Yesterday I mapped two parks along 43rd which I decided would be the final portion - 43rd does continue east of I-435 but in the interest of some kind of coherent boundary to my city mapping, I’m keeping it within the bounds of I-435. The parks had several amenities like sports courts, picnic shelters etc. On the way between one park and another, I encountered a bar owner who wanted to chat. He noticed me taking a photo of a downed pedestrian signal button and complained about all the accidents that happen outside his bar - including the one that led to that particular damage. I reported it on the city’s 311 app and asked him if he was aware of the app - he wasn’t, so I showed it to him in case he wanted to report more accident damage in the future. A kind old man driving through one of the parks asked me if I was with Parks and Rec, and said he hoped they would add a public restroom to the park one day. I told him I agree, but explained I was just doing a hobby and not with Parks and Rec.

Today we started down Main street - a totally different land use and economic situation from the east end of 43rd St. We started at 43rd St, as my plan is to radiate out from my focal point of 43rd and Main, where I’m also documenting the streetcar-related development via periodic photos. We walked south on the east side of Main mapping the items there. We found that many businesses hadn’t been recorded yet or there were new / different ones in place. At the Community Christian Church I noticed two memorial plaques (one connected to the cornerstone) which hadn’t been mapped. We shunted off to the west to follow the named version of Main St. rather than continuing to follow it where it changes to Brookside Blvd. We went down as far as 49th St, had tea at Banksia, and hubby headed home while I mapped Main going back up on the west side. The most interesting thing we found (I thought) was that the Kansas City Board of Trade had been closed down in 2013 and that this info wasn’t accounted for yet. Several small shops were in the refurbished building where it used to stand, and there was a memorial plaque with some history about the Board of Trade.

This weekend I started mapping the east-of-Gillham part of 43rd St in KC. I went from Gillham to just past 71 on Saturday, and further east to Indiana on Sunday.

Pedestrian-safety observation: The crossings on either side of Gillham Park are The Worst. You can go way up or down and find a crosswalk with a light, or you can take your chances running across both-way car traffic and then both-way bike traffic without much visibility. For this entire stretch of road (and most of my outdoor activities around KC) I wear bright dae-glo jackets. I call it protective coloring.

There wasn’t much to map in this area as it was mostly homes. I crossed the bridge over Highway 71 and found a few benches and a bookcase that was locked. I mapped these, but I do not think they are being maintained anymore. There was a defunct church nearby that I think they were part of. I took photos of the various tags on the bridge and the view looking down on the highway while crossing - cool and fun for me, but not necessarily mapping-related. I also photographed a few tags painted on walls, but nothing quite rose to the level of a mural.

On Sunday I brought Mom out with me, and she made a valiant effort to keep up with the up-and-downhill walking, but we ended up quitting a bit early as she was exhausted. We didn’t have much to map until around Indiana St where we found a little strip mall with a convenience store and hairdresser. I showed her how I map the amenities around the outside such as the trash can, standing ashtray (or trashcan for cigarettes, as translated for OSM’s tagging system), the compressed air machine and attached vacuum. She had been tired from walking but perked up and urged me to also map the UHaul pickup/drop-off location. On the way back to where we parked, I also found a roadside memorial for someone who died in an accident. I had trouble deciding how to map this, as I felt it should be mapped but it was not a “cross” - it seemed instead to be centered around a solar light - so I was not sure the best way to tag it. Advice is welcome!

I know that Nodes means something else in OSM but still trying to come up with a better term for what I have started considering nodes - namely areas that are a bit ambiguous in terms of what street they are ‘on’ because they are large enough to envelop or border a few different ones, and / or just very large parks, complexes, etc. that deserve their own dedicated exploration. One of these such not-nodes that we mapped today was St Luke’s Hospital / medical complex. We mainly walked around the outside and a few of the front entryways, mapping items like benches, trash cans, bicycle parking, art / memorial plaques, cameras, two mail drop boxes, one bus stop, and the chapel.

