Urban Geography Field Trip

Urban Geography Field Trip

Please complete the following field trip before the end of the semester. The working draft is due December, 1. The final report (no more than 5 pages, double spaced) is due on the last day of class, Dec 12.

A general note of safety:

Please take the field trip during daylight hours, and go with at least one other person. Men, please do not go in groups of 4 or more (you tend to scare the residents). Please dress appropriately – no high fashion or anything provocative – and do not carry anything valuable. If you drove a car, be sensible, lock it and hide all valuables from sight. (But you may notice that there are some expensive cars in certain places in the neighborhood, so don’t think that yours will stick out). Follow these simple guidelines and you will be fine. Remember, many wealthy people have already chosen to live here; even if the neighborhood looks “bad” to you, it isn’t really.

Finally, remember that you are visiting other people's homes, so please treat the community and its residents with respect.

The assignment

Write an essay about that attempts to interpret some aspect of this neighborhood. As always, construct a thesis. Use your observations as well as any concepts you have learned in this class or other classes to support your thesis. Please construct a thesis based on one of the topics listed below. You do not need to discuss the entire field trip, only include those places and observations that are relevant to your thesis. You will nonetheless need to walk the entire field trip to identify those areas which are relevant. Well-written papers will not be simply descriptive, but will have constructed a thesis that makes sense of (i.e. interprets) your observations through the concepts you have learned in this class (and perhaps other classes as well).

Topics

Gentrification

Redevelopment

Residential change

Poverty

Housing Policy

Planning

Transportation

Ethnicity

Before you go:

Please check out the following documents about this neighborhood.

Curtis Park Neighbors: Home page for the neighborhood association. You might be able to find out what issues are important to some residents. The newsletters are good for this. Also check out the links. You should find some good background information on the neighborhood there.

Curtis Park Assessment: A planning document prepared by the City of Denver. A fairly thorough (if sanitized) summary of the neighborhood.

General overview of Five Points.

The Five Points, is the intersection of Welton, 26th , 27th, and Washington. Supposedly, a tramway ended here in the late 1800s. The list of street names was too list on the tram signs, so they simply said “Five Points.” The name soon came to mean the entire neighborhood.

Curtis Park is a sub-neighborhood of Five Points, primarily on the North side of Welton. The first major housing development occurred in the 1880s, and Curtis Park (the neighborhood) was Denver's first suburb. At first, the neighborhood was quite upper-middle class. As you walk through the neighborhood, take a look at the older homes and imagine who they might have been built for.

A few wealthy and prominent black families moved into Five points around the turn of the 1900s, but a large scale transition from white to black residents occurred between 1910 and 1930. White families moved out as newer homes were built elsewhere in the city, and as black families began to move into the neighborhood. Five Points became a thriving black community, housing everyone from black doctors and lawyers to railroad porters and domestic servants.

Following WWII, and particularly in the early 1960s, black residents began to demand more equal opportunities in the state, including in the housing market. As this happened, many black families moved to other parts of the Denver metro area. The neighborhood began to deteriorate, and by 1970 it had the reputation as a dangerous neighborhood.

Historically, Curtis Park has been considered as a sub-neighborhood of Five Points. Most residential real estate agencies, in the definition of Denver neighborhoods, refer to the entire area as Curtis Park. Why do you think this is?

Public Transit Directions

If you are taking RTD, the easiest way to go to and find the next bus. The fastest way is to catch a BX (Boulder-Denver Express) on Broadway, and take it all the way to the end at the Market St. Station. Exit to street level. You have two option at this point... 1) Pick up Bus 28 on Blake St, and get off at Park and Washington. Alternatively, you could 2), take the free shuttle to the light rail, and get on the D route toward 30th and Downing. Get off the rail at Park Ave. and Welton.

Park Avenue and Washington.

EastVillage

The area around this intersection was formerly the EastVillage.

These empty lots were formerly a low-income housing complex. The units were originally planned as press housing for the 1974 Winter Olympics, but the units were built even after the Olympics was denied by Colorado voters. The units opened in 1977 as low-income housing. They consisted of 2-story townhomes, were richly landscaped, and were supposed to be a new wave of low-income housing – a welcome change from the high-density, high-rise concrete behemoths that were typical for the time. The units were built with the assistance of federal tax-credits, that required the units to be maintained as low-income until 1999. Most (199) of the units were owned by absentee owner, California-based Casden Properties, but the city of Denver owned 50 scattered units, giving them final authority on how the property was used.

