Introducing The KC Downtown Loop

Essays and images for KC’s Downtown dwellers, 9-to-5’ers, and urban explorers

Thanks for checking out Kansas City’s fast-growing email newsletter and website published for residents, employees, and fans of Downtown KCMO.

The Loop brings you stories and images that help you navigate the region, keep up with basic happenings, and connect you to the long, fascinating history of the district. We combine our original stories with the best Downtown-related articles curated from other media. As The Loop grows, we’ll be expanding our original content.

Beyond the basic Downtown news

We read a ton of news about Downtown each week—and then we share the most interesting or most important with you. We recommend publications like The Kansas City Star, CityScene KC, The KC Business Journal, KCUR.org and others, but it’s hard to keep up all the time—so we do the work for you by curating the most relevant and entertaining Downtown stories from local, national, and international media.

The Loop also produces completely original stories, photos, videos, and more—focusing primarily within the boundaries of Downtown Kansas City as defined by the Downtown Council: From the Missouri River to 31st Street, State Line to Highway 71. But we also cover happenings in the historic Northeast, 18th & Vine District, Midtown, Longfellow, and other adjacent neighborhoods and districts when stories are of interest to Downtown residents and workers.

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Support The Loop by signing up, following our social media, and sharing

If you’ve already subscribed to The Loop, congratulations—you’re a a super-hip early adopter! But we’ve only scratched the surface to let people know about the email and online publication—and we need your help. Here’s what you can do to boost our Downtown publication and community:

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And just as important, please forward The Loop emails and posts to friends and family when it arrives in your in box each week! (Or share the website: www.kcdowntownloop.com)

Thanks, and we’ll see you Downtown!

From the Publisher

I’ve been a Downtown fanatic since my days growing up in the Northland, where I could catch a glimpse of KC’s skyscrapers in the distance from both my junior high and, later, my high school. As soon as we were old enough to drive, my friend Todd P. and I frequently cruised Downtown to watch McCormack Baron build and rehabilitate Quality Hill in the 1980s. (Todd was apparently inspired, too: he’s now in construction management).

After earning my degree in magazine journalism from Mizzou, I worked as editor-in-chief of The Missouri Restaurant magazine, national communications coordinator for Camp Fire USA, senior editor for Andrews McMeel Publishing, PR and video production exec for Fleishman-Hillard, script writer and video producer for Wide Awake Films, and vice president for Kansas City Public Television (KCPT).

My first apartment after college was, not surprisingly, in Quality Hill (at 10th and Pennsylvania). Since then, I’ve lived in the Coates House, Western Auto Lofts, the former Delaware Lofts (twice, 20 years apart), and the Helping Hands Condominiums at 523 Grand.

Today, after a long career in communications punctuated with a stint as an award-winning middle school art teacher, I create content as a freelance writer, designer, video producer, illustrator, and publisher. I live with my wife Karen G. and our shepherd-lab mix near where Downtown and Midtown meet, very close to the future streetcar extension, in Kansas City, Missouri.

If you have Downtown news tips or want to drop a line, you can reach me at kevin@kcdowntownloop.com.

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P.S. If you subscribe, The KC Downtown Loop only has access to your email address in order to manage sending the newsletter and other occasional posts to you. I won’t know your name, mailing address, payment info (if applicable)—nothing except your email address. And I promise to never use your email address for anything other than the purposes of communicating to you about Downtown KC and my publications.

My technology platform—Substack—collects more information, and their privacy policy can be found here.