I was particularly interested to find a small sitting area with sculptures and memorial plaques which I hadn’t expected to see. I do have one annoyance with OSM, which I hope I can discover how to improve at some point: when I add a memorial plaque, I get a “fixme” telling me that it should be merged with a nearby building. Worse, some of the plaques that happened to be close enough to the building automatically merged with it. The problem is, these plaques were actually attached to freestanding sculptures in a courtyard / outdoor seating area and were not mounted on the building at all. One was free-standing next to a memorial tree that had been planted. I am not sure if there is a way to merge them with a sculpture, and for the ones that auto-attached to the building I could not figure out how to un-attach them.

Another node-like object that we looked at was a small cul-de-sac called Pearl street, that runs north-south for just a few blocks perpendicular to 43rd, near Sway coffee. We took the opportunity to return to Sway, this time driving instead of walking, and realized the parking (other than 5-minute spaces for folks getting takeout) was very limited. Pearl was mostly residential but had one church.

Next we will likely go to the H&R Block Art Space, in case it has anything of interest inside (e.g., photo booth, bulletin board) and then will continue on to the much longer eastern portion of 43rd past Gillham Park.

I got my husband to join me and help me with mapping today. We went from approx. State Line Road in KC on 43rd St (we think of it as 43rd though there is a stretch that’s Westport Rd) and down to the west end of it just beyond Mission.

We went to Sway Coffee Roasters and had a nice cup of coffee/tea, and got to say hello to some sweet dogs that another customer brought with them. The dogs visited everyone within leash distance and everyone seemed happy to see them. Little random encounters are what make me love the city so much.

My plan next is to visit the stretch of 43rd east of Gillham Park, and to touch some of the “nodes” I skipped over when going along the length of it, like St Luke’s and various parks etc.

Yesterday I mapped a tiny area with lots of shops, bars, etc. This stretch of 43rd is so dense and diverse, it is really interesting. There are high-end establishments, but also a church and a food bank, convenience stores, a Mediterranean market. Next survey of the west portion of 43rd I think will go quicker as it becomes more suburban.

Some highlights:

• I realized I need to add bulletin boards to my ‘look-for’ list - I found two of them in this little stretch, at a cafe and a record store.

• Did not know there was a Mediterranean market so close to my neighborhood!

• Found an interesting looking cafe I had never heard of (though it was closed at the time - will check out later)

• Random excrement bag dispenser in a residential area on the way back - it’s silly but I love finding these, like a rare item in a video game :)

I am making my way along 43rd St in Kansas City, mapping most of the amenities and businesses I see along the way. About two weeks ago, I went from where 43rd breaks off at Gilham then west to Donutology, and today I worked through the stretch between Donutology and west to the nearby QuickTrip across from the Catholic church. I did not get very far because I walked into many of the businesses and chatted with folks, so as not to be suspiciously loitering outside :D

It was really fun to explore places I wouldn’t normally think to go to. I walked into Gigi’s Health Cafe (the proprietor saw me outside and came out to say hi, so I explained what I was doing and showed her the Every Door app where I was entering her business’s info), and also Paris Banh Mi, which looks like not much on the outside, but is really quite lovely inside.

I have lots of photos that I haven’t decided where to upload yet, but that will be its own project later probably. Along with various points of interest, I started taking photos of all the light poles and street cabinets that I notice which are covered with stickers and/or graffiti. Temporary signs fascinate me. Not sure if there’s a place for photos like those on OSM but I’m keeping them for something at any rate.

On my impression of OSM as a newbie: It looks like there are not a lot of active Kansas City mappers, and that anymore, most of the updates are done by businesses or by people who create / use automated tools, and the most active people are the ones getting deeply into the technical side. A lot of the diary entries I see are about conferences and full of dense technical and/or organizational jargon. Lots of businesses and nonprofits seem to be involved.

For now I don’t want to automate things and I don’t want to think about the high-level strategy of nonprofits or big organizations (enough of that in my real job), I just want to explore and dabble, actually see things on the ground and confirm them with my eyes before I enter them, and hopefully have a kind person gently correct me if I did something wrong.

I do have a bit of programming knowledge (BS in Computer Science and I work with SharePoint Online / Power Platform lots at my job) so am semi-interested in potentially learning how to build apps that use OSM in the future.