In Case You Were Wondering What 500 Gs Can Get You In Kansas City

Kansas City hit a two-fer today in the Sunday New York Times. This is the second.

$500,000 Homes in Mississippi, Missouri and New York

A 1916 Tudor Revival in Jackson, a condo in a landmark Kansas City Beaux-Arts building and a log cabin in Pawling.  By Julie Lasky.

It can also tell you how much it cost and what you get in the Sophiia, in case you were wondering.

Kansas City, Mo. | $499,900

A two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in a 40-unit 1922 Beaux-Arts building listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  (Face it, most of us didn't know it's a Beaux-Arts building. Or that it's on the National Register of Historic Places).

This third-floor unit in the Sophian Plaza, a luxury building across from Southmoreland Park, is in the heart of Kansas City’s cultural district, less than five minutes on foot from the Nelson-Atkins Museum and Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park, which it overlooks, and the same distance from the Kansas City Art Institute and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. The historic Country Club Plaza shopping center is about a half-mile away.

Size: 1,850 square feet

Price per square foot: $270

Indoors: The main entrance to the eight-story brick building with limestone and terra-cotta detail is approached through a columned forecourt. The grand lobby is clad in black-and-white marble and hung with brass chandeliers and wall sconces.

This particular unit, which is on the northeast corner and has been updated in the last decade, opens to a hallway with hardwood floors and charcoal-gray walls with white picture rail molding. (A second, service entrance was blocked to create closet space, but could be reopened.) At the end is a sitting room with the same features and color scheme; it connects through two doorways to a carpeted living room (previously a third bedroom and a sunroom that were combined) with an antique marble fireplace flanked by built-in bookshelves. On the other side is a formal dining room. All of the rooms, except the bedrooms, have plantation shutters on their large windows, and there is a built-in sound system with speakers in every room.

The kitchen has countertops and floor tile of marble, and Bosch appliances. There is also a small, marble-topped breakfast bar.

Turning left from the front entrance takes you into the master bedroom. The marble fireplace here and in the living room are gas powered and have television screens above the mantels that appear as mirrors when not in use. The en suite marble master bathroom has a waterfall shower, heated floors and another mirrored television. There is also a Bosch washer and dryer in the unit, supplementing free laundry facilities in the basement.

The guest bedroom is off the kitchen; it is carpeted and has three closets and dark-painted molding. Its en suite bathroom has Nero Marquina marble tile walls and a combined bath and shower.

Most of the furniture in the unit is for sale.

Outdoor space: A side terrace encircled by a portico offers communal seating. This unit has a deeded parking space and basement storage. (Additional parking spaces rent for $100 a month.)

Taxes: $4,885, plus a $985 monthly homeowner fee covering heat and water (Because paying half a million up front just is no way enough, right?).

And now for the all-important contact information:

Contact: Judy Rea, Brookside Real Estate Company, 816-210-7730; brooksiderealestate.com

In their own words, American Soldiers

From an article in Sunday's New York Times, Warrior Voices, poetry and other writing by American Soldiers in the Middle East:

The Writing on the Wall

Nervous sweat sanctifies
The temples of the born-again
As Kevlar-fitted troops ascend
In C-130s to rapturous
Jet streams that cradle
And wash over the innocence
Of a civilization.

The tarmac softens their disciplined boots
And Iraq welcomes God’s children —
Prisoners of war —
To the great temptation.

Children stalk men
As it was written
Under the bright-black night
Where tracer rounds race to meet shooting stars.

Somewhere, a hand that shakes
From the sight of a sacrificial lamb
Hung from the bridge
Of an overpass outside of Fallujah
Reproduces a shot group
That blots out the eye of the needle.

Whizzing sniper rounds speak
To the righteous
And unprophesized I.E.D. blasts
Pass them over.
Isaiah’s marred Assyrian road
Imprints itself upon their souls.

Boots hardened through baptism
In the sands of Ur.
Stilt shaky legs and dilated pupils
Called upon to witness.
Confused tongues fail to articulate
Shattered minds, leaving them,
Instead, as burnt offerings
At the spiraling staircase of Babel.

Revelation comes in the transubstantiation
Of anti-psychotics —
Self-medicated migraines escalate with communion wine —
Passed around
As false manna at V.A. hospitals.
Concussed remembrances of innocence
Create a nervous sweat
For those who look back to Babylon
And fail to read the writing on the wall.

More here:   Warrior Voices - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com

A new weekly entry

Thoughts after reading The Sunday New York Times:

--There is a serious article in The New York Times today with a challenge to President Obama. The title tells it all: "You Try to Live on 500K in This Town".

The smaller description of the article declares that: "The preident's Wall Street salary cap threatens live as we know it in Manhattan."

How laughable.

The rest of us will say good for New York.

Any forced deflation for the island of Manhattan could be a good thing, ultimately.

Painful, but good.

This will could bring some sanity and livabilty back to New York.

--There is an article about Michelle Obama going around Washington, talking about her husband's administration's goals and work ahead of them, all the while thanking the different people for that work.

So far, it seems, she's doing a great job of it and it's well received.

It will be fascinating to see how far Mrs. Obama takes her role in this--will she work on policy?--and how this will be received, especially compared to how the Clinton's got into a bit of trouble when Hillary worked on health care.

--It was reported that KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary, just got a new $35 million contract with the Department of Defense even though they've been accused of having electrified an American soldier in Iraq, due to unprofessional electric work. The soldier was electrified in the shower.

Why would they get a new contract?

--There's yet another article about the results of the scumbag Bernard Madoff and his handiwork.

Tragic. Truly tragic.

Reading these things makes me hurt for these people.

--One of the things that really struck me was a full-page ad in the first section by Wells Fargo Bank.

It really upset me. (Read: p*ssed me off).

The whole thing was to explain why they should have been able to take their staff to Las Vegas.

They claim they should be able to "recognice" their excellent staff this way.

Well, hogwash.

They can "recognize" their excellent employees by giving the lowest and lower-level associates with $100.00 or $500.00 bonuses and/or recognition meetings with the rest of their staff, for starters.

But let's make it clear--you don't take millions or billions of dollars of government tax money in order to survive in a tough economy because, frankly, YOU--THE PRESIDENT OR OTHER EXECUTIVES--SCREWED UP.

No way.

Talk all you want. Trips to Las Vegas are out, boys.

Don't even try to explain it away.

--There are a few terrific articles in The New York Times Magazine, within the paper (of course), telling of new, current trends.

The first is a newly coined phrase, "fat tail" by William Safire.

The 2nd is on VH1's new reality show on addiction, "Celebrity Rehab". Formerly famous actors and performers check into a home to dry out, publicly and on camera. Ugh.

A third one deals with the fact that upper-end, pricier chocolates seem to be holding their own in sales, all the while becoming almost ubiquitous.

--There is a fantastic article on David Sanger's new book about the new President's and country's challenges. It suggests President Obama will likely not be able to break away from now-former President Bush's direction, as Presidents, one to the next, can't break from the previous one, or our history.

--The last one I might have mentioned might have been about what to do for this financial crisis but it was written by Ben Stein.

I refuse to comment further on Ben Stein as I have no idea why The New York Tiems, CBS Sunday Morning News and who knows who else, give this clown any airtime.

Ben Stein.

A 2nd-rate, B movie actor.

Why do people listen to this guy?