TWA Corporate Headquarters' Building National Register of Historic Places Listing

In 1956, Howard Hughes wanted eyeballs. So, he slapped a thirty-foot-tall rocket ship right onto the roof of his airline's new office at 1735 Baltimore Avenue. It worked. This building served as TWA's global nerve center during the peak of the jet age. Architects Bales & Schechter wrapped the exterior in bold red and white porcelain-enameled panels, mirroring TWA's corporate colors. It looked like a giant transistor radio. Inside, executives negotiated plane purchases and mapped out international routes that connected America's heartland directly to Paris, Rome, and Cairo.

TWA abandoned the site for New York in 1964, leaving behind a neighborhood that slowly went quiet. The rocket came down in 1970, and decades of grime followed. But local preservationists fought back. They secured its spot on the National Register in 2002, triggering a massive fifteen-million-dollar restoration. They even built a brand-new, scale-model Moonliner to sit back on the southwest corner of the roof. It shines at night now. It is a physical reminder of when a Missouri city held the reins of global aviation.