As we reported last week, demolition threatens a row of three iconic apartment buildings at the back of the Bloch Cancer Survivors Park on the Plaza. So we’re looking back at the two blocks around the apartments, from W. 47th to W. 48th Streets, from Roanoke Parkway to Jefferson, to get a sense of their place in history.
A 1917-19445 map of the blocks.
The same blocks today seen from above.
These blocks have two unique features—they contain buildings that are part of Nelle Peter’s Thematic Historic District, and photos from the 1940s show a surprising number of modest homes in an area that has since been taken over by shining high-rise buildings.
Beginning with the apartment buildings on the two blocks, a cluster of buildings is part of the locally recognized Nelle Peters Thematic Historic District. This 1917 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of the area shows five apartments within the district: the David Copperfield, Rousseau, Cottesbrook, Cezanne, and Vanity Fair Apartments.
These apartments were one of the many developments by Charles E. Phillips, who also built the Phillips Hotel downtown. Phillips began building six-plex buildings on Armrour Boulevard, but in the late 1920s, he turned his attention south to the Plaza, where the more affluent families of Midtown were moving. “He envisioned housing for more than 1000 families, to be a compact development on the west edge of the Plaza,” The Kansas City Star reported in his 1955 obituary.
“In his previous operations, Mr. Phillips had exhausted suitable names for buildings. He was pondering the subject one day, perhaps in his library, when the thought occurred to him to name
His new structures were named for authors and painters. “Thus, Kansas City’s literary row of apartment buildings came into existence. Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, Eugene Field, James Russell Lowell, Robert Browing, Cezanne, and Rousseau are some of the names Mr. Phillips gave to buildings,” the newspaper said.
But today, the buildings are remembered not as much for Phillips’ involvement as that of their architect, Nelle Peters, one of the few women architects of the day. Peters designed many apartments and other buildings in Kansas City, including the “literary block” off the Plaza.
A 1989 view of the three apartments that may be headed for demolition.
The three long blue buildings on the map are best known because they create a backdrop for Bloch Cancer Survivors Park between 47th and 48th and Roanoke Parkway. However, these three buildings are not part of the historic district and appear to be slated for demolition.
This photos below show the homes and apartment buildings on these two blocks as they looked in 1940.
All photos courtesy Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley special Collections.
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