X-Mess 2013 - Gates Rubber Factory and More... Part 2
All the way back in part 1 of this story, I had just photographed the remains of Fan Fair, and it's adorable little abandoned gas station, that had recently been given a new leash on life.
In leaving Fan Fair, I was changing direction to drive about 7 miles west to Gates Rubber Factory. From here, taking Colfax to Broadway would have been the easiest path to take...
I missed out on getting pictures of this abandoned car dealership on the way to Fan Fair. While I'd hoped to have been able to snap a full lot picture, so there would be some perspective and context to the image, I was able to get a decently focused shot of the main driveways and sales office/showroom.
When I drove down Havana St. a week ago, I missed getting an updated shot here. It has since been re-opened as another used car lot; Tynan's Preowned. The building in the picture has been given a makeover, and the property looks well taken care of.
I distinctly remember some abandoned retail store located here twenty years ago. It was a large off-tan box with few windows... I do not remember what it was.
Since leaving Fan Fair, I'd been getting a low battery light on my camera. I'd only brought along two sets of AAs, and had already used the first pair at Southglenn. With a lot of targets still on my list for today, I was going to need more batteries... I first stopped at an open gas station by the closing Blockbuster to use the restroom and buy some more batteries. I accomplished the first one of those tasks, but they were sold out of AA's.
Driving a couple of miles south, I stopped in at that brand new obnoxious 7-11 on Havana and Dartmouth. I bet whatever was here before the Conoco/7-11/CarWash wasn't this tacky looking. At least they had the AA batteries I needed and some losing X-Mess lottery tickets I didn't...
Quick inventory before I get back on the road: Batteries... Lotto tickets... Camera case from 1994... Cold beverage... Safeway bag (with smokes inside)... Hand towels...
Once it finally turns green, you can make your left turn for a few blocks of southbound Havana before it turns back into Hampden. You'll know you're here because of the massive waste of available land that is the Kennedy Gold Course...
Tracing my steps back on Hampden avenue westward to Colorado Boulevard, you'll pass a buncha locations that once had some degree of significance.
In 2013, the club pictured here as GLO, was named Pitchers. Pitchers had been multiple differently named similar clubs since it stopped being Pitchers. I hated Pitchers...
Five years ago, it had been just Glo. That place had recently closed and was undergoing renovation when I drove by on X-mess 2013.
And the Crystal Rose, where my job held a few X-Mess parties (back when they still did X-Mess parties) is now a...
Office DepotMax was chopped off the end of the Village Square East Shopping Center, demolished, and is now a Cube Smart Self Storage. I bought a lot of stuff at this Office DepotMax 20 or so years ago, and may have even printed an issue of Wasted Quarter here. I didn't get a picture of it in 2013, but Office DepotMax was already gone by then.
Continuing down Hampden, past the areas I talked about last week, to where it crosses I-25...
Continuing west on Hampden in 2013, we are about to come across an abandoned building regret of mine...
Located on the larger southwest corner of a five-way intersection, with the added traffic and the fact that it was usually very busy, it's location was typically hard to get a decent photo of. That was my X-mess 2013 attempt.
While I never took the time to pull over and give it a proper walk around, I made another attempt at a drive-by photo, two weeks later for my follow up visit to Fan Fair... This would have been a great shot had the wet slushy road conditions not smeared up the Honksicle windshield...
Amoco was demolished in favor of a retail tri-plex featuring Mvmt Pilates, GrabbaGreen and Dunkin Donuts, in 2015.
A few more blocks west, is the turn north on Colorado Blvd. One of the busiest streets in the city, densely packed with both retail and residential, it has really become gentrified over the last twenty years....
After a few blocks of houses, just north of the Wellshire Golf Course, Colorado Blvd spills into all sorts of retail for several miles.
Last Spring, I was surprised to see that Beau Jo's Pizza closed their restaurant at Colorado and Yale. I snapped some pictures of it in October of this year, shortly before the demolition fence was put up.
The sign for the University Hills Plaza is one of the few remaining tall marquee style signs left along Colorado Blvd.
It's always confused me that the Welshire Plaza is spelled with one L, while the Wellshire Golf Course (about a mile south) is spelled with two L's....
In places all along Colorado Blvd., you can still find significant old signs for businesses that are long gone. Dolly Madison hasn't operated a dairy store here in decades, but their old sign is still here!
