and Charlotte Street on

945-624: A long-term commuter rail plan. For the time being, the line is being converted to a trail while county officials negotiate with railroads for access to tracks in Downtown Kansas City. On November 7, 2017, Kansas City voters overwhelmingly approved a new single terminal at Kansas City International Airport by a 75% to 25% margin. The new single terminal replaced the three existing "Clover Leafs" at KCI Airport on February 28, 2023. The city has an area of 319.03 square miles (826.28 km ), of which, 314.95 square miles (815.72 km )

1050-479: A major role other than taxing and licensing Missouri River ship traffic. The French continued their fur trade under Spanish license. The Chouteau family operated under Spanish license at St. Louis , in the lower Missouri Valley as early as 1765 and in 1821 the Chouteaus reached Kansas City, where François Chouteau established Chouteau's Landing. After the 1803 Louisiana Purchase , Lewis and Clark visited

1155-588: A marked uptick in late spring and summer. Kansas City is located in Tornado Alley , a broad region where cold air from Canada collides with warm air from the Gulf of Mexico, leading to the formation of powerful storms, especially during the spring. The Kansas City metropolitan area has experienced several significant outbreaks of tornadoes in the past, including the Ruskin Heights tornado in 1957 and

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1260-468: A month, he tested the camera invented by Fred Waller . But "just as he was to set forth round the world" to shoot Cinerama footage with Waller's camera, he died, which prompted Thomas to find and hire a new film crew and also join forces with Mike Todd . Flaherty is considered a pioneer of documentary film . He was one of the first to combine documentary subjects with a fiction-film-like narrative and poetic treatment. A self-proclaimed explorer, Flaherty

1365-513: A name change to Kansas City in 1889, and the city limits to be extended south and east. Westport became part of Kansas City on December 2, 1897. In 1900, Kansas City was the 22nd largest city in the country, with a population of 163,752 residents. Landscape architect George Kessler shaped Kansas City into a leading example of the City Beautiful movement, with a network of boulevards and parks. New neighborhoods like Southmoreland and

1470-542: A natural curiosity for people of other cultures. Flaherty was an acclaimed still-photographer in Toronto . His portraits of American Indians and wild life during his travels are what led to the creation of his critically acclaimed Nanook of the North . It was his enthusiasm and interests in these people that sparked his need to create a new genre of film. In 1914, he married his fiancée Frances Hubbard . Hubbard came from

1575-404: A residential corridor nicknamed Millionaire Row. It is now widely seen as one of the city's most prominent racial and economic dividing lines due to urban decay, which was caused by white flight . During the civil rights era the city blocked people of color from moving to homes west of Troost Avenue, causing the areas east of Troost to have one of the worst murder rates in the country. This led to

1680-565: A reversal of concern from pre-war rural unemployment to wartime labor shortages). Following the attack on Pearl Harbor , officials grew apprehensive that the film could project an unduly negative image of the US internationally, and although a prestige opening was held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1942, the film was never authorized for general release. Louisiana Story ( 1948 ) was a Flaherty documentary shot by himself and Richard Leacock , about

1785-530: A side cut away for light so that Flaherty's camera could get a good shot. Flaherty insisted that the Inuit not use rifles to hunt , though their use had by that time become common. He also pretended at one point that he could not hear the hunters' pleas for help, instead continuing to film their struggle and putting them in greater danger. Melanie McGrath writes that, while living in Northern Quebec for

1890-548: A small boat strive to row back to shore through perilously high, rock-infested seas. Back in the United States, Pare Lorentz of the United States Film Service hired Flaherty to film a documentary about US agriculture, a project which became The Land . Flaherty and his wife covered some 100,000 miles, shooting 25,000 feet of film, and captured a series of striking images of rural America. Among

1995-447: A sort of mentor and father figure to a new generation of American tonal composers such as Ned Rorem , Paul Bowles and Leonard Bernstein , a circle united as much by their shared homosexuality as by their similar compositional sensibilities. Women composers were not part of that circle, and one writer has suggested that, as a critic, he selectively omitted mention of their works, or adopted a more passive tone when praising them. Thomson

2100-556: Is land and 4.08 square miles (10.57 km ) is water. Bluffs overlook the rivers and river bottom areas. Kansas City proper is bowl-shaped and is surrounded to the north and south by glacier -carved limestone and bedrock cliffs. Kansas City is at the confluence between the Dakota and Minnesota ice lobes during the maximum late Independence glaciation of the Pleistocene epoch . The Kansas and Missouri rivers cut wide valleys into

