When the Raleigh Arms apartments at 3346-50 Gillham first opened in 1909, the owners described the building as modern; in fact, they called it “up to the second.” In a 1909 advertisement in the Kansas City Star, they touted the address in the fashionable Hyde Park district, close to Westport High School and the Hyde […]
An “Up to the Second” Apartment in 1909 Read More »
A reader named James Brumwell recently sent us this photo of his aunt and her husband in front of their Crestwood home in 1922. Valerie and Clare Chapman, seen here in another 1922 photo, lived at 5510 Crestwood Drive when the neighborhood young. Crestwood has a unique history as a Midtown neighborhood; it was intended
Crestwood Has Remained The Same Over the Decades Read More »
Anyone who knows Midtown Kansas City will encounter some pretty familiar places and things with slight twists when reading the book Of Stones and Feathers. There’s the barely-disguised Nelson Museum of Art with its shuttlecocks and sheep sculptures; Gillham Road and Penn Valley Park; Martini Row with its Never-Sleeping, Three-Headed Velvet Dog-Jaws of Death; the
Coleman’s book invites rediscovery of Midtown – and reimagining of Kansas City Read More »
In 1910, as the desire for new “modern” homes in Midtown Kansas City continued, an “old fashioned, two-story” frame home at 39th and Gillham was being prepared to be moved. The Kansas City Times published this sketch and told the story on Feb. 4 of that year: An Old House Being Moved: Henry C. Flower
A Dairy Farm Became Notre Dame de Sion Read More »
There was a day in Kansas City when almost every kid could walk to an ice cream parlor like this one at 4338 Troost. That memory is preserved in a series of 1940 photographs showing every home and commercial business on the 4300 blocks of Troost and Harrison that year. This area of South Hyde Park developed in
South Hyde Park Became a “Streetcar Suburb” Read More »
The heyday of the 4500 block of Warwick Boulevard lasted from the early 1900s to the 1940s, when the “old timers” moved on south to newer parts of Kansas City. For that period, however, this block was home to captains of industry and their socialite wives. Even after they left, the street retained an air
The Heyday of Warwick Boulevard Read More »