Police Station No. 4 (Hemingway Building)

A Crossroads building that began as an 1895 elevator-manufacturing warehouse, was rebuilt in 1915–16 as Kansas City Police Station No. 4 — housing the city’s first segregated jail cells — later hosted a young Ernest Hemingway’s crime-beat reporting, and today operates as a comedy club.

History

From warehouse to police station

The building at 115 W. 19th Street began as a warehouse for the Kansas City Elevator Manufacturing Co. (also known as Turner Elevator Manufacturing Co.), present on the site as early as 1895 city directories.¹ In 1915 the Elevator Company leased the property to the city for ten years, with an option to purchase, and local architects Edgar P. Madorie and Clarence K. Birdsall designed a near-total reconstruction — reinforced concrete structure, stucco cladding, Mission Revival detailing — built by the J.W. Flanagan Construction Company at a cost of roughly $45,000–$50,000.¹ The building opened as Police Station No. 4 in July 1916, consolidating two older, superseded facilities: the Southwest Boulevard station (the era’s “Police Station No. 3,” at Southwest Blvd. and Summit St.) and the Walnut Street station (the era’s “Police Station No. 4,” at 1430 Walnut St.).¹ Station numbers were evidently reassigned over the department’s history — this “Police Station No. 3” on Southwest Boulevard is unrelated to the later, different Police Station No. 3 in Brookside.

The city’s first segregated jail

The ground floor held police offices and a garage for ambulances and patrol cars, along with the city’s first jail designed with segregated holding cells for African-American and white male prisoners, each with a 60-person capacity. The second floor held the South Side Municipal Court, judge’s and clerk’s chambers, a matron’s room, and juvenile holding cells; the south wing held segregated women’s cells.¹

Ernest Hemingway connection

Ernest Hemingway worked the crime beat as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star from October 1917 to April 1918, and per local reporting, covered court cases held on the building’s second floor during its municipal-court era, writing up stories with fellow reporters in an adjacent office.²³

After the police department (1938–2015)

KCPD occupied the building from 1916 to 1938, then relocated to a new headquarters at Locust Avenue and 12th Street — the same downtown area where KCPD’s headquarters remains today.¹ The building sat vacant in 1938–39; the Works Progress Administration occupied it 1939–1940 (along with the building across the street at 106–108 W. 19th St.); it stood vacant again until after World War II, when the Todd Jack Co., a distributor of club-room accessories, moved in. By 1950, a Sanborn Fire Insurance map described the building as a “plastic dice factory”; how long that operation lasted is unclear.¹

Adaptive reuse: the Hemingway Building

The building was vacant for several years before 2015, when new owners remodeled and renamed it the Hemingway Building, referencing its cub-reporter connection.²³ An event venue, the Havana Room, operated there for several years before closing around 2020.⁴ The building today houses The Bird Comedy Theater, an improv, sketch, and stand-up comedy club, at 103 W. 19th St.⁵

Preservation and designation

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 26, 2005 (Reference No. 05001184), based on a nomination prepared by Kristen Ottesen of Historic Preservation Services LLC.¹

Sources

Footnotes

1. National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form — “Kansas City Police Station Number 4,” prepared by Kristen Ottesen, Historic Preservation Services LLC, listed Oct. 26, 2005, Ref. #05001184. https://mostateparks.com/sites/g/files/zuston361/files/media/pdf/2025/02/kansas-city-police-station-number-4.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

2. Kansas City Star (via secondary citation) — “Ghost of Ernest Hemingway is summoned in Crossroads building renovation” (Nov. 5, 2015). https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/development/article43195428.html ↩ ↩²

3. Kansas City Business Journal (via secondary citation) — “Farewell to vacancy: New owners to rehab Hemingway Building” (Nov. 5, 2015). https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2015/11/05/ernest-hemingway-building-rehab.html ↩ ↩²

4. Clio — “Kansas City Police Station Number 4 (Hemingway Building).” https://theclio.com/entry/156436 ↩

5. The Bird Comedy Theater. https://thebirdkc.com/ ↩