Downtown Denver Antiqued Postcard
by Janice Pariza
Title
Downtown Denver Antiqued Postcard
Artist
Janice Pariza
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
A photographed digitally enhanced of Downtown Denver, CO to resemble an Antiqued Post Card. Texture was added.
Denver's downtown still harbors many ghosts from that colorful era - including an active ghost who still roams the hallways of the Oxford Hotel. But most of the phantoms are in the form of surviving structures that hearken back to Denver's gilded past, when the scandalous House of Mirrors reigned infamously over the city's red light district. The House of Mirrors still stands at 1646 Market with its leering faces protruding from the stonework, a reminder of the financier who was blackmailed into funding its construction.
Not all of Denver's old buildings can boast such sordid histories, but a fair number retain significant interest, nonetheless. This mini-tour will highlight just a few, beginning with Union Station at 17th & Wynkoop, the last stop on RTD's Free Mall Shuttle.
1. Union Station was constructed in two periods,1881 and 1914. The contrast between the older and newer sections is immediately apparent, thanks to different coloration of the masonry. The imposing center section is a Classical Beaux Arts design by Denver architects Gove & Walsh and the third version of the main entry and waiting room. The first Victorian design burned in 1894 and was rebuilt with a handsome but short-lived Romanesque tower. It was removed in 1910 to make way for an enlarged concourse. The most distinctive feature of this still active depot may be the bright orange signage encouraging patrons to "Travel by Train," a quaint relic from the pre-interstate highway era.
2. The Oxford Hotel, located just one block southeast of Union Station, is Denver's oldest active hostelry (opened in 1891). The Oxford is chock full of history, great Western art, and of course a resident ghost. Architect Frank Edbrooke constructed many of Denver's finest buildings including the Brown Palace Hotel, considered his masterpiece. Over the years, the Oxford acquired a couple of interesting additions such as the white porcelain Oxford Annex across the alley, by a creative architect / engineer, Montana Fallis, who also produced Denver's best known Art Deco structure on Champa St. But it was the 1935 creation of the "Cruise Room" just off the Oxford's main lobby that really epitomizes the Art Deco era in the Mile High City. The Cruise Room celebrated the end of Prohibition -- a memorable and happy day for Denver's drinking classes.
Walk one block down Wazee towards the Sugar Building on the Mall at 1530 16th St., a Gove & Walsh showpiece evoking the spirit of Chicago's Louis Sullivan. This is the area where Denver was born back in the autumn of 1858. Take the southbound Mall Shuttle past Larimer, noting colorful Larimer Square, one block to the southwest, a visual / shopping treat with lots of Victorian era "eye candy." Continue on the shuttle to the corner of Arapahoe, dominated by what was once the third tallest building in America.
3. The D&F Tower (an acronym for Daniels & Fisher) was Denver's premier department store in 1911. The Venetian-style campanile, soaring vertically for 330 feet, is all that remains of the once-famous emporium, absorbed into the May Company in 1955. The slender, 20-story structure was designed by Frederick Sterner who later re-located to New York City where he earned lucrative fees crafting elegant town-homes for wealthy New Yorkers. Meanwhile, his Denver tower, a 3/4 scale rendering of Campanile San Marco in Venice, became a popular tourist attraction and a symbol of the Queen City. Today it contains office condominiums, after a loving restoration in the 1980s.
Proceed two blocks up 16th St. to Champa and turn left, one block, to 17th St. Buildings along Champa such as the brownstone Boston Lofts (828 17th St.) and Colorado Business Bank (821 17th St.) make Champa an architectural delight. Look for the artistic gargoyles on the bank guarding 17th St., once characterized as the "Wall Street of the West." Turn right, up 17th, past the Florentine style Equitable Building (730 17th St.). In 1892, this was Denver's first really tall building at a heart-stopping nine stories. Numerous skyscrapers now line the street most of them dwarfed by the 56 story Republic Plaza, tallest in the Rocky Mountains at 714 feet. Mark that height because it just about equals the depth of the artesian well beneath the stunning, world-famous Brown Palace Hotel, just across the street at 321 17th St.
