Midtown morphed from quiet streetcar suburbs to bustling commercial areas to boarding houses and then reblossomed.
Change is happening on this Plaza block from 47th to 48th between Jefferson and Summit, the site of a new Nordstrom store. And it isn’t the first time the block has been transformed. At the beginning of the 20th century, small homes populated by working-class families lined the west side of Summit Street. Later, as […]
Plaza’s Nordstrom Block Has Seen Changes Before Read More »
Today’s historical post looks at the block from Armour to 36th Street, from Main to Walnut, which undertook a radical transformation in a few brief decades. From an exclusive enclave of wealthy families like the Armours in the early 1900s, the block became a center of culture around the Conservatory of Music in the 1940s. Main
Mansions at Armour and Main Gradually Repurposed, Replaced Read More »
If location is all-important in real estate, location along two boulevards must be even better. The intersection of Linwood Boulevard and The Paseo (now called Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard) historically attracted elite families who moved into substantial homes before the turn of the 20th century. However, the location also made the block a target
Block of Boulevards Shifts from Residential in 1920s Read More »
How does this block of Hyde Park come to have several formerly luxurious old homes mixed in with a 1950s, post-war apartment building? The answer lies in the changing housing trends that influenced Midtown Kansas City’s development and redevelopment. On this block, from Armour to E. 36th between Charlotte and Holmes, the earliest residents sought space
Hyde Park Block Responded to Changing Residential Trends Read More »
I’m finding it hard to describe all the changes on this Old Hyde Park block in one overarching headline. The block is between Main Street and Grand Avenue, from 31st Terrace to 32nd Street, a little north of Costco. Just after 1900, the block was dominated by the home of prominent doctor D.W. Hunter, who was so
Old Hyde Park Block Has Seen Many Changes Since Dr. Hunter’s Time Read More »
J.C. Nichols, certainly one of the most important residential developers in Kansas City, started developing this block of the Country Club Plaza in 1922. Nichols had been building residential neighborhoods to the south of Brush Creek since 1907, and he saw the need for an area to provide goods and services for the new residents
In 1923, Work Began on First Block of Country Club Plaza Read More »
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
Streetcar Expansion Spurred Development of This Squier Park Block Read More »
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
NE Corner of 39th Street and Summit Once Housed Local Shops, Apartments Read More »
In the 1920s, the owners of single-family homes in the Roanoke neighborhood took a stand against the growing number of apartment buildings being erected across the city. Their concern about the development of multifamily housing has been a constant theme throughout Midtown’s history. Today, the block bounded by Valentine and W. 37th, Summit (Southwest Trafficway),
Roanoke Property Owners Took a Stand Against Apartments in 1920s Read More »
This block just north of the Plaza started out as a residential area, but as the Plaza developed over the early decades of the 1900s, several of its homes were replaced by “modern” apartments. At least one of the homes may have been moved to make way for multi-family structures, but both single-family residences and
Plaza Homes Replaced by “Modern” Apartments as Plaza Developed Read More »