Around 52nd and Brookside, the area was known for its rustic pedestrian bridges that people used to cross a brook to catch the streetcar. It was also the home of Visitation Parish – and the site of the second home that its developer, J.C. Nichols, built for his own family.
As part of our Uncovering History Project, the Midtown KC Post is examining each block in Midtown. A set of 1940 tax assessment photos is available for many blocks.
Visitation Church around 1920.
Indeed, the Visitation Church was a major center of life in the area in the early 1900s. The church was built in 1909, and Visitation expanded in 1917. It added a school around 1921. The postcard shows Visitation from Main Street just south of 51st in about 1920.
As Midtown was built up to the north beginning in the 1880s, the area south of the Plaza was considered undevelopable because to reach it, folks had to cross small bridges.
But in 1906, J.C. Nichols began residential development in the area. He built Brookside Boulevard and named it for the small brook that ran north from 63rd to Brush Creek. Nichols must have thought this block was special, as he built a second home for his own family at 48 E. 52nd Street, just up the hill from the bridge.
The photos below show the rest of the homes on the block as they looked in 1940.
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