Talk about a Breech of etiquette…
Word that Waddell & Reed is axing more than 150 employees and crossing the state line from Kansas to Missouri with the remaining thousand or so, raises an interesting question:
What’s to become of the world famous Trans World Airlines’ Breech Academy?
Once upon a time, Kansas City had more going for it than what’s left of Hallmark, Kansas City Southern, Sprint, AMC and Cerner.
From 1930 until 1988 (and finally 2001) was one of the “big four” majors airlines that was based in Kansas City. At one point it was controlled by legendary zillionaire Howard Hughes. It was eventually acquired by financier Carl Icahn, who took the company private in 1988 and underwent bankruptcy restructuring in the early mid 1990s.
As local writer Jack Cashill will attest to, the explosion of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 set in motion the end of an era, when what remained of TWA was acquired by American Airlines in 2001.
Time flies, huh?
But return with me now to the golden years of TWA and the founding of the Breech Training Academy in 1969.
To a time when smoking hot airline hostesses ruled the airways, prior to the addition of young men and the change in terminology to flight attendants in 1972. In the days when smoking on airlines was still acceptable prior to 1989.
Back in those now repulsive days, if you were a dude and landed a date with a TWA hostess, it was practically tantamount to going out with a super model.
Thus rendering the 25 acres Breech Academy a local landmark.
The academy’s state-of-the-art training included food and beverage service, emergency training and weekly weigh-ins. There were modern classrooms and designer-room pods for up-and-coming hotties to dwell in prior to graduation and getting their so-called wings.
When TWA blew taps for the final time in 2001, a flight attendant named Ann Hood wrote a piece in the New York Times celebrating the end of an era.
“When I was hired as a flight attendant by Trans World Airlines in 1978, there were women who had worked there so long that they still referred to themselves as ”stews,’ ” it began. “They remembered the days when Howard Hughes, TWA’s founder, used to walk onto a plane, ask the passengers to leave, fill the seats with movie stars and take the crew along for a party. They remembered working around-the-world flights, leaving their home bases for weeks at a time and flying to exotic cities on every continent. They remembered when the dress code required girdles and white gloves.
“In 1978, TWA. stood at the pinnacle of air travel. Armed with a B.A. in English and the snappy interview line ‘I love people and I love to travel,” I received job offers from United and TWA in the same week. The choice was obvious. United offered me a home base in Cleveland and routes to Sioux City and Peoria. TWA dazzled me, a 21-year-old girl from Rhode Island, with the lure of layovers everywhere from Cairo and Bombay to Paris and Rome. And in a time when other airlines had their flight attendants decked out in shades of screaming blue and pink, TWA’s wore cool military-inspired uniforms designed by Ralph Lauren. Who could resist?”
Now the good stuff about Breech:
“At the Breech Training Academy in Kansas City — a Jetson-style office complex complete with sunken living rooms and modular furniture — I learned the sophistication that had eluded me in my small-town upbringing. I tasted caviar, sipped nice wines, carved chateaubriand, dressed lamb chops in tiny gold foil booties. TWA flight attendants never chewed gum or smoked cigarettes in front of passengers. We could mix a perfect martini. In short, working at TWA was a ticket to a lifestyle. I stayed eight years.”
But with Waddell & Reed bailing – presumably for tax breaks -what will become of Breech?
That remains to be learned, but the good news is that while most locals think of Waddell & Reed occupying Breech, according to Wikipedia, they only occupied the main building with three separate companies occupying Dorm A, Dormer B and Dorm C.
So stay tuned…
Remember when someone parked a TWA 707 off of 43rd and Main Street and turned it into a bar. It was just down the street from the Vanguard Coffee House.
Come to think of it…
Actually the plane was a Constellation was only open for few years, I so hoping for the day when I could have drink there but the bar was closed and the plane scraped the year before I could drink there. . My grandfather was an employee at TWA he talked about this place all the time.
The 707 was the main plane that replaced the Connie as the Constellations were known.
Actually the plane was a Constellation was only open for few years, I so hoping for the day when I could have drink there but the bar was closed and the plane scrapped the year before I could drink there. . My grandfather was an employee at TWA he talked about this place all the time.
The 707 was the main plane that replaced the Connie as the Constellations were known.
I was wondering about what kind of plane it was…and I faintly recall – me too being too young to bar hop back then – that it wasn’t there for long
Don’t be surprised to see the main building on this old campus torn down and a semi high rise go up in its place.
Anybody remember when the old hostess training center was located on west side of the Plaza area and was also set of apartments for the trainees to live in where the pool is located in the middle of the complex? And I mean right in the middle of. You could have leaped off a balcony into the pool.
I think Chuck does
Great article.
For a while, the overflow of hot “Stews” was kept in clover down just west of the Plaza in an apartment complex with a pool that meandered under bridges and walkways. I lived there for a while back in the 80’s and there were still some people there who remembered some pretty wild parties.
Not you, Chuck? No way!
Actually Dave, you could jump right out of your front room into the pool from the second floor.
It was pretty crazy and the place was packed, PACKED on weekends, especially Saturday. They finally, some years ago, tore down the walkways (Maybe the entire complex, I have not thought about it or looked over there for years.) after someone was killed. Maybe they were underneath it when it came down, Hyatt style.
I can’t remember.
I was there, circa 1983 and may have jumped out of a few windows myself.
🙂