Midwest Hotel, Hotel in den Vereinigten Staaten
The Midwest Hotel is a five-story building constructed in 1915 in Kansas City's Crossroads Arts District, featuring reinforced concrete and brick walls with decorative rosette-shaped tiles around its windows and colorful Vitrolite tiles on its facade. The structure was designed by architects Smith, Rea, and Lovitt in the Early Commercial style, reflecting practical design principles of that era.
The hotel opened in 1915 during Kansas City's rapid growth and served as the largest affordable lodging near the train station. After World War Two, as the city's business center shifted away, the building deteriorated over decades until its closure in 2005.
The Midwest Hotel reflects the working-class heritage of Kansas City in the early 1900s, when it served as affordable lodging for laborers and traveling salespeople. Its presence in the Crossroads Arts District today shows how such places continue to anchor the neighborhood's identity and connection to the past.
The building is located on Main Street in the Crossroads Arts District, where you can walk through the area and see nearby galleries and studios. Viewing the hotel's exterior gives a sense of early 20th-century construction and its role within the neighborhood's broader historic landscape.
The building was used as a filming location for Ministry's 1991 music video for the song Just One Fix, which featured writer William S. Burroughs as a guest vocalist. This connection to music history adds an unexpected layer to the hotel's story as a cultural landmark.
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