All the News About Denver’s Best Residential Community Since 1960 • Volume 59, Issue No. 11 • November 2020
Diamonds And Rust Greater Park Hill News: 60 Years Chronicling The Neighborhood By Cara DeGette Editor, GPHN
Imagine Park Hill with a constant roar of airplanes taking off and landing at the airport next door, rattling your doors, your walls, your nerves. Imagine Park Hill with large swaths of nearby City Park paved over for zoo and museum parking and an amusement park, plus hundreds of bureaucrats using the pavilion at the lake, as an office building. Imagine Park Hill as an all-white neighborhood, with all-white schools. Imagine Park Hill with ongoing gang violence and drug houses. Or imagine Park Hill, many of its old houses scraped, replaced with blocks upon blocks of slot homes and identical multi-story buildings, replicating a current-day Sloan’s Lake, Highlands, or parts of Five Points. This is to imagine Park Hill, without its warriors for the neighborhood – and without its newspaper. For 60 years, activists have worked to eradicate the racist practice of redlining, and to halt white flight from Park Hill. They engaged in a herculean (and successful) battle to move the airport. For 60 years they have worked to build an integrated, healthy, diverse, interesting neighborhood. This month, the Greater Park Hill News marks its diamond anniversary – 60 years reporting the neighborhood successes,
the controversies of the moment, and yes, its tragedies and occasional failures. The newspaper, originally a newsletter, was the product of the men and women who banded together to form the Park Hill Action Committee to establish one of the first purposely integrated neighborhoods in the country. These organizers recognized the importance of a vehicle by which to communicate, inform, and organize.
Diverse, curious, and quirky It’s safe to say that without the activists and a newspaper to chronicle the first draft of the history of their activities, this neighborhood – which stretches roughly from Colfax north to Interstate 70, Colorado Boulevard east to Quebec – would be a vastly different place. The newspaper, like the neighborhood, has undergone some pretty dramatic changes over the years – including its name. The first issue of the Park Hill “Actionews” appeared in October, 1960. A few months later, in February, 1961, “Actionews” was rolled into the “Park Hill Reporter.” By the next year the newspaper had morphed into the “Park Hill Scroll.” For a couple years, from 1964-65, the newspaper was nothing more than a mimeographed “Newsletter,” published on legal-sized paper. Through the 1970s, the paper more or less reverted back to the “Actionews,” and continued on page 8
Their Place In History By Amy Zimmer and Bernadette Kelly For the GPHN
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As Denver rapidly changes, few neighborhoods have been able to retain their historic character. Yet that is one of the reasons why many residents are drawn to Park Hill. According to the Greater Park Hill Community Survey conducted a year ago, preserving the architecture character and style of Park Hill is the top focus area for the neighborhood. The survey, conducted by the research firm National Research Center, also found strong support for preserving the architectural character and style of the neighborhood. (Check out the October, 2019 survey at tinyurl.com/GPHNNeighborhoodSurvey). Because of this strong com mu n it y supp or t , Protesters hold signs and chant slogans in early May, 2006 outside a home at 5335 Montview Blvd., marking one GHPC’s Preservation Sub- of the neighborhood’s first preservation battles. The protesters gathered in opposition to a developer’s plan to committee was formed in raze the 1918 Craftsman-style home. The house has since been leveled; its big lot was split for the construction February. The primary goal of two custom homes. Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, RMN-049-8318 of the subcommittee, which ing but not limited to municipal tools such Although Park Hill has been successful includes members from both as landmark designation and the overlay in retaining much of its historic architecinside and outside of the organization, is to process. Finally, the subcommittee, which ture, no neighborhood goes completely uneducate and inform people about the hisincludes two GHPC board members, and changed. Over the years, Park Hill has lost tory of Park Hill and the types of styles and a former Denver Landmark Preservation several notable historic homes that deserve architecture seen in the neighborhood. commissioner, is able to provide assistance to be remembered for their place in the hisThe subcommittee is also available as a to any homeowner who chooses to landtory of the neighborhood. resource to help homeowners understand mark their own house. the benefits of historic preservation, includcontinued on page 5
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Historic Character Defines Park Hill, But These Old Homes Are Gone Forever
INSIDE THIS ISSUE Jack And Pam Farrar Reflect On A Long, Sometimes Strange Trip
Raw Politics: Viva The First Amendment. Viva The Free Press. Recipe For A Strong Neighborhood Includes Hard Work, A Great Newspaper East Area Plan Falls Short On Parks, Traffic, Affordability
Ed/Equity Alert: High Stakes Testing In A Pandemic is Preposterous
UPCOMING GPHC MEETINGS Community meetings are currently conducted virtually on the first Thursday of each month. The next meetings are Nov. 5 and Jan. 7 at 6:30 p.m. There is no meeting in December. Link to attend at greaterparkhill.org/ join-us/community-meetings/. Check greaterparkhill.org for info and details.