All the News About Denver’s Best Residential Community Since 1961 • Volume 58, Issue No. 7 • July 2019
Former Mayor Wellington Webb Urges Residents To Oppose Developing Park Hill Golf Course Land By Cara DeGette Editor, GPHN
continued on page 6
PrideFest Marks 50 Years Since Stonewall
Images From A Most Excellent Block Party
PAGE 10
Parade Turns 10
PAGE 14
Since its maiden voyage in 2010, the Park Hill 4th of July Parade has transformed from a laid-back neighborhood celebration to, well, a really big laid-back neighborhood celebration, This year more than 800 riders, floaters, dancers, horseback riders, musicians, dancers and other various (and surprise) merrymakers are gearing up to delight the throngs of thousands on Thursday, July 4. Bring your lawn chairs, blankets and a picnic, set up along the route, and expect to be wowed. This year’s Independence Day parade is from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., and runs along 23rd Avenue from Dexter to Krameria streets. The parade culminates with a street fair on the 2200 block of Kearney. Check out additional details at www.parkhillparade.org. Photo by Reid Neureiter
PAGE 8
“What I hope to get out is the message to people to contact their city councilmembers and the mayor and tell them you want to save Park Hill,” Webb said. “If we allow this golf course in Park Hill to be sold and redeveloped into a concrete jungle, I believe no park in Denver is safe.” The press conference, covered by print outlets and local TV stations, took place outside the golf clubhouse at the northwest corner of Park Hill. The golf course is currently closed for a redesign and installation of city stormwater drainage. It’s been the
Earth In Crisis: Climate Change Is The Most Important Issue Of Our Time
PAGE 5
Declaring that “no park in Denver is safe” if developers are allowed free rein, former Mayor Wellington Webb is urging Denver residents to contact their council representatives and register opposition to efforts to develop the 155 acres that is currently the site of the Park Hill Golf Course. Webb’s late June press conference came shortly after a surprise deal surfaced that a development company, Westside Investment Partners, plans to close on a contract for the land on July 11. “I’m asking residents to send City Council a message to figure out a way to maintain this land as open space,” Webb said. The land is currently owned by the Clayton Trust, the foundation for the Clayton Early Learning campus west of Park Hill. Clayton leases it to Texas-based Arcis, a corporation that has operated the golf course for many years. Denver holds a perpetual open space conservation easement on the property – which the city paid $2 million to secure in 1997, when Webb was mayor. Any changes, including developing the property, would require the Denver City Council to approve zoning changes and remove the conservation easement, legal experts say. Webb’s June 24 press conference also came shortly after this year’s municipal
election that was overwhelmingly driven by anti-developer sentiment, resulting in the ouster of three incumbents who were perceived as being too friendly to developers. A group of longtime Park Hill residents highlighted the future of the golf course land as a major issue of the campaign. They have promoted the plan that the land should eventually become a regional park. The entire city council, Webb said, and Mayor Michael B. Hancock, should heed the voters’ message, that many Denver residents are focused on slowing down what is widely perceived as out-of-control development.
PAGE 4
‘No Park In Denver Is Safe’
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
A Summer Filled With Jogo Bonito
The Library Is Looking For A Few Good Storytellers
UPCOMING GPHC MEETINGS Thursday, Aug. 1 and Thursday, Sept. 5 2823 Fairfax St. at 6:30 p.m. There is no meeting in July. All are welcome to attend.
Making A Better Place To Live A Brief History Of A Remarkable Neighborhood By Bob Homiak and Cara DeGette
King Davis, 3, enjoys an ice cream bar during GPHC, Inc.’s 50th anniversary birthday bash and block party on June 1. Check out page 8 for more photos from the celebration. Photo by Cara DeGette
Hill and replace them with black families. In May 1960, a group of neighbors met at For the GPHN Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church Editor’s note: The following history of the to discuss what could be done to counter work of the Greater Park Hill Community, this unscrupulous attack on neighborhood Inc. is largely based upon a condensed 20tranquility. part series of reflections by Art Branscombe, At first, the Park Hill Action Commitwhich was published in 1994 and 1995. The tee consisted mainly of white residents who portions detailing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s were members of seven churches in the historic 1964 visit to Park Hill was area. PHAC began to take a series detailed by Cara DeGette in 2014. of actions, beginning with putting pressure on city agencies, such as HISTORY The original Park Hill neighborpolice and trash collection, to keep OF hood was designed in 1887 by Baron PARK HILL up the same level of services as had Allois Gullame Engine von Winckexisted before the influx of black ler, who had emigrated from Prussia residents. three years earlier. The group actively recruited AfFast-forward approximately 75 years, rican-Americans to join, and enjoyed sigand the Park Hill Action Committee was nificant success recruiting Army and Air born, with a commitment to work toward Force officers, who had gone through the making the neighborhood an integrated desegregation of armed forces housing in community and battle prejudice and disthe late 1940s and 1950s, and wanted their crimination. families to live in a racially diverse neighThis year marks 50 years of the organiborhood. zation’s name change, to Greater Park Hill In October 1960, the monthly “Park Hill Community, Inc. Actionews” was launched as a monthly When the action committee first formed, newsletter, designed in part to counter Park Hill was the first neighborhood in some of the scare sale tactics and to proDenver — and was a model for the nation vide a more factual representation of what — to resist the blockbusting that occurred was happening in the neighborhood. The when black families started moving into newsletter grew into the Greater Park Hill neighborhoods that had been previously News, which continues, publishing 14,000 been inhabited mostly by white families. copies monthly. Rather than go along with what is also Finally, PHAC actively extolled the called “white flight,” many Park Hill resibenefits of living in a diverse community, dents committed to integrating the neighsending teams of members (both black and borhood. At the time, the real estate induswhite) to address some 60 churches and try had launched a systematic push to drive civic groups in the Denver suburbs. white families out of large sections of Park continued on page 9