4. The Brown Palace was unequaled by any hotel between Chicago's Palmer House and San Francisco's Palace Hotel when it opened in 1892. Even today the stunning eight-story atrium dazzles visitors. Back about 1912, President Howard Taft is said to have gone speechless for a full ten minutes when he first experienced this breathtaking space - an amazing feat for any politician. The hotel is not named for the identifying color of its Arizona sandstone but for its builder, Henry C. Brown, an Ohio carpenter who was one of Denver's earliest pioneers. Brown initially developed all the property east of the hotel where Denver's wealthiest citizens built their opulent mansions. Brown's Bluff eventually became Capitol Hill after Brown donated the ten acres on which Colorado's capitol building sits today. His hotel was a marvel of engineering and aesthetics. It once included a basement crematory as part of the guest services as well as a secret tunnel to the elegant but naughty Navarre, still standing across Tremont Place.
5. The imposing Trinity Methodist Church can be seen just north of the Brown Palace. Trinity is by the early dean of Denver architects, Robert Roeschlaub, who also designed the Central City Opera House. Trinity opened in 1888, well uptown, and overlooked a rural cow-pasture where the Brown Palace came to be. The 182 foot spire is constructed of volcanic rhyolite to its very apex, creating a distinctive landmark, even today when it appears hemmed in by tall buildings. Continue south on Broadway to Colfax Ave.
6. The neo-classical Colorado State Capitol crowns the hill to your left, designed by Elijah Myers who also created capitol buildings for Michigan and Texas. Yes, that is real gold leaf covering the dome, a reminder of Colorado's deep mining roots. Much Colorado history is depicted in stained glass within and the inspiring mountain view from the steps, exactly one mile above sea level, may explain why Denver's early pioneers were inspired to build a great city here. Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions were necessary, just to clear the land title, before construction of the capitol could begin in 1886. The native, gray granite from Gunnison, Colorado was originally intended to be white sandstone. Under public pressure, the more enduring (and costly) native material was finally selected. Other building problems arose including dismissal of the original architect and the untimely death of construction superintendent Peter Gumry in a boiler explosion. Nevertheless, the state legislature was finally able to convene in the still unfinished building on Jan. 2, 1895, after nine years of construction. The 272 foot dome was originally intended to support an allegorical figure but a passionate dispute over whose wife, or daughter, would be the perfect model for the statue quickly devolved into a comic imbroglio. In the end a simple globe lantern surmounted the pinnacle, a compromise which neither mollified nor satisfied everyone, but undoubtedly saved the marriages of several legislators!
In 1897, Colorado's second territorial governor and the man who founded railroads and universities, John Evans became the first man to lay in state here. But the capitol's busiest day ever came on January 14, 1917, when superstar showman and former Indian Scout, Buffalo Bill Cody was laid out under the rotunda. Some 18,000 mourners filed quietly past his bier while another 12,000 who had waited hours in the frigid winter air had to be turned away. After being stored on ice for months in a North Denver mortuary, Bill was buried atop nearby Lookout Mountain, in solid granite, capped by some 14 tons of concrete to insure against souvenir hunters.
Walk southwest, down the sloping capitol grounds, to the far side of 14th Ave. where a bridge-like State Supreme Court frames the low-lying Colorado History Museum at 13th Ave. & Broadway. Immediately west of Broadway, observe Denver's spicy architectural menagerie.
7. A fanciful Denver Public Library by Michael Graves complements its neighboring Denver Art Museum. Graves, a master of Post-Modern architecture, blended his polychrome fortress into the former 1955 library by renowned Denver architect Burnham P, Hoyt, who earlier designed the famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado. The interior three-story atrium represents one of the finer public spaces in Denver. Immediately to the west the Denver Art Museum raises its two distinct but vintage expressions of culture, both designed by renowned modern architects, some 40 years apart. The original building was designed by Gio Ponti of Milan, Italy with the new Hamilton Building by Daniel Libeskind opening in 2006.
8. Trace your way northwest across 14th Ave. to Denver's City & County Building. The slender cupola houses chimes that ring out the quarter hours. The formal green lawns of Civic Center are the legacy of Denver's greatest mayor, Robert W. Speer who championed a "City Beautiful" vision for his adopted home-town. Walk past the City & County Building and, if you like money, turn left at Colfax Ave., proceeding one block to the Denver Mint.
9. The U.S. Mint is the Renaissance inspired fortress where money gets coined year-round. More of the building actually sits underground than above - the basement extends three levels deep. The part that you see was originally designed by James Knox Taylor in 1906, but it has been expanded several times since. Deep in its vaults are hidden Federal gold deposits, second in value only to the Ft. Knox depository in Kentucky. The mint brings us full circle to Denver's beginnings, in 1858, when a few ounces of gold set off a stampede that forever changed the history of the West - and spawning the Mile High City.
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August 21st, 2013
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