Dolly Madison's old sign's life continues on in 2017. Outlasting the Damascus Restaurant that can be seen as open in 2013...
In addition to Crown and the Criterion, there were several restaurants, a nursery, gas station/car wash, liquor store, dry cleaners and a night club that burned down in a 2015 fire....
Luxury Apartments are sprouting from the graves of these businesses, located on a very busy set of cross streets in south Denver. I find it surprising that not all the old businesses were forced off the block, given the high value of this chunk of land.
There will be a lengthy story on this site about the entire block at the southeast corner of Colorado Blvd. and Evans Avenue at some point...
Dave and Busters was a place I enjoyed going to 20 years ago. Now it's an intimidating clash of loud noises and colors and people and chaos. I think I'm just too old for that variety of sensory overload. Plus, I don't drink anymore. I bet that would help... It did 20 years ago...
This IHOP used to be a Village Inn 20 years ago... Village Inn moved a block south years back. You can see it in the I-25 picture...
Here's Second Spin! One of the few used & new CD/DVD/Video Game retailers left in town, Second Spin always had a great selection and was a fun place to waste some time. I've sold a bunch of stuff here over the years, and bought a few things here as well.
And here's Second Spin five years later... It's nice when you can count on the things that you like sticking around and being...
The Belcaro Motel is one of the few remaining dirtball motels left along Colorado Blvd. There are a great deal of chain hotels in multi-story towers up and down the corridor. But the Belcaro has character! And a bunch of negative reviews online!
A few blocks north of the Belcaro Motel is the Becaro Shopping Center, featuring another King Soopers!
Across the street is the home of one of the locations of Mile High Comics. I'm sure that name may be familiar to some readers.
Just north of those two businesses is both the current and former home of Shotgun Willie's. A long running notorious titty bar in the Glendale neighborhood of Denver. This building is the original Shotgun Willie's, which closed one month before this picture was taken.
This building was demolished in October 2014. I read a story in the Glendale News that as the building was being demolished, construction workers were rushing inside the collapsing building to grab hundreds of dollar bills that had lodged underneath the dance stages over the past 30 years.
I was inside the former Willie's once in 2000, for a friend's bachelor party. It was a standard titty bar...
The new Shotgun Willie's was built in the praking lot behind the old one. The new Willie's opened in November 2013. I've never been inside.
Despite Colorado Blvd. being high on my list of areas I wanted to get detailed pictures of, by the time I got there, I just wasn't as interested in stopping at multiple targets. The drive by snapshots worked well in some places, but not in others. Some day I plan on photographing the signs and storefronts, but that day wasn't X-Mess 2013.
Turning off Colorado and onto Cherry Creek Drive, via Alameda Ave, I was planning a quick drive-by of the disgustingly upscale Cherry Creek Mall.
In 2013, Safeway was the only store within eyeshot of Cherry Creek that I could even possibly relate to... I've bought a few groceries at this Safeway during my Colorado life. The last time I stopped in here was for a caffeinated beverage while out taking building photos. That probably would have been late 2016.
The next time I drove by with the intentions of stopping at Safeway, there were gates placed at all access points. The Cherry Creek Mall had gotten so full of itself that you now had to pay to park at the Safeway. I'm sure there was likely a refund of the parking fee if you bought food at Safeway...
Safeway has abandoned their Cherry Creek Mall store after 51 years. Closing up shop in October 2017, when the mall's owners terminated their lease.
Rumors of a 10+ story hotel being built where Safeway used to be are making the media rounds...
Meanwhile, back at X-Mess 2013, I was waiting for the stoplight at Cherry Creek Drive and 1st Avenue and directly in front of my car, an old branch of 1st Bank was being demolished. I snapped a couple of pictures while I waited for the light to change.
A block to the east of the demolished 1st Bank was this vacant lot. Where another recently demolished building had given it's life...
Years back I knew Cherry Creek was a disgusting display of high end commerce, greed and one upsmanship. Being the wealthiest neighborhood in Colorado wasn't enough. Now there is no more perfect example of rampant gentrification taking away a part of town's history than what is going on at Cherry Creek.
There was one target at the Cherry Creek Mall that I had to get while I was up here. Even though it was bringing me to a part of town that I just can't stand, this was a picture of great significance to me. Especially on a day like X-Mess 2013...
I haven't been up here since 2006, I need to see what it became...
