August 11, 2001

NIGHT OUT A FINE TIME TO TOUR THE NEIGHBORHOOD

National Night Out has been a civic ritual since 1984. The original purpose was to express public determination to reclaim the streets from crime, drugs and disorder; but as the crime wave has receded, the first Tuesday in August remains a popular occasion for neighbors to get to know each other and the neighborhoods they live in.

The Night Out is a program of the National Association of Town Watch (NATW.org on the Web), a part of the U.S. Department of Justice. It estimates that 32 million people in 9,500 communities took part last year.

Crime is not a major preoccupation where I live, just south of downtown in the area residents call the Golden Triangle and the city calls the Civic Center neighborhood. It's bounded by Colfax Avenue to the north, Lincoln Street on the east and the part of Speer Boulevard diagonally between them. But the getting-to-know-you part is valuable, both the neighbors (mostly new) and the neighborhood (mostly old, but rapidly changing).

So the Golden Triangle Neighborhood Organization organized a walking tour for our night out, led by Tom Noel, ``Dr. Colorado,'' who teaches history at the University of Colorado, Denver, and has written numerous books about state history.

About 50 of us met for pizza at the Rocky Mountain Bank Note building, now the home of the charter school P.S. 1, and Noel showed slides.

Denver's early civic boosters were very impressed with the City Beautiful movement. They went to the great Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893 and came back determined to make Denver ``Paris on the Platte,'' as mayor Robert Speer put it.

That the Seine has lots of water all year long apparently didn't faze him.

The idea behind the City Beautiful movement makes somewhat uneasy reading today; it was that cities tend to be inhabited by a rather unsavory class of people, and that surrounding them with uplifting architecture and lovely vistas would improve their behavior.

But whatever the motivation, the results were wonderful city parks and, in the city's center, the magnificent neo-classical Denver City and County Building, with its curved facade looking toward the state Capitol across the Civic Center Park and its Greek theater.

I've been in the City and County Building, of course, and been intrigued by its vaguely disorienting rooms with curved walls meeting at odd angles. Noel said there is a tour that is well worth taking.

But I haven't taken the tours of the Capitol or the U.S. Mint, either, and probably won't until I have out-of-town guests who are touristically inclined. I grew up on the outskirts of New York, on Long Island, and the only reason we ever saw the Statue of Liberty or took the Circle Line cruise around Manhattan was that someone we were entertaining wanted to do it.

Our walking tour emphasized the constant change and renewal that make life in the city endlessly interesting. The high-rise condo building I live in was new last year, and another nearby will be finished in a few months.

But across the way are the Cadillac Lofts, created from an old auto-repair building that moved cars to its higher floors by elevator. And along the same street the Century Lofts, featuring concrete and exposed pipes -- not my style, but the resident who told us about his place evidently liked it a lot.

A law office occupies a former auto dealership, its ornamental brickwork beautifully lit at night. Gart's sports palace on Broadway, dripping with Gothic traceries, also used to be an auto dealership; it still says ``Studebaker'' on the side, which evokes sentimental memories because my former husband and I drove Studebakers on into the 1990s.

We also passed the downtown police administration building and jail, the building across from the City and County building that houses the homeless, and Denver Cares' detox center.

Denver City Councilman Dennis Gallagher joined our tour, and treated us to a rousing declamation of the ``Seven Ages of Man'' speech from As You Like It on the steps of the Greek Theater. And then we all traipsed back to Cherokee Dining on 12th for a late supper.

More change is coming to the neighborhood, including the new art museum being designed by architect Daniel Libeskind. South of that site is the old Evans school, privately owned for many years, which is slowly moving toward landmark status, and, we hope, new uses.

All week, across the street from me, a big orange machine with a claw has been chewing away at some decrepit old buildings. I stopped by Friday morning to find out what it ought to be called -- a track hoe, or an excavator, the operator said -- and there's a sign saying ``Build to suit -- hi-rise.'' Not too high, I hope. On the same block a new restaurant, Cuba Cuba, has opened in two tiny houses that date, I was told, from before statehood.

Cities are worth more than one night out a year.

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