By the mid-1980s, the EastVillage had become known as one of the most crime-ridden places in Denver. According to one report, in 1997, police were called to the area 1100 times, and there were 479 arrests made, for offenses such as rape and crack dealing. At one point, an officer was fired on by a sniper.

Casden entered negotiations with the city for redevelopment of the area in 1999 as the conditions of the federal subsidy lapsed. Original plans called for a 1200 unit high-rise to be placed on the site, that would mix 50-250 low-income units with market-rate condominiums. This proposal was harshly criticized for containing too many dark places and concealing landscaping.

This plan fell through, and Casden placed the property on the market. Post Properties, which redeveloped the old St. Luke's hospital next door into condominiums, and the Denver Housing Authority entered a heated bidding war. Bidding was intense, Post offered $12.8 million, the city countered with a condemnation hearing to try and win the property through eminent domain. Post countered with $14 million. At the last minute, before the condemnation hearing, Post withdrew, and DHA purchased the property for $12.3 million.

Tenants were moved out, with some going into other DHA units or offered Section8 vouchers. The units were finally demolished in 2003-2004. The current plan, consists of an 873 unit $177 million mixed-use project, including interspersed market-rate rentals and for-sale condos, with low-income housing. DHA has received a $20 million grant from HUD. The project is being completed in phases, and 124 rental units are expected to be ready this year (2007).

Park Avenue and Tremont

The EbertElementary school is on this intersection. Ebert elementary was closed in 2004 due to low enrollment. The school had become some unpopular, that the only students in attendance were those whose parent could not manage a way for them to attend other schools in the area. In 2005 it was reopened, but as a magnet school for gifted and talented students in grades K-5. The magnet school was relocated from its former location at Crofton Elementary at 24th and Arapahoe as it had grown to big for that location.

Walk NorthWest along Park Avenue to Welton and turn Right (Northeast).

The Light Rail passing down Welton is obvious. This stretch of the light rail was built in 1994. There was initially a lot of anger to the Light Rail by businesses on Welton St. These businesses were primarily dependent on locals, as other city residents shied away from the neighborhood. Business was disrupted during the construction, and RTD spent much effort in trying to convince residents of the long-term benefits of light rail service. There is perhaps evidence that the light rail has contributed to new businesses along Welton in recent years, but benefits have been much slower that RTD anticipated.

At 2485 Welton is the Kingdom of Glory Christian Center. This building has been a major headache for the City of Denver. The building was erected in the early 90s by two black men who envisioned the largest and only black-owned True Value Hardware west of the Mississippi. The city of Denver assisted them this endeavor because the Five Points area was desperately disadvantaged, and had been hit hard by the recession in 1990. In 1992, the city of Denver signed off on a loan of $461,000 loan to the men, to be repaid in sixty months at interest rates of 3 -5%. Later that year, they received an additional loan from the Small Business Administration for $250,000 through Denver Urban Economic Development, and an additional $250,000 loan from the Colorado National Bank. By 1996, the men had defaulted on all three loans, construction took more time and money than expected, and the hardware store was not as profitable as expected. In an effort to aid the struggling company, the city bought out the loan from the CNB. By 2003, the company had filed for bankruptcy, and the city had foreclosed on the property, and had filed criminal charges against the owners of the company. An effort by the city to turn the property into a book store fell through, and it finally auctioned off the property in 2004.

Welton and 27th/Washington

This IS Five Points. Supposedly, the name comes from an old streetcar that ran from downtown to here. The number of streets to was too many to fit on the streetcar sign, so it simply read “Five Points.”

On the South side of this intersection is the Rossonian Hotel. This building was constructed in 1912 as the Baxter Hotel, but was renamed in 1929 in honor of A.W.L. Ross, who managed the building in cooperation with a group of Black men. During the 1930s and 40s, the Rossonian was one of the most prominent jazz clubs in the country between St. Louis and the West Coast, and has hosted at various times Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole and Dinah Washington. At this time, these jazz legends were allowed to play in White clubs, but were not allowed to lodge there, so they lodged at the Rossonian, where they were allowed. The Rossonian declined as a hotel after WWII, when mainstream hotels became integrated.

Across Welton Street is the Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom, occupying the old Casino Cabaret. The Casino has seen many jazz legends as well. The Cervantes hosts many independent bands today, mostly folk and acoustic, you can check out their webpage at

Across Washington Street from the Rossonian is “The Point.” This building was constructed in 2002(?) as a joint venture between the Five Points Business Association and Hope Communities, a nonprofit organization devoted to increasing the amount of low-income housing in the neighborhood. This building has retail space on the first floor, and residential units for rent and sale, at subsidized and market rates, on the upper floors. The comparison of Blackberries Coffee on the 1st floor with other businesses on Welton is a striking example of two social worlds colliding here.

