Tag: Old Hyde Park
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Mansions at Armour and Main gradually repurposed, replaced
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…
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Old Hyde Park Block Has Seen Many Changes Since Dr. Hunter’s Time
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…
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The NE Corner of 39th and Main Holds Layers of History
(This post originally ran on April 23, 2017) When Barbara Bescher bought a lot at the corner of 39th and Main in 1901, the home she built for herself was practically the only thing on the block. But just two decades later, in 1924, the savvy businesswoman sold the property for more than 20 times what…
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Famous “Bachelor Retreat” Once Stood at 36th and Main
The block between Main and Walnut from 36th to 37th Streets has seen many changes since it attracted its first residents in the late 1800s. Its history reflects the movement of people from the north to the new “south side” around the turn of the century, which brought new homes, businesses, and a church to…
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A President Spent the Night on this Block
The block between 38th and 39th between Main and Baltimore was a key location, in part because of Main Street’s importance as a commercial corridor and also because of the easy access to streetcar lines on both Main and 39th. Development began in 1901, when savvy businesswoman Barbara Bescher bought a lot at the corner…
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Current Home Depot Site Was Once Warner Plaza “Apartment City”
An “apartment city” that once stood where Home Depot is located today was billed as “an innovative approach to multi-use residential development.” Built in 1926, the Warner Plaza development included two seven-story buildings on Main Street near Thirty-third Street and a roadway also called Warner Plaza with a long row of apartment buildings on either…
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Gillham Plaza Came to Life in 1928
Gillham Plaza, between Gillham Road and Oak Street, was coming to life in 1928, soon after it was paved. A newspaper that year rounded up business life on the block, including the El Torreon Ballroom, the Martha Washington Candle Company, the new Luzier cosmetics laboratory, and the Stine-McClure Undertaking Company. A few years later, in 1933,…
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Transition from Large Homes to Boarding Houses
Kansas City changed a lot in the early 1900s. For example, in 1910, the block of Old Hyde Park between 36th and 37th, from Central to Wyandotte, was home to well-off families. Still, by 1940, some of the older homes on the block had been replaced by apartment buildings, and many of the homes had…
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Armour Boulevard Apartments, Workingmen’s Cottages, Now Gone
Although his apartment building and small homes along Armour Boulevard no longer stand, W.H. Collins is remembered as a pioneer who left his mark on Midtown Kansas City. Collins’ structures once dominated the block from Armour Boulevard to 36th Street, from Central to Wyandotte, although neither his groundbreaking apartment building or workingmen’s cottages remain today.…
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An “Up to the Second” Apartment in 1909
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…