January 2018

Westwood Park Homes Offered Fireplaces, Garages, and Rec Rooms

Many of the homes on this Westwood Park block, between Liberty and Terrace from W. 48th to W. 49th, were new in the early 1930s. They offered all the comforts many Midtown families sought, including newspaper ads to rent or sell modest bungalows that boasted fireplaces, garages, and recreation rooms. Today, the block bounded by […]

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Streetcar Expansion Spurred Development of This Squier Park Block

Many parts of what is now Midtown Kansas City are called “streetcar suburbs,” and this block of the Squier Park neighborhood from Forest to Tracy between 36th and 37th demonstrates the impact the transit system had upon development. In the late 1800s, today’s Midtown was a mixture of family farms and new subdivisions that had

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NE Corner of 39th Street and Summit Once Housed Local Shops, Apartments

One of the major transformations in Midtown in the mid-1900s was the construction of Southwest Trafficway, a traffic artery meant to carry downtown business people and shoppers to their homes in the suburbs. Although less congested routes were clearly needed at the time, an unintended consequence was the transformation of Summit from a local business

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