In 1983, the Denver Planning Department purportedly declared the 2400 block of Washington St. “the single most blighted commercial block in the City.” Take a look at it now.

If you're hungry, this is perhaps the best area to find food. There is Zona's Tamales, supposedly known for 40 years or so to have the best pig's ear sandwich. Ethel's House of Soul comes highly recommended, but her hours are highly variable. Don't let the appearance of the building turn you away.

30th and Welton – turn left on 30th St.

Mestizo-CurtisPark

This is Curtis Park. Curtis Park (the actual park) was donated to the city in the 1860s and is the first city park. The city didn't quite know what to do with the land then, since it was quite far removed from the rest of the city at that time. Reflecting the changing demography of the neighborhood, the park was officially renamed to Mestizo-CurtisPark. While you are here, notice the public artwork on the swimming pool building.

Continue through the park to Arapahoe and turn left

Curtis Park Homes

The houses on the NE side of the intersection are the part of the Villages at Curtis Park public housing project. These home were built in the last 10 years, and replaced older housing on the site. These townhome-style apartments combine subsidized housing with market-rate rentals. DHA contracts managements of these apartments to a private firm. Residents are carefully screened and management is very aggressive about evicting “troublemakers.” Neighborhood Residents credit these new homes with dramatically reducing crime. 6 of the blocks along Arapahoe between 27th and 33rd Streets represent this development.

27th and Arapahoe

This intersection is an interesting example of the old and new. On the North side of this intersection is lesbian-owned Urban Roadhouse Grill. Before that it was the Vanilla Factory Coffeehouse (supposedly there was a vanilla factory in the building at one time as well!) Across the street is the Hello Mini-Mart. The Hello Minimart has been owned by an Asian-American family for 6 years, but the owner told me that the store has been there for at about 50 years according to the previous owner. This is one of the few places to get basic staples for quite a few blocks in any direction (the other being a primarily Hispanic market on Larimer). Across the street is more of the new Hope VI public housing.

26th and Arapahoe

The lamp in the middle of this vacant lot is all that remains of the older public housing on this site. This housing complex was typical of the eras in containing a cluster of housing surrounding a central parking lot/public space (where the light still is). These central spaces became notorious for sheltering illegal activities from the view of the street, and are no longer a part of public housing architecture.

Turn left on 26th St

Turn right on Champa (toward downtown)

Champa St is currently one-way, and has been since at least the late 70's. It serves as a major through-way for persons traveling from the NE of Denver to downtown. The city may change this to a 2-way street after many years of resident complaints regarding safety.

Along Champa between 24th and 25th, notice the new condominiums just built. Take a few moments to compare these buildings with the nearby historic structures. Do they fit in? Do they take advantage of the uniqueness of the location, or could they have been located anywhere?

This is the end of the walking tour. If you took public transit, you can continue down Champa to Park Ave. Welton St. and the light rail are a few block left on Park Ave. Alternatively, it is only a 15 minute walk or so down Champa to the 16th St. Mall, where you can hop on the shuttle and go back to the transit station.

And finally, a few notes on good field research…

I encourage you to interact with people. Talk to people. Ask them any questions. If you are walking around with paper taking notes, chances are that people will stop and ask what you’re doing. In past years, they have always been pleased to find out that students are trying to know more about their neighborhood, and then talk for 45 minutes. This is great.

Also, don’t be afraid to deviate from the path I laid out if you have good reason to. Last year, some students were stopped by a group of teenagers. From what I understand, the conversation went something like this:

Teens (with a little curiosity and bravado): What are doing here?

Students: We are learning about gentrification, do you know what that is?

Teens: No

Students: Well, it is…..

Teens (with excitement): Oh, Yeah! We’ve got places to show you! Come with us.

The teens then proceeded to show the students all kinds of things in the neighborhood and gave their own version of what was happening. The students asked me if it was OK that they deviated from my path. Of course it was! These students ended up writing some of the better papers that year.

And bad field research…

One student turned in a paper with photos. This wasn’t necessary. What was a bad sign, was that the photos were taken from inside a car. They didn’t even bother to roll down the window; some pictures had bird droppings in them. It perhaps does not need to be said, but I will say it anyway, that paper was particularly shallow. The student never really understood the neighborhood.