At least I can say that I made it up for the traditional Holiday Tower Records on X-Mess for the first time since 2005...
Shortly after I moved to Colorado in 1996, I found that Denver had a Tower Records, and immediately found and loved the store. They were open until midnight, 365 days a year. My holiday tradition quickly became hanging out at Tower on every holiday, when nothing else was open.
Unfortunately I wont be looking at obscure collectables, music, books, zines, porno, VHS or any DVDs today because the retail chain of Tower Records filed for bankruptcy and closed all locations worldwide in 2006.
I wont even be looking at plastic tubs and shelving because it's X-Mess and they are closed. But The Container Store will reopen.
For old times sake, I exited the Cherry Creek Mall satellite buildings via my usual route around through the south parking entrance. Past John Elway's overpriced steak house...
I can no longer get close to these buildings in 2017, as the parking entrances all have gates blocking access. How elitist do you have to get Cherry Creek? This whole area had a really gross vibe to it. The few minutes I was driving through the area, I was starting to expect the Blueberry Honksicle to be pulled over by fashion police for not belonging in that neighborhood. Driving through Cherry Creek felt even more disgusting than driving through Highlands Ranch!
My route used to end up at the back parking lot entrance. To the left is the mall parking ramp, next door to Nordstrom...
To the right is access to southbound University Avenue, and an escape route from the playground of the bluebloods... While leaving Tower, late one night in 2002, a truck in front of me in this very turn lane was at this intersection. Also waiting for the left turn light to change. For no reason, while it was still red, the truck kicked it into reverse and rammed the front end of this same car.
My car was fixed and the issue was resolved quickly, but that kind of served as an exclamation point on this shopping center.
Before breaking completely free of the Cherry Creek neighborhood, I took a quick photo of the Calvary Temple on the corner of University & Alameda. Have to say that I was pretty impressed that I managed to get the angle nearly perfect as I drove by.
Alameda Avenue was my intended turn anyway, and a route I used to take nearly every time I left Tower. An abrupt right turn after just a block or so of University, Alameda would bring me west to Logan avenue, which I would take south to my past home on Kenyon.
Got only a few drive by shots as I travelled the narrow two lane Alameda road. Traffic was starting to build, as it was almost 11am, and on street parking meant that I had to pay closer attention to where I was going. Photo taking was largely restricted to red lights only.
The intersection of Alameda and Logan St. is the home of a former grocery store (likely a Safeway) that had been cut apart into multiple storefronts. Today (and in 2013), Larkburger and Denver Gym & Fitness occupy the two largest storefronts...
Up until 2006, Blockbuster Video and Twist & Shout Records lived here. Twist & Shout moved to a larger and much nicer store up on Colfax, and we all know what happened to Blockbuster Video...
Unfortunately, my picture of the dancing homeless men on Alameda and Lincoln Street didn't turn out the way I'd hoped...
Five years later on the same corner, I did take a nice picture of what happens when an out of control vehicle veers off Alameda and up onto your porch!
One more block west from Lincoln is Broadway, where I would turn left to go south to my next planned stop.
The corner of Broadway and Virginia used to be the home of Caboose Hobbies. The long time Denver model train store had that sweet mural of a train breaking through the brick wall, was demolished in May 2017. The store closed the previous Fall when the building was sold. In the past few weeks, work has begun on building on this site. Not sure at this point what it will be...
Not long after the previous owners retired, some former employees opened a new store, named simply "Caboose". The new edition of the model train shop is located about ten miles west of Broadway, but on Alameda Ave.
Three blocks south of the former Caboose is the turn off for the Broadway/I-25 RTD light rail park and ride. Filled with hundreds of cars every day. Except today...
The Gates property has fascinated me since I moved to Denver. I would see it on every drive north on Broadway. I watched it slowly decay year by year. I used to bank at the on site credit union... I've watched parts of it disappear over the past decade, with new Luxury Apartments springing up in their place.
My friend even worked production on a terrible sci-fi alien zombie movie filmed inside the abandoned remains of Gates.
While I never had the balls to find a way inside, once I found out it was being demolished in November 2013, I made it a point to walk around the property at least once a week to take pictures of the structure. The demolition of the entire Gates factory took almost a full year. As new layers were peeled away from the massive structure, it allowed me to look inside what had driven me nuts with curiosity since 1996...