2205-614: Is not readily available and Flaherty never discussed the matter. Nanook began a series of films that Flaherty made on the same theme of humanity against the elements. Others included Moana: A Romance of the Golden Age , set in Samoa, and Man of Aran , set in the Aran Islands of Ireland. All these films employ the same rhetorical devices: the dangers of nature and the struggle of the communities to eke out an existence. Nanook of

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2310-600: Is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area , which straddles the Missouri – Kansas state line and has a population of 2,392,035. As of the 2020 census , the city had a population of 508,090, making it the 37th most-populous city in the United States , as well as the sixth-most populous city in the Midwest . Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with

2415-572: Is the headquarters of Hallmark Cards and a major downtown shopping and entertainment complex. It is connected to Union Station by a series of covered walkways. The Country Club Plaza , or "the Plaza", is an upscale, outdoor shopping, and entertainment district. It is the first suburban shopping district in the United States, designed to accommodate shoppers arriving by automobile, and is surrounded by apartments and condominiums, including several high rise buildings. The associated Country Club District to

2520-417: The 25th largest city by total area in the United States. It is one of Jackson County's two seats along with the major satellite city of Independence ; and its other major Missouri suburbs include Blue Springs , Lee's Summit , Raytown , and Liberty . Its major Kansas suburbs include Overland Park , Olathe , Lenexa , and Kansas City, Kansas . The city is composed of several neighborhoods , including

2625-529: The Hotel Chelsea , where he presided over a largely gay salon that attracted many of the leading figures in music and art and theater, including Leonard Bernstein , Tennessee Williams , and many others. He also encouraged many younger composers and literary figures such as Theodor Adorno , Ned Rorem , Lou Harrison , John Cage , Frank O'Hara , and Paul Bowles . Grosser died in 1986, three years before Thomson. His most important friend from this period

2730-705: The Kansas City City Hall and the Jackson County Courthouse. During this time, he aided one of his nephew's friends, Harry S. Truman , in a political career. Truman eventually became a senator, then vice president, then president . The machine fell in 1939 when Pendergast, riddled with health problems, pleaded guilty to tax evasion after long federal investigations. His biographers have summed up his uniqueness: Pendergast may bear comparison to various big-city bosses, but his open alliance with hardened criminals, his cynical subversion of

2835-636: 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. Sitting on Missouri's western boundary with Kansas , with Downtown near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, the city encompasses about 319.03 square miles (826.3 km ), making it

2940-528: The May 2003 tornado outbreak sequence . The region can also experience ice storms during the winter, such as the 2002 ice storm duringin which hundreds of thousands of residents lost power for days or weeks. Kansas City and its outlying areas are also subject to flooding, including the Great Floods of 1844 , 1951 , and 1993 . Kansas City has the second largest Somali and Sudanese populations in

3045-673: The River Market District , 18th and Vine District , and the Country Club Plaza . Celebrated cultural traditions include Kansas City jazz ; theater, as a historical center of the Vaudevillian Orpheum circuit in the 1920s; the nickname City of Fountains ; the Chiefs and Royals sports franchises; and cuisine such as Kansas City–style barbecue and strip steak . The town of Kansas, Missouri ,

3150-450: The nitrate film stock was ignited in a fire started from his cigarette in his editing room. His film was destroyed and his hands were burned. Although his editing print was saved and shown several times, Flaherty was not satisfied with the results. "It was utterly inept, simply a scene of this or that, no relation, no thread of story or continuity whatever, and it must have bored the audience to distraction. Certainly it bored me." Flaherty

3255-426: The 1960s and 1970s, Kansas City annexed large amounts of land, which are largely undeveloped. Between the 2000 and 2010 census counts, the urban core of Kansas City continued to drop significantly in population. The areas of Greater Downtown in the center city, and sections near I-435 and I-470 in the south, and Highway 152 in the north are the only areas of Kansas City, Missouri, to have an increase in population, with

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3360-575: The American Midwest, linking growers and small businesses to the community. More than 30 full-time merchants operate year-round and offer specialty foods, fresh meats and seafood, restaurants and cafes, floral, and home accessories. The City Market has the Arabia Steamboat Museum , which houses artifacts from a steamboat that sank near Kansas City in 1856. Downtown Kansas City is 2.9 square miles (7.5 km ) bounded by

3465-698: The Black Marble H&;R Block fountain in front of Union Station, which features synchronized water jets; the Nichols Bronze Horses at the corner of Main and J.C. Nichols Parkway at the entrance to the Plaza Shopping District; and the fountain at Hallmark Cards World Headquarters in Crown Center . Since its inception in 1857, City Market has been one of the largest and most enduring public farmers' markets in

3570-702: The Central Business District. The Power & Light District , a new, nine-block entertainment district comprising numerous restaurants, bars, and retail shops, was developed by the Cordish Company of Baltimore, Maryland . Its first tenant opened on November 9, 2007. It is anchored by the T-Mobile Center , a 19,000-seat sports and entertainment complex. Kansas City is in the Midwestern United States , near

3675-484: The Commerce Bank Tower into residential and hotel space has helped to fulfill the demand. New apartment complexes like One, Two, and Three Lights, River Market West, and 503 Main have begun to reshape Kansas City's skyline. Strong demand has led to occupancy rates in the upper 90%. The residential population of downtown has boomed, and the office population has dropped significantly from the early 2000s to

3780-635: The Inuit his film, while he was still in the process of filming. He lived in an attached cabin to the Revillon Frères trading post. In making Nanook , Flaherty cast various locals in parts in the film, in the way that one would cast actors in a work of fiction. With the aim of showing traditional Inuit life, he also staged some scenes, including the ending, where Allakariallak (who acts the part of Nanook) and his screen family are supposedly at risk of dying if they could not find or build shelter quickly enough. The half-igloo had been built beforehand, with

3885-413: The Missouri River to the north, 31st Street to the south, Troost Avenue to the east, and State Line Road to the west. Areas near Downtown Kansas City include the 39th Street District , which is known as Restaurant Row, and features one of Kansas City's largest selections of independently owned restaurants and boutique shops. It is a center of literary and visual arts, and bohemian culture . Crown Center

3990-472: The Missouri River. He established a home for his wife, Josephine, and six children. He operated a ferry on the river. In 1833, John McCoy , son of Baptist missionary Isaac McCoy and brother-in-law of Johnston Lykins , established West Port along the Santa Fe Trail , 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) south of the river. In 1834, McCoy established Westport Landing on a bend in the Missouri to serve as

4095-525: The North ( 1922 ) was a successful film, and Flaherty was in great demand afterwards. On a contract with Paramount to produce another film on the order of Nanook , he went to Samoa to film Moana ( 1926 ). He shot the film in Safune on the island of Savai'i where he lived with his wife and family for more than a year. The studio heads repeatedly asked for daily rushes but Flaherty had nothing to show because he had not filmed anything yet — his approach

4200-500: The North". In 1913, on Flaherty's expedition to prospect the Belcher Islands , his boss, Sir William Mackenzie , suggested that he take a motion picture camera along. He brought a Bell and Howell hand cranked motion picture camera. He was particularly intrigued by the life of the Inuit, and spent so much time filming them that he had begun to neglect his real work. When Flaherty returned to Toronto with 30,000 feet of film,

4305-469: The Northland population growing the most. Even so, the population of Kansas City as a whole from 2000 to 2010 increased by 4.1%. In February 2022, the city had an estimated 3,000 homeless people. Robert J. Flaherty Robert Joseph Flaherty , FRGS ( / ˈ f l æ . ər t i , ˈ f l ɑː -/ ; February 16, 1884 – July 23, 1951) was an American filmmaker who directed and produced

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4410-558: The Philippines. The film encountered a series of obstacles. After production had begun, Congress abolished the United States Film Service, and the project was shunted to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). With America's entry to World War II approaching, USDA officials (and the film's editor Helen van Dongen ) attempted to reconcile Flaherty's footage with rapidly changing official messages (including

4515-557: The Plains for the United States government's Resettlement Administration (RA). Thomson incorporated folk melodies and religious musical themes into the film score and subsequently composed an orchestral suite of the same name which was recorded by Leopold Stokowski and the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra in 1946 for RCA Victor (# 11-9522,11-9523). In 1938 he also formed a collaboration with Lorentz and

4620-584: The River Market, Downtown, Union Station, Crown Center and the Country Club Plaza. The KCATA continues to expand MAX with additional routes on Prospect Avenue, Troost Avenue, and Independence Avenue. In 2013, construction began on a two-mile streetcar line in downtown Kansas City (funded by a $ 102 million ballot initiative that was passed in 2012) that runs between the River Market and Union Station, it began operation in May 2016. In 2017, voters approved

4725-678: The Rockhill District were conceived to accommodate the city's largest residencies of palatial proportions. The obsolescence of Union Depot in West Bottoms in favor of the new Union Station in 1914, and the opening of the Liberty Memorial in 1923, provided two of the city's most identifiable landmarks. Robert A. Long , president of the Liberty Memorial Association, was a driving force in

4830-691: The Safdie-designed Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts opened in 2011. The Power and Light Building is influenced by the Art Deco style and sports a glowing sky beacon. The new world headquarters of H&R Block is a 20-story all-glass oval bathed in a soft green light. The four industrial artworks atop the support towers of the Kansas City Convention Center ( Bartle Hall ) were once

4935-774: The South Seas (1928) in collaboration with W. S. Van Dyke , but their talents proved an uncomfortable fit, and Flaherty resigned from the production. Moving to Fox Film Corporation , Flaherty spent eight months working on the Native American documentary Acoma the Sky City (1929), but the production was shut down, and subsequently Flaherty's footage was lost in a studio vault fire. He then agreed to collaborate with F. W. Murnau on another South Seas picture, Tabu (1931). However, this combination proved even more volatile, and while Flaherty did contribute significantly to

5040-514: The United States Congress. Kansas City is home to significant national and international architecture firms including ACI Boland, BNIM , 360 Architecture , HNTB , Populous . Frank Lloyd Wright designed two private residences and Community Christian Church there. Kansas City hosts more than 200 working fountains, especially on the Country Club Plaza. Designs range from French-inspired traditional to modern. Highlights include

5145-532: The United States. The Latino/Hispanic population of Kansas City, which is heavily Mexican and Central American , is spread throughout the metropolitan area, with some concentration in the northeast part of the city and southwest of downtown. The Asian population, mostly Southeast Asian, is partly concentrated within the northeast side to the Columbus Park neighborhood in the Greater Downtown area,

5250-565: The area's tribal inhabitants include the Hopewell tradition , Mississippian culture , Kansa , Osage , Otoe , and Missouri . The first documented European visitor to the eventual site of Kansas City was Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont , who was also the first European to explore the lower Missouri River. Criticized for his response to the Native American attack on Fort Détroit , he had deserted his post as fort commander and

5355-540: The areas east of Troost. The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse was a major disaster that occurred on July 17, 1981, killing 114 people and injuring more than 200 others during a tea dance in the 45-story Hyatt Regency hotel in Crown Center . It is the deadliest structural collapse in US history other than the September 11 attacks . In 2015 a memorial called the Skywalk Memorial Plaza was built for

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5460-461: The center of North America, far removed from a significant body of water, there is significant potential for extreme hot and cold swings throughout the year. The warmest month is July, with a 24-hour average temperature of 81.0 °F (27.2 °C). The summer months are hot and humid, with moist air riding up from the Gulf of Mexico , and high temperatures surpass 100 °F (38 °C) on 5.6 days of

5565-581: The city and nearby communities and those whose allegiance to the Union was certified by Ewing. After the Civil War, Kansas City grew rapidly. The selection of the city over Leavenworth, Kansas , for the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad bridge over the Missouri River brought significant growth. The population exploding after 1869, when Hannibal Bridge, designed by Octave Chanute , opened. The boom prompted

5670-466: The city and was one of the largest systems in the country. In 1903 the 8th Street Tunnel was built as an underground streetcar system through the city. The last run of the streetcar was on June 23, 1957, but the tunnel still exists. At the start of the 20th century, political machines gained clout in the city, with the one led by Tom Pendergast dominating the city by 1925. Several important buildings and structures were built during this time, including

5775-517: The city covered approximately 316 square miles (820 km ), more than five times its size in 1940. Aggressively annexing the surrounding suburbs and undeveloped land spared Kansas City from the severe population loss suffered by cities like St. Louis and Detroit, similar cities which both lost over 50% of their population in the postwar era. In the most neglected neighborhoods, however, the same pattern of abandonment occurred and left behind massive numbers of vacant lots and abandoned homes, especially in

5880-428: The confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, noting it was a good place to build a fort. In 1831, a group of Mormons from New York state led by Joseph Smith settled in the area. They built the first school within what became Kansas City, but were forced out by mob violence in 1833. In 1831, Gabriel Prudhomme Sr., a Canadian trapper and partner of François Chouteau , purchased 257 acres (104 ha) fronting

5985-441: The democratic process, his monarchistic style of living, his increasingly insatiable gambling habit, his grasping for a business empire, and his promotion of Kansas City as a wide-open town with every kind of vice imaginable, combined with his professed compassion for the poor and very real role as city builder, made him bigger than life, difficult to characterize. Troost Avenue was once the eastern edge of Kansas City, Missouri and

6090-557: The director Robert J. Flaherty on the docufiction film Louisiana Story , for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1949. At the time, the award was the only Pulitzer Prize in music granted for a musical composition written exclusively for film. Thomson's suite based on the score was premiered by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1949 to widespread critical acclaim. Following

6195-458: The dominating economic success of neighboring Johnson County . In 1950, African Americans represented 12.2% of Kansas City's population. The city's most populous ethnic group, non-Hispanic whites, declined from 89.5% in 1930 to 54.9% in 2010. In 1940, the city had about 400,000 residents; by 2000, it had about 440,000. From 1940 to 1960, the city more than doubled its physical size, while increasing its population by only about 75,000. By 1970,

6300-781: The east. During the Civil War , the city and its immediate surroundings were the focus of intense military activity. Although the First Battle of Independence in August 1862 resulted in a Confederate States Army victory, the Confederates were unable to leverage their win in any significant fashion, as Kansas City was occupied by Union troops and proved too heavily fortified to assault. The Second Battle of Independence , which occurred on October 21–22, 1864, as part of Sterling Price 's Missouri expedition of 1864 , also resulted in

6405-415: The existing film. The new credits include Richard Lyford as director and Robert Snyder as producer. The film was edited by Richard Lyford. Also in the early 1950s, Lowell Thomas , an investor and the most prominent promotor of Cinerama , was eager to secure his "good friend" Flaherty's endorsement of this pioneer film technology. Reportedly, Flaherty was very excited about Cinerama's promise, and for about

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6510-414: The families of the victims of the disaster, across the street from the hotel which is now a Sheraton. In the 21st century, the Kansas City area has undergone extensive redevelopment, with more than $ 6 billion in improvements to the downtown area on the Missouri side. One of the main goals is to attract convention and tourist dollars, office workers, and residents to downtown KCMO. Among the projects include

6615-523: The father of both the documentary and the ethnographic film . Flaherty was married to writer Frances H. Flaherty from 1914 until his death in 1951. Frances worked on several of her husband's films, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Story for Louisiana Story (1948). Flaherty was one of seven children born to prospector Robert Henry Flaherty (an Irish Protestant) and Susan Klockner (a German Catholic). Due to exposure from his father's work as an iron ore explorer, he developed

6720-510: The film completed in December 1925 and released the following month. The film, on its release, was not as successful as Nanook of the North domestically, but it did very well in Europe, inspiring John Grierson to coin the word "documentary". Before the release of Moana , Flaherty made two short films in New York City with private backing, The Pottery Maker (1925) and The Twenty-Four Dollar Island (1927). Irving Thalberg of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer invited Flaherty to film White Shadows in

6825-402: The first commercially successful feature-length documentary film , Nanook of the North (1922). The film made his reputation and nothing in his later life fully equaled its success, although he continued the development of this new genre of narrative documentary with Moana (1926), set in the South Seas , and Man of Aran (1934), filmed in Ireland's Aran Islands . Flaherty is considered

6930-448: The formation of a TDD to expand the streetcar line south 3.5 miles from Union Station to UMKC's Volker Campus. Additionally in 2017, the KC Port Authority began engineering studies for a Port Authority funded streetcar expansion north to Berkley Riverfront Park. Citywide, voter support for rail projects continues to grow with numerous light rail projects in the works. In 2016, Jackson County, Missouri, acquired unused rail lines as part of

7035-508: The funding for construction. Long was a longtime resident and wealthy businessman. He built the R.A. Long Building for the Long-Bell Lumber Company , his home, Corinthian Hall (now the Kansas City Museum ) and Longview Farm . Further spurring Kansas City's growth was the opening of the innovative Country Club Plaza development by J.C. Nichols in 1925, as part of his Country Club District plan. The Kansas City streetcar system once had hundreds of miles of streetcars running through

7140-413: The geographic center of the country, at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers. The city lies in either the humid continental zone when using the 0 °C (32 °F) isotherm, or in the humid subtropical zone when using the −3 °C (27 °F) isotherm. The city experiences roughly 104 air frosts on average per annum. The city is part of USDA plant hardiness zones 5b and 6a. In

7245-433: The inhabitants carried seaweed up from the sea to construct fields for cultivation. Flaherty again cast locals in the various fictionalized roles, and made use of dramatic recreation of anachronistic behaviors: in this case, a sequence showing the hunting of sharks from small boats with harpoons, which the islanders had by then not practiced for several decades. He also staged the film's climactic sequence, in which three men in

7350-406: The installation of an oil rig in a Louisiana swamp. The film stresses the rig's peaceful and unproblematic coexistence with the surrounding environment, and it was in fact funded by Standard Oil , a petroleum company. The main character of the film is a Cajun boy. The poetry of childhood and nature, some critics argue, is used to make exploration for oil look beautiful. Virgil Thomson composed

7455-465: The landing area was incorporated as the town of Kansas, Missouri . By that time, the towns of Kansas, Westport, and nearby Independence , had become critical points in the westward expansion of the United States. Three major trails – the Santa Fe , California , and Oregon – all passed through Jackson County. On February 22, 1853, Kansas was reincorporated and renamed the City of Kansas with its first elected mayor, William Samuel Gregory . Due to

7560-441: The life of the social reformer Susan B. Anthony . Thomson incorporated musical elements from Baptist hymns, Gregorian chants and popular songs into both scores while demonstrating a restrained use of dissonance. Thomson's contributions to music were not limited to the operatic stage, however. In 1936, he established a collaboration with the film director Pare Lorentz and composed music for the documentary film The Plow That Broke

7665-529: The mid-2010s. Top employers like AMC moved their operations to modern office buildings in the suburbs. High office vacancy plagued downtown, leading to the neglect of many office buildings. By the mid-2010s, many office buildings were converted to residential uses and the Class A vacancy rate plunged to 12% in 2017. Swiss Re, Virgin Mobile, AutoAlert, and others have begun to move operations to downtown Kansas City from

7770-538: The music for the film. Flaherty was one of the makers of The Titan: Story of Michelangelo (1950), which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature . The film was a re-edited version of the German/Swiss film originally titled Michelangelo: Life of a Titan (1938), directed by Curt Oertel. The re-edited version put a new English narration by Fredric March and musical score onto a shorter edit of

7875-435: The nature of "controlled actuality" and sheds new light on thinking about Flaherty. The argument is made that the impact of Flaherty's films on the indigenous peoples portrayed changes over time, as the films become valuable records for subsequent generations of now-lost ways of life. The film's title derives from Flaherty's statement that he had been accused, in the staged climactic sequence of Man of Aran , of "trying to drown

7980-507: The official record lowest is −23 °F (−31 °C), set on December 22 and 23, 1989. Normal seasonal snowfall is 13.4 inches (34 cm) at Downtown Airport and 18.8 in (48 cm) at Kansas City International Airport. The average window for freezing temperatures is October 31 to April 4, while for measurable (0.1 in or 0.25 cm) snowfall, it is November 27 to March 16 as measured at Kansas City International Airport. Precipitation, both in frequency and total accumulation, shows

8085-420: The operatic singer Thomas Hardie Chalmers on the documentary film The River for the United States government's Farm Security Administration . Thomson composed an orchestra suite based on the score; when it was published, the musical journal Notes commented: "Delightful as background music, the piece is an awful bore when you try to give it your full attention". Subsequently, in 1948 he collaborated with

8190-595: The operator. From 2007 to 2017, downtown residential population in Kansas City quadrupled and continues to grow. The area has grown from almost 4,000 residents in the early 2000s to nearly 30,000 as of 2017 . Kansas City's downtown ranks as the sixth-fastest-growing downtown in America with the population expected to grow by more than 40% by 2022. Conversions of office buildings such as the Power & Light Building and

8295-703: The planned length of the eventual finished movie, and the ensuing cost overruns obliged Grierson to take Flaherty off the project, which was edited by other hands into three shorter films. Flaherty wrote a novel about the sea called The Captain's Chair which was published in 1938 by Scribner. This was presented on BBC Television in November that year, under the title The Last Voyage of Captain Grant , adapted and directed by Denis Johnston . Flaherty's career in Britain ended when producer Alexander Korda removed him from

8400-593: The president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints , and father of Alice Smith. His tours of Europe with the Harvard Glee Club helped nurture his desire to return there. At Harvard, Thomson focused his studies on the piano work of Erik Satie . He studied in Paris on fellowship for a year, and after graduating lived in Paris from 1925 until 1940. While studying in Paris he

8505-581: The production Elephant Boy (1937), re-editing it into a commercial entertainment picture. Producer Michael Balcon took Flaherty on to direct Man of Aran (1934), which portrayed the harsh traditional lifestyle of the occupants of the isolated Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland. The film was a major critical success, and for decades was considered in some circles an even greater achievement than Nanook . As with Nanook , Man of Aran showed human beings' efforts to survive under extreme conditions: in this case, an island whose soils were so thin that

8610-666: The publication of his book, The State of Music , Thomson established himself in New York City as a rival of Aaron Copland . Thomson's criticisms of Copland were phrased in terms that brought accusations of antisemitism, but Copland remained on good terms with him, and Thomson admitted his envy of Copland's greater success as a composer. Thomson was also a music critic for the New York Herald-Tribune from 1940 to 1954. A fellow critic, Robert Miles, accused him of being "vindictive and of settling scores in print". In

8715-401: The rarefied aesthetics of music to market activity. He even went so far as to claim that the style a piece was written in could be most effectively understood as a consequence of its income source. In 1969, Thomson composed Metropolitan Museum Fanfare: Portrait Of An American Artist to accompany the Museum's Centennial exhibition "New York Painting And Sculpture: 1940–1970". Thomson became

8820-574: The redevelopment of the Power & Light District into a retail and entertainment district; and the Sprint Center, an 18,500-seat arena that opened in 2007, funded by a 2004 ballot initiative involving a tax on car rentals and hotels, designed to meet the stadium specifications for a possible future NBA or NHL franchise, and was renamed T-Mobile Center in 2020; Kemper Arena, which was functionally superseded by Sprint Center, fell into disrepair and

8925-633: The south includes the Sunset Hill and Brookside neighborhoods, and is traversed by Ward Parkway , a landscaped boulevard known for its statuary, fountains, and large, historic homes. Union Station is home to Science City , restaurants, shopping, theaters, and the city's Amtrak facility. After years of neglect and seas of parking lots, Downtown Kansas City is undergoing a period of change with over $ 6 billion in development since 2000. Many residential properties recently have been or are under redevelopment in three surrounding warehouse loft districts and

9030-672: The story, the finished film, originally released by Paramount Pictures , is essentially Murnau's. After Tabu , Flaherty was considered finished in Hollywood, and Frances Flaherty contacted John Grierson of the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit in London, who assigned Flaherty to the documentary Industrial Britain (1931). By comparison to Grierson and his unit, Flaherty's habitual working methods involved shooting relatively large amounts of film in relation to

9135-556: The subject of ridicule, but now define the night skyline near the T-Mobile Center along with One Kansas City Place (Missouri's tallest office tower), the KCTV-Tower (Missouri's tallest freestanding structure) and the Liberty Memorial , a World War I memorial and museum that flaunts simulated flames and smoke billowing into the night skyline. It was designated as the National World War I Museum and Memorial in 2004 by

9240-567: The subject's presence in one sitting, they're mostly for piano, usually under 3 minutes each. He orchestrated many and used several as part of larger works.) Included among Virgil Thomson's publications are: Sources Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri ( KC or KCMO ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by population and area. Most of the city lies within Jackson County , and other portions spill into Clay , Platte , and Cass counties. It

9345-648: The suburbs and expensive coastal cities. The area has seen additional development through various transportation projects, including improvements to the Grandview Triangle , which intersects Interstates 435 and 470, and U.S. Route 71 . In July 2005, the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) launched Kansas City's first bus rapid transit line, the Metro Area Express (MAX), which links

9450-566: The terrain when the glaciers melted and drained. A partially filled spillway valley crosses the central city. This valley is an eastward continuation of the Turkey Creek Valley. It is the closest major city to the geographic center of the contiguous United States, or "Lower 48". Kansas City comprises more than 240 neighborhoods, some with histories as independent cities or as the sites of major events. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art opened its Euro-Style Bloch addition in 2007, and

9555-561: The themes raised by Flaherty's footage were the challenge of the erosion of agricultural land and the Dust Bowl (as well as the beginning of effective responses via improved soil conservation practices), mechanization and rural unemployment, and large-scale migration from the Great Plains to California. In the latter context, Flaherty highlighted competition for agricultural jobs between native-born Americans and migrants from Mexico and

9660-539: The year of filming Nanook , Flaherty had an affair with his lead actress, the young Inuk woman who played Nanook's wife. A few months after he left, she gave birth to his son, Josephie (December 25, 1921 – 1984), whom he never acknowledged. Josephie was one of the Inuit who were relocated in the 1950s to very difficult living conditions in Resolute and Grise Fiord , in the extreme north. Corroboration of McGrath's account

9765-433: The year, and 90 °F (32 °C) on 47 days. The coldest month of the year is January, with an average temperature of 31.0 °F (−0.6 °C). Winters are cold, with 22 days where the high temperature is at or below 32 °F (0 °C) and 2.5 nights with a low at or below 0 °F (−18 °C). The official record highest temperature is 113 °F (45 °C), set on August 14, 1936, at Downtown Airport, while

9870-615: Was Gertrude Stein , who was an artistic collaborator and mentor to him. After meeting Stein in Paris in 1926, Thomson invited her to prepare a libretto for an opera which he hoped to compose. Their collaboration resulted in the premier of the groundbreaking composition Four Saints in Three Acts in 1934. At the time, the opera was noted for its form, musical content and the portrayal of European saints by an all-black cast. Years later in 1947, he collaborated once again with Stein on his provocative opera The Mother of Us All which portrays

9975-512: Was a National Patron of Delta Omicron , an international professional music fraternity. Thomson died on September 30, 1989, in his suite at the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan, aged 92. He had lived at the Chelsea for close to 50 years. Thomson's compositions are: (Thomson began writing portraits of friends and acquaintances who passed through his life beginning 1929 through 1985. Written in

10080-593: Was a recipient of Yale University 's Sanford Medal . In 1949, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for the score to the film Louisiana Story and in 1977, he was awarded The Edward MacDowell Medal by The MacDowell Colony for outstanding contributions to American culture. In addition, the Kennedy Center Honors award was bestowed upon Thomson in 1983. In 1988, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Ronald Reagan . He

10185-612: Was avoiding French authorities. Bourgmont lived with a Native American wife in a village about 90 miles (140 km) east near Brunswick, Missouri , where he illegally traded furs . To clear his name, he wrote Exact Description of Louisiana, of Its Harbors, Lands and Rivers, and Names of the Indian Tribes That Occupy It, and the Commerce and Advantages to Be Derived Therefrom for the Establishment of

10290-533: Was determined to make a new film, one following a life of a typical Inuk and his family. In 1920, he secured funds from Revillon Frères , a French fur trade company to shoot what was to become Nanook of the North . On August 15, 1920, Flaherty arrived in Port Harrison , Quebec to shoot his film. He brought two Akeley motion-picture cameras which the Inuit referred to as "the aggie". He also brought full developing, printing, and projection equipment to show

10395-472: Was founded in Flaherty's honor by his widow in 1955. Flaherty's contribution to the advent of the documentary is scrutinized in the 2010 British Universities Film & Video Council award-winning and FOCAL International award-nominated documentary A Boatload of Wild Irishmen , written by Professor Brian Winston of University of Lincoln , UK, and directed by Mac Dara Ó Curraidhín . The film explores

10500-509: Was incorporated on June 1, 1850, reincorporated and renamed City of Kansas on March 28, 1853, and renamed Kansas City in 1889. The area straddles the border between Missouri and Kansas at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers , and was considered a good place to settle. The Antioch Christian Church , Dr. James Compton House , and Woodneath are listed on the National Register of Historic Places . In past centuries,

10605-667: Was inducted into the Royal Geographic Society of England for his (re)discovery of the main island of the Belcher group in Hudson Bay in 1914. Flaherty Island , one of the Belcher Islands in Hudson Bay, is named in his honor. The Flaherty Seminar is an annual international forum for independent filmmakers and film-lovers, held in rural upstate New York at Colgate University in mid June. The festival

10710-451: Was influenced by several French composers who were members of " Les Six " including: Darius Milhaud , Francis Poulenc , Arthur Honegger , Georges Auric , and Germaine Tailleferre . He eventually studied with Nadia Boulanger and became a fixture of "Paris in the twenties". In Paris in 1925, he cemented a relationship with painter Maurice Grosser , who was to become his life partner and frequent collaborator. Later he and Grosser lived at

10815-566: Was sold to private developers. By 2018, the arena was being converted to a sports complex under the name Hy-Vee Arena . The Kauffman Performing Arts Center opened in 2011 providing a new, modern home to the KC Orchestra and Ballet. In 2015, an 800-room Hyatt Convention Center Hotel was announced for a site next to the Performance Arts Center & Bartle Hall. Construction was scheduled to start in early 2018 with Loews as

10920-413: Was to try to live with the community, becoming familiar with their way of life before writing a story about it to film. He was also concerned that there was no inherent conflict in the islanders' way of life, providing further incentive not to shoot anything. Eventually he decided to build the film around the ritual of a boy's entry to manhood . Flaherty was in Samoa from April 1923 until December 1924, with

11025-426: Was told by an Inuk man named George Weetaltuk, grandfather of Mini Aodla Freeman . Flaherty said he met Weetaltuk while visiting the Hudson Bay in search of iron ore . In his Weetaltuk story, Flaherty published a detailed map of the Inuit region and shared information about the bay that Weetaltuk had told him. His writing about George Weetaltuk would go on to be published in his book, My Eskimo Friends: "Nanook of

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