Burned Out

This is the kind of thing I've fallen inexcusably behind on. The august institution that is Lobsterland reports these things far slower than real-time, but generally gets it in the same month.

As I tooled up Broadway on the way home from work one mild December evening, I smelled smoke. As I passed Archibald Avenue, the road south of Westport Road, I looked right and saw fire trucks. All of them, I think.

I figured an apartment building had caught fire, there's lots of three-decker six unit apartment buildings in the area, and at least one I've been in was seemed built out of kindling and Duraflame logs, so it stood to reason.

It was Westport Presbyterian Church. I gathered from the press the next day that it's chances of rebuilding are less impressive than the building's facade. A few dozen attended services, according to the Kansas City Scar. It was apparently more of a community center than a church these days.

I heard people comment about how it was a stone building, so how could it burn? The facade is still impressive. If the church can't raise the funds to rebuild, I hope the city at least allows the facade to stay up. Maybe it can be a hybrid sort of structure like the Off Broadway Theater if nothing else.

But go around the back and take a look. It's like meeting an incredibly hot older woman, say Mary Tyler Moore, and then getting a sudden shot of a bare back side innocent of plastic surgery and personal trainers.