All the News About Denver’s Best Residential Community Since 1960 • Volume 60, Issue No. 6 • June 2021
Colorado Village Collaborative Executive Director Cole Chandler, with little Seeger, at the current Safe Outdoor Space in Uptown. The community will relocate to Park Hill in mid-June, through the end of the year.
Home, Sweet Home Safe Outdoor Space In Church Parking Lot To Provide Shelter To 40 Unhoused People Beginning June 14 Story and photos by Cara DeGette Editor, GPHN
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Summer in Park Hill means a return of our feathered neighbors as they make their annual migration back from winter getaways. This eye-catching strawberry-colored male Summer Tanager can be spotted in backyard gardens and in parks and open spaces, and in forest habitats. Check out other migratory birds who are settling back in Colorado for the season on page 10. Photo by Mark Silverstein
Inside This Issue
By Jean Ercolani Park Hill Garden Walk Organizer
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Historic Gateway To City Park Gets $4.7M Facelift July 4 Parade Is Back, Celebrating Freedom And One Park Hill
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I recently had the pleasure of talking with three of the gardeners participating in the June 13 Park Hill Garden Walk. We walked through their gardens as we discussed their love and knowledge of gardening. It was fun to see aspects of each gardener’s personality reflected in the garden space they have created. These gardeners were quite humble about their creations. Each offered unique and interesting features in their outdoor space. For example, James Marquez and David McCreedy have made more than 40 hypertufa troughs that bring character and interest to the yard. The troughs look like cement, but they are made of a combination of cement, peat moss and vermiculite, making them much lighter and easier to move. They also incorporate items such as sushi dishes and other small decorative glass elements to bring more visual interest to these planters and their garden. They have also created a garden with more than 1,000 Park Hill types of plants, resulting in flowers 10 months out of the Garden Walk year — in Colorado! The only months they don’t have something blooming are December and January. Kirstin Hoagland and Jericho Dorsey have not only created a unique space from nothing, they did this with water conservation in mind. Their lawn area is comprised of Dog Tuff Grass, a grass that is resistant to dog urine. They marked off their lawn area into one-foot
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Gardeners Share Tips, And Passion, For Growing Things As They Ready For June 13 Garden Walk
GPHN Wins Eight First Place Awards, Honored For Excellence In News, Photos, Design
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Sign on display at the current Safe Outdoor Space community at 16th Avenue and Pearl Street.
The Nitty Gritty
Gardener James Marquez, in the side garden. Photo by David McCreedy
Welcome, Summer
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On June 14, the Park Hill United Methodist Church parking lot will become an authorized Safe Outdoor Space for six months, providing tents and a vast array of support services to 40 people who currently have no home. The project, coordinated by the organization Colorado Village Collaborative, has drawn a phalanx of supporters who are readying to help set up the site, provide meals and supplies, and volunteer. The organization, as well as the church that is hosting the safe outdoor space, was undeterred by a lawsuit that tried to stop the project from moving forward. The suit, filed by a handful of neighbors, was dismissed last month.
Plaintiffs argued that the site, in a primarily white area of the neighborhood with high-end homes, lacks resources, including access to stores, restaurants and public transportation. They also alleged the site would lack adequate security measures to protect children and staff at the preschool that operates at the church. The suit also claimed the tent community will reduce the number of available parking spots at the church, which shares its space with Temple Micah, and make it difficult for nearby residents and their guests to find parking spots on Sundays. During a public meeting held via Zoom in April, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, Kurt Monigle, threatened to block the project, and asked Colorado Village Collaborative Executive Director Cole Chandler to find another location.
“If we lose we will make your life miserable the entire time,” said Monigle, who lives on 17th Avenue Parkway several blocks away. The other plaintiffs live on the block of Glencoe Street nearest the church. The lawsuit drew national media attention, in part because it was the first of its kind, and in part because its optics are in conflict with Park Hill’s long history of progressive politics and social activism. In the early 1960s, church Pastor J. Carlton Babbs was a founding member of the Park Hill Action committee, working to integrate the neighborhood. When the suit was first announced, the Colorado Village Collaborative issued a statement vowing to move forward, which read in part: “The plaintiffs suggest that a lack of existing services, public transportation, existing unhoused individuals, and the presence of children and families make Park Hill an unfit neighborhood for our unhoused neighbors to call home. “These are precisely the kinds of wellfunded arguments we have heard before in efforts to advance and protect various forms of segregation and oppression throughout our nation’s history. When given the option, time and again, some groups of powerful individuals seek to choose their neighbors along lines such as class, race, religion, sexual orientation, and other forms of oppression. When the arc of justice has prevailed in these historic examples a clear and simple truth has been revealed: no one gets to choose who lives next door.” The lawsuit resulted in an outpouring of support from other neighbors for the Colorado Village Collaborative and the church.
East High After-Prom Was A Carnival To Remember
High School Sports Back In Action
Upcoming GPHC Meetings
Community meetings are currently conducted virtually on the first Thursday of each month. The next meeting is June 3 at 6:30 p.m. There is no meeting in July. Link to attend at greaterparkhill.org/ join-us/community-meetings/