Once entering the RTD parking lots, there was a path that led underneath a light rail bridge, into an overflow parking lot that extended a good distance into the former Gates property. I could park back here and take great shots of the north end of the Gates buildings. Then a quick walk around to Broadway and down the sidewalk to get the east facing portions of the factory. Then around the southern edge of the block, towards the light rail tracks. A fence around the property would not allow you to go any further without breaking the law....
When reading about the Gates demolition plan, the company in charge stated they hoped to clear ten sections (which they defined as the spaces between support beams) of four floors per week. This would keep them on schedule and leave the land clear in under a year from the start date (November 13, 2013).
As these sections fell, I loved seeing the arrangement of each level inside of Gates. How offices and production areas were laid out, stairwells, restrooms...
Once I started walking around Gates once a week, taking pictures such as this, I was thinking that I needed some way to document it's falling better than a printed story in Wasted Quarter. Each week I was taking incredible pictures of ruins that would be gone forever in mere days. Even if I didn't have the best of format set up to pull this project off, I had to not waver in getting this material while I still could...
The large hole on the left side of this picture is where the former front office building was located. It had been a large, mostly windowless, 4 story brick structure that extended out to Broadway. That was the first part of Gates to be demolished. I caught it completely by surprise aas I was driving north one morning, to get to downtown Denver.
Once the exterior walls (in this case, the basement) were peeled away, you could get awesome pictures of once hidden away Gates life, like this!
Gates was built in segments, with multiple building additions spanning 1910, through the closure of the Gates factory in 1991. This was a newer addition on the south end, from the red brick structure in the middle.
The entrance to the southeast parking lot, looking north, towards Denver, behind the light rail bridge that I drove and walked under.
I didn't walk any further to the west today, since no demolition work was going on in that corner of the property. It was cold, so I chose to double back to my car, then continue south on Broadway. Up next was getting back to Englewood, to photograph my last few remaining subjects.
That damn little tree got in the way of a great shot of my favorite abandoned gas station in Denver. This old Sinclair station has never been open the entire time I've lived here. So, since at least 1996... It's a very well preserved example of 1940's style retail gas and service station architecture.
I have photographed this station a lot over the last few years, so this X-Mess 2013 shot doesn't have to be perfect.
After sitting empty (yet filled with trash) for decades, Sinclair received a massive renovation that stripped it down to it's outer walls and roof throughout this year. The former Sinclair became the Gates of 2017, with weekly photographs of the progress. It was really good to see the time and effort into turning the former Sinclair into this, without destroying the gas station and building something new on the land. They even saved, refurbished and are re-using the "inverted hockey stick" style property lights that Sinclair used.
Very much unlike the fate of the Broadway Motel, which closed in February 2017, and was demolished in April 2017. The iconic Broadway Motel sign was cut from it's base shortly after the motel closed, and was removed from the property before any pre-demolition prep work began. No idea what happened to it, but I would assume that meant it was being preserved by someone. Construction began on the Luxury Condopartments on the site, late last Summer.
In addition to taking pictures of abandoned buildings and collecting baseball cards, previous hobbies of mine included collecting old toys.
Before Darrel took it over in the early 2000's, it had been a decent toy shop, that I dropped a few bucks at here and there. I'd not been to the store since it became Darrel's until once in 2010, when my friend was visiting from out of town. After a few seconds of looking around, a teenage kid working there asked what we were looking for. I said original G1 Transformers. He looked at me lost, and repeated the word back as if it was a question.
"Yeah... Transformers... The little robots that turned into cars and planes and stuff... You know, what your sign above your window is advertising that you carry..."
Former Funtastic Fun's building was beginning asbestos removal to prepare for it's demolition in April 2014.
The night before it opened, people filled the parking lot, camped out in tents, in hopes to be one of the first 100 or so customers when the restaurant first opens. Whenever a new Chick Fil-A opens, tradition is the first 100 (I think) customers get free food for a year. Not sure how it worked, because I had to work, and wasn't about to camp out in February for that...
This is the Soopers I frequent. It's sometimes pretty entertaining. Just watch out for customers fist-fighting trees in the parking lot!
100 years ago, this was a movie studio, soon to be an airplane factory, before becoming city hall, after being an amusement park...
