Your Guide to Community, Politics, Arts and Culture in North Denver DenverNorthStar.com
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Volume 3, Issue 7
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April 15, 2022-May 14, 2022
César Chávez March Returns After COVID Hiatus
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ALWAYS FREE!
North Denver Organizes Efforts for Ukraine By Yzeppa Macias
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gression in the community. “I watched him grow up from being a dishwasher to manager at our bar, City Spirit in Lower Downtown. He was just starting out with his art then and once he got involved in RiNo he really blossomed as a community organizer. It is a weird and wonderful thing for him to be leaving the house that he put so much of himself into. We never would have anticipated what would happen to the area so quickly.” When asked if the original spirit of RiNo was surviving all the development, Zeppelin came back with a quick “No.” He offered that in the early days there was an intensity of community and appreciation for local artists that seems to have dissipated with the overdevelopment. “You can’t sustain that grassroots feeling in an area when developments prioritize the dollar over blending into a community.” Wise expressed similar thoughts, citing legendary urban studies activist Jane Jacob’s assertion that rapid escalation of development attempting to commodify an area’s vitality, in its haste, often ends up causing stagnation of that very vitality that attracted people to the area to begin with. “You just can’t purchase the spirit of a place, especially if you knock down most of the original structures that encompassed much of the character.” Weil’s house sits across Chestnut Place from Ironton (now Ironton Distillery) which was one of the first collective of artist studios in River North. Artist Yoshitomo Saito acquired his studio there 16 years ago after moving from California. He found the area to be much
e have so much power to either elevate or destroy,” a community member said while picking up her meals at the Gardens at St. Elizabeth fundraiser for Ukraine. The ongoing refugee crisis in Ukraine has flooded Poland with roughly 2 million refugees seeking safety. Within the gates of the CHI Living Communities at the Gardens at St. Elizabeth, the dedicated faculty have worked with St. Mary’s Ukrainian Church in Ford City, Pennsylvania to help raise funds for those who have been displaced. “I love this community, community is everything,” Chaplain Aram Haroutunian, who has been at St. Elizabeth for five years, said. Haroutunian praised people for being “so generous,” saying that whenever there is a disaster, local or global, he has witnessed great compassion and humanity from his neighborhood. “This is one way we thought we could celebrate Ukrainian pride and their ethnic food, and we could do a fundraiser,” he said. With 90 to-go boxes packed with traditional Ukrainian perogies, potato pancakes, cabbage rolls, and cheesecake for dessert, meals were passed out, ready to be eaten amongst family, friends and neighbors. Upon pickup Denver residents were encouraged to donate $10 per meal, albeit many donated much more. “There has been a lot of generosity, a lot of people have been going above and beyond,” said Pam Waters, Director of Business Development at St. Elizabeth’s. Standing outside the sliding doors, Waters placed meal after meal in big paper bags and thanked everyone for their donations. In addition, over 100 meals were prepared for the residents of St. Elizabeth, available with or without donation in the dining hall where Haroutunian read a prayer for Ukraine. Director of Marketing Melissa Santisteven said, “it’s important for the residents to have a sense of purpose” and to feel like they can do something to help during this time. Through a family connection, Executive Director Jane Woloson worked closely with Father John Gribik of St. Mary’s Church who will send the collected funds to the Archbishop of Poland, where over 60% of Ukrainian refugees are currently seeking refuge. “I know it’s going to a place that it’s really needed,” Woloson said, dressed in a bright blue dress and yellow blazer for the event. In addition to the meals, St. Elizabeth raffled off several bottles of Ukrainian vodka as well as delicately handpainted, wooden Ukrainian easter eggs. “We shared the meals we got with our 82-year-old nextdoor neighbor whose father was Polish,” one community member
See RINO, Page 4
See UKRAINE, Page 14
TRANSPORTATION Greener Transportation Options This Earth Day PAGE 2
ARTS AND CULTURE Local Writers Take a Stab PAGE 6
PHOTO BY DAVID SABADOS
A North Denver tradition returned this year, with participants in the annual César Chávez march again filling the streets between Regis University and César Chávez Park on Tennyson Street. The past two, when COVID kept organizers from holding the march, they still held leadership awards. The march and event at the park brings out people from across the metro area, including elected officials. This year, Senators Julie Gonzales and Robert Rodriguez, Representatives Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, Adrienne Benavidez, and Jennifer Bacon, and City Councilwoman Jamie Torres participated in the march. Denver Clerk and Recorder Paul Lopez brought the city’s new mobile voter bus to the park and spoke at the event. Dr. Ramon Del Castillo has been involved with organizing the event for 21 years. In his speech at the church, Del Castillo spoke about Chávez’ commitment to peace, his activism during Vietnam, and the ongoing conflicts in the Ukraine as well as civil unrest in the U.S.
Will RiNo Stay Funky After Co-founder’s Sale of Property? ARTS AND CULTURE Artwork Stolen from RiNo Exhibit PAGE 8
KIDS AND EDUCATION NHS Track and Field PAGE 10
KIDS AND EDUCATION DPS School Board Updates PAGE 11
By Jill Carstens
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ast month, when the news broke that Tracy Weil was selling his RiNo property, a few shivers went down the spines of those who remember the earliest days of River North. Weil, an artist, community activist, and Denver native with deep roots, helped to conceive the idea of what would become RiNo in the early 2000s. The area where Weil built his house was all but a blight back in the day. His friend and mentor Mickey Zeppelin of Zeppelin Development, who had already been living in the area, drove Tracy around to find him a spot of his own. There was very little residential activity in the industrial area just off of the Washington exit from I-70. But it was cheap and gritty and right next to the Platte. With the help of architect David Lynn Wise, Weil went through arduous battles with the city concerning stringent commercial zoning laws. After realizing his dream of a live-work space which included a gallery area and, eventually on the property, room for urban agriculture in the form of heirloom tomatoes, other creatives were soon to follow this innovative example. Little did Weil and Wise realize it, but they jump-started a trend where artist desires were realized in this livework model. Wise reflected on this “truly transformative period” that influenced how the artist community goes about inhabiting spaces in Denver. Their pioneering persistence with the zoning department paved the way for more local creatives to imagine their own unique studio/gallery dwellings in the industrial area. “The whole district became a metaphor for exploration,” says Wise. Zeppelin reminisced about Weil’s “fairy tale” pro-