Kansas City Gothic: Where the Underground Never Left

The mlack market has always been here

“If you want to see sin, forget Paris, go to Kansas City.” — Edward R. Morrow, Omaha World-Herald, 1936

The recent move of the Kansas City Chiefs from Missouri to Kansas had most of the country confused: “Wait… I thought Kansas City was in Kansas.” It is. And Missouri. The city is cut down the middle by the Missouri River, though united by common history–state lines be damned.

Wyandotte County—where Kansas City, Kansas, sits—is locally called “The Dirty ‘Dotte.” Most residents use the nickname with a kind of defiant affection. We’re not like neighboring Johnson County with its enviable average income level and near-nonexistant violent crime rates. The ‘Dotte still posts an astonishing murder rate, but because violent crime concentrates in a handful of blocks, most people barely notice. They drive past, windows up, and arrive home to tree-lined streets where it might as well be happening in another city.

This is how Kansas City works. Always has.

Drive through the Missouri side on a gray a…