Here is Health One Occupational Medicine and Rehabilitation Center. While looking like your basic single story health clinic from the outside, the interior gives away this building's previous life as a grocery store. Safeway operated out of this space from the early 1950's, until the early 1980's, when their new store was built two blocks southeast. The front of the building was redone, but the inside still has the arched ceiling style common to grocery stores of that era. Although I don't think Safeway had a pool. And if it did, why did they ever move from here?
Before the Masons used this building, this was the location of the old Lowell Elementary School. Lowell Elementary was built in 1910, and held classes until 1956, before it was purchased and reused by the Masons. I could find no information clearing up my question weather the Masons demolished the Lowell School building and built new, or if the large grey marble rectangle was the result of a massive renovation of the existing school building.
Several years ago, the Masons moved out, leaving the large grey marble rectangle to sit and decay. The Masons first planned to redevelop the site, which did not happen. Ownership of the property was eventually transferred to private groups. The beautiful and weathered grey marble slate building had been sitting vacant since at least 2007, but likely a lot earlier... I couldn't find out when it was abandoned.
At the time I took the is, I thought this small medical office across the street from the Mason's Temple was being prepped for demolition...
In case you were wondering what was in the vacant lot in the right side of newer bigger Swedish picture, just a few months ago, it was this... One of the last old brick buildings that housed hospital related goods and services; a few restaurants and a flower shop. The types of things that makes sense to be in the neighborhood of a major hospital. And Swedish definitely is that... All of those businesses closed several years ago, and this has been sitting empty ever since.
Across Hampden Aveune from Swedish, the south side of street was once lined by old brick buildings. I used to deliver pizza to some of the crusty old apartments and bars that were here 20 years ago. After the demolition of this building in December 2017, all that now exists across the street from Swedish Hospital is parking lots...
This hole in the ground was a Bally's Fitness Center. Bally's closed this location in early 2001 when the new -and four times larger- location opened at the former Cinderella City mall, twelve or so blocks west of here. I'm pretty sure there was a pool inside this building, given the additional sunken pit, and despite it's rather small footprint.
After Bally's closed, they never bothered to board up the glass front entrance. While I never photographed it (and regret that now), I remember driving by often and sneaking a quick look inside from Hampden. The glass doors were dirty and cracked, but I knew that if I would just pull over and go look, I could probably see a great deal of what was left behind. But I never did. For over 10 years, I turned down every opportunity to get some cool pictures of a building I saw daily. Bally's was finally demolished in August 2012. This was a shot of the Bally's land on X-mess 2013.
The likely pool divot was filled in and the land was used as a construction staging area while Swedish Hospital grew additional multiple stories. Once that construction was completed on Swedish, construction began on Rite Aid, which opened in January 2017.
Driving south on Clarkson, past my old home at Kenyon, I turned onto the new access road to the new Englewood High School on Lehigh Ave. There's Kenyon through the fence and across some soccer fields.
The new road takes you to a small parking lot behind the football stadium. I shot a few pictures here, then drove around to the front. Thsee stands would be demolished and rebuilt as part of the overall reconfiguration of the entire Englewood High School, over the next year.
In a 2011 election, Englewood passed a bond issue that would allow for a completely rebuilt high school and middle school, all housed in the same campus. Phase one had just been completed in November 2013, when the students moved from the old high school, a few hundred feet north into the new school.
Englewood high school along Mansfield Ave. I drove this route nearly every day for seven years. Going from my apartment, south, then west to Broadway. I was very familiar with seeing those blue panels and windows facing the street, as I drove by the south facing glass hallway.
Demolition has begun on the southwest corner of the school, less than a month after it held it's last class. Front doors look to be next to get munched.
I parked and walked around the south and west sides of the school. So far, only the front offices were gone, with some sad empty book shelves left behind...
The older section of the soon to be demolished Englewood High School had most of the windows knocked out, but appeared to be ready for class in all other aspects...
It was a little after noon now, and I still took the long way to get there. Going south on Clarkson Avenue into Litlleton, then around Littleton Blvd, back to the first King Soopers of that day...
Snapped a picture of the Littleton High School (that was NOT being demolished, or related to Columbine) football field, with bright green astroturf.
Between the two parts of my X-mess 2103 story, I glossed over a whole lot of great locations that demand more attention...
Almost everything mentioned here has been photographed on multiple occasions, and have future stories planned for them that will cover more details.
As I prepare to move on into the new year, I'm consolidating the massive card collection. The other night, I found a whole unscanned album of 1969-1981 Montreal Expos cards. I've got a lot scanning and packing to do as I prepare to relocate nearly the entire card collection over the next couple of weeks...
In leaving Fan Fair, I was changing direction to drive about 7 miles west to Gates Rubber Factory. From here, taking Colfax to Broadway would have been the easiest path to take...
But I had other things I wanted to see along a different route.
So south we go!
I missed out on getting pictures of this abandoned car dealership on the way to Fan Fair. While I'd hoped to have been able to snap a full lot picture, so there would be some perspective and context to the image, I was able to get a decently focused shot of the main driveways and sales office/showroom.
When I drove down Havana St. a week ago, I missed getting an updated shot here. It has since been re-opened as another used car lot; Tynan's Preowned. The building in the picture has been given a makeover, and the property looks well taken care of.
So yay... Happy ending...
I distinctly remember some abandoned retail store located here twenty years ago. It was a large off-tan box with few windows... I do not remember what it was.
Since leaving Fan Fair, I'd been getting a low battery light on my camera. I'd only brought along two sets of AAs, and had already used the first pair at Southglenn. With a lot of targets still on my list for today, I was going to need more batteries... I first stopped at an open gas station by the closing Blockbuster to use the restroom and buy some more batteries. I accomplished the first one of those tasks, but they were sold out of AA's.
Well, shitty...
Quick inventory before I get back on the road: Batteries... Lotto tickets... Camera case from 1994... Cold beverage... Safeway bag (with smokes inside)... Hand towels...
Okay... I'm ready to go!
Man... I've wasted too many hours of my life waiting at this stoplight...
Once it finally turns green, you can make your left turn for a few blocks of southbound Havana before it turns back into Hampden. You'll know you're here because of the massive waste of available land that is the Kennedy Gold Course...
Driving range...
And the landmark castle of the min-gold course!
Tracing my steps back on Hampden avenue westward to Colorado Boulevard, you'll pass a buncha locations that once had some degree of significance.
Even if I hated them...
In 2013, the club pictured here as GLO, was named Pitchers. Pitchers had been multiple differently named similar clubs since it stopped being Pitchers. I hated Pitchers...
Five years ago, it had been just Glo. That place had recently closed and was undergoing renovation when I drove by on X-mess 2013.
Today it's the Golden Pyramid Social Club. Fancy name for an overpriced hookah bar...
And the Crystal Rose, where my job held a few X-Mess parties (back when they still did X-Mess parties) is now a...
Yak & Yeti...
Office DepotMax was chopped off the end of the Village Square East Shopping Center, demolished, and is now a Cube Smart Self Storage. I bought a lot of stuff at this Office DepotMax 20 or so years ago, and may have even printed an issue of Wasted Quarter here. I didn't get a picture of it in 2013, but Office DepotMax was already gone by then.
Continuing down Hampden, past the areas I talked about last week, to where it crosses I-25...
Here's a look down the northbound on ramp on X-mess 2013...
And here's a similar view from May 1997...
The whole Hampden/I-25 ramp/overpass combo have been widened and completely redone...
There's no light rail the the west side of the freeway in 1997...
You can see downtown Denver in 1997, but you can't in 2013...
I-25 is a lot narrower in 1997...
The crappy apartments on the right side of the picture are still being lived in and haven't yet been demolished in favor of the newer crappy apartments that are still being built in 2013...
Thanks T-Rex!
Continuing west on Hampden in 2013, we are about to come across an abandoned building regret of mine...
The former Amoco on Hampden and Happy Canyon!
While I never took the time to pull over and give it a proper walk around, I made another attempt at a drive-by photo, two weeks later for my follow up visit to Fan Fair... This would have been a great shot had the wet slushy road conditions not smeared up the Honksicle windshield...
(The Safeway behind the station closed in 2015.)
Yeah, I needed to put in the effort on this place...
Amoco was demolished in favor of a retail tri-plex featuring Mvmt Pilates, GrabbaGreen and Dunkin Donuts, in 2015.
A few more blocks west, is the turn north on Colorado Blvd. One of the busiest streets in the city, densely packed with both retail and residential, it has really become gentrified over the last twenty years....
After a few blocks of houses, just north of the Wellshire Golf Course, Colorado Blvd spills into all sorts of retail for several miles.
Last Spring, I was surprised to see that Beau Jo's Pizza closed their restaurant at Colorado and Yale. I snapped some pictures of it in October of this year, shortly before the demolition fence was put up.
The sign for the University Hills Plaza is one of the few remaining tall marquee style signs left along Colorado Blvd.
The Welshire Plaza features another.
In places all along Colorado Blvd., you can still find significant old signs for businesses that are long gone. Dolly Madison hasn't operated a dairy store here in decades, but their old sign is still here!
Dolly Madison's old sign's life continues on in 2017. Outlasting the Damascus Restaurant that can be seen as open in 2013...
Behind Diamond Shamrock, and Crown Burgers behind that, sat the Criterion Shopping Center.
In addition to Crown and the Criterion, there were several restaurants, a nursery, gas station/car wash, liquor store, dry cleaners and a night club that burned down in a 2015 fire....
Luxury Apartments are sprouting from the graves of these businesses, located on a very busy set of cross streets in south Denver. I find it surprising that not all the old businesses were forced off the block, given the high value of this chunk of land.
There will be a lengthy story on this site about the entire block at the southeast corner of Colorado Blvd. and Evans Avenue at some point...
Some not-so-subtle racism in Colorado Blvd. signage...
Dave and Busters was a place I enjoyed going to 20 years ago. Now it's an intimidating clash of loud noises and colors and people and chaos. I think I'm just too old for that variety of sensory overload. Plus, I don't drink anymore. I bet that would help... It did 20 years ago...
Underneath where I took this picture, is I-25!
This IHOP used to be a Village Inn 20 years ago... Village Inn moved a block south years back. You can see it in the I-25 picture...
Here's Second Spin! One of the few used & new CD/DVD/Video Game retailers left in town, Second Spin always had a great selection and was a fun place to waste some time. I've sold a bunch of stuff here over the years, and bought a few things here as well.
And here's Second Spin five years later... It's nice when you can count on the things that you like sticking around and being...
Wait, what's that on the roof?
DAMAT!!!
The Belcaro Motel is one of the few remaining dirtball motels left along Colorado Blvd. There are a great deal of chain hotels in multi-story towers up and down the corridor. But the Belcaro has character! And a bunch of negative reviews online!
A few blocks north of the Belcaro Motel is the Becaro Shopping Center, featuring another King Soopers!
Across the street is the home of one of the locations of Mile High Comics. I'm sure that name may be familiar to some readers.
Just north of those two businesses is both the current and former home of Shotgun Willie's. A long running notorious titty bar in the Glendale neighborhood of Denver. This building is the original Shotgun Willie's, which closed one month before this picture was taken.
This building was demolished in October 2014. I read a story in the Glendale News that as the building was being demolished, construction workers were rushing inside the collapsing building to grab hundreds of dollar bills that had lodged underneath the dance stages over the past 30 years.
I was inside the former Willie's once in 2000, for a friend's bachelor party. It was a standard titty bar...
The new Shotgun Willie's was built in the praking lot behind the old one. The new Willie's opened in November 2013. I've never been inside.
Despite Colorado Blvd. being high on my list of areas I wanted to get detailed pictures of, by the time I got there, I just wasn't as interested in stopping at multiple targets. The drive by snapshots worked well in some places, but not in others. Some day I plan on photographing the signs and storefronts, but that day wasn't X-Mess 2013.
Five years later, Colorado Blvd. has been adequately covered...
Turning off Colorado and onto Cherry Creek Drive, via Alameda Ave, I was planning a quick drive-by of the disgustingly upscale Cherry Creek Mall.
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I've only been inside the actual mall itself once. That was twenty years ago... I absolutely hated it.
In 2013, Safeway was the only store within eyeshot of Cherry Creek that I could even possibly relate to... I've bought a few groceries at this Safeway during my Colorado life. The last time I stopped in here was for a caffeinated beverage while out taking building photos. That probably would have been late 2016.
The next time I drove by with the intentions of stopping at Safeway, there were gates placed at all access points. The Cherry Creek Mall had gotten so full of itself that you now had to pay to park at the Safeway. I'm sure there was likely a refund of the parking fee if you bought food at Safeway...
But really? You have to pay to park there now?
Guess I'm not shopping there either...
X-Mess 2017...
Safeway has abandoned their Cherry Creek Mall store after 51 years. Closing up shop in October 2017, when the mall's owners terminated their lease.
Rumors of a 10+ story hotel being built where Safeway used to be are making the media rounds...
Cherry Creek sucks...
Meanwhile, back at X-Mess 2013, I was waiting for the stoplight at Cherry Creek Drive and 1st Avenue and directly in front of my car, an old branch of 1st Bank was being demolished. I snapped a couple of pictures while I waited for the light to change.
Five years later...
That small, single level, 1st Bank has grown all up into a big boy 8 story office building!
The thing I find most interesting is the banners in front of the bank never changed in five years...
A block to the east of the demolished 1st Bank was this vacant lot. Where another recently demolished building had given it's life...
So that this 13 story Luxury Apartment may live on in it's place...
There was one target at the Cherry Creek Mall that I had to get while I was up here. Even though it was bringing me to a part of town that I just can't stand, this was a picture of great significance to me. Especially on a day like X-Mess 2013...
I haven't been up here since 2006, I need to see what it became...
The Container Store!?
This is what you turned the legendary Tower Records into Cherry Creek?
At least I can say that I made it up for the traditional Holiday Tower Records on X-Mess for the first time since 2005...
Shortly after I moved to Colorado in 1996, I found that Denver had a Tower Records, and immediately found and loved the store. They were open until midnight, 365 days a year. My holiday tradition quickly became hanging out at Tower on every holiday, when nothing else was open.
Unfortunately I wont be looking at obscure collectables, music, books, zines, porno, VHS or any DVDs today because the retail chain of Tower Records filed for bankruptcy and closed all locations worldwide in 2006.
I wont even be looking at plastic tubs and shelving because it's X-Mess and they are closed. But The Container Store will reopen.
For old times sake, I exited the Cherry Creek Mall satellite buildings via my usual route around through the south parking entrance. Past John Elway's overpriced steak house...
Around Bed Bath & Beyond...
Which has now closed and is sitting empty... Nice label scars!
I can no longer get close to these buildings in 2017, as the parking entrances all have gates blocking access. How elitist do you have to get Cherry Creek? This whole area had a really gross vibe to it. The few minutes I was driving through the area, I was starting to expect the Blueberry Honksicle to be pulled over by fashion police for not belonging in that neighborhood. Driving through Cherry Creek felt even more disgusting than driving through Highlands Ranch!
My route used to end up at the back parking lot entrance. To the left is the mall parking ramp, next door to Nordstrom...
To the right is access to southbound University Avenue, and an escape route from the playground of the bluebloods... While leaving Tower, late one night in 2002, a truck in front of me in this very turn lane was at this intersection. Also waiting for the left turn light to change. For no reason, while it was still red, the truck kicked it into reverse and rammed the front end of this same car.
My car was fixed and the issue was resolved quickly, but that kind of served as an exclamation point on this shopping center.
Before breaking completely free of the Cherry Creek neighborhood, I took a quick photo of the Calvary Temple on the corner of University & Alameda. Have to say that I was pretty impressed that I managed to get the angle nearly perfect as I drove by.
Alameda Avenue was my intended turn anyway, and a route I used to take nearly every time I left Tower. An abrupt right turn after just a block or so of University, Alameda would bring me west to Logan avenue, which I would take south to my past home on Kenyon.
Got only a few drive by shots as I travelled the narrow two lane Alameda road. Traffic was starting to build, as it was almost 11am, and on street parking meant that I had to pay closer attention to where I was going. Photo taking was largely restricted to red lights only.
The intersection of Alameda and Logan St. is the home of a former grocery store (likely a Safeway) that had been cut apart into multiple storefronts. Today (and in 2013), Larkburger and Denver Gym & Fitness occupy the two largest storefronts...
Up until 2006, Blockbuster Video and Twist & Shout Records lived here. Twist & Shout moved to a larger and much nicer store up on Colfax, and we all know what happened to Blockbuster Video...
Unfortunately, my picture of the dancing homeless men on Alameda and Lincoln Street didn't turn out the way I'd hoped...
Five years later on the same corner, I did take a nice picture of what happens when an out of control vehicle veers off Alameda and up onto your porch!
One more block west from Lincoln is Broadway, where I would turn left to go south to my next planned stop.
The corner of Broadway and Virginia used to be the home of Caboose Hobbies. The long time Denver model train store had that sweet mural of a train breaking through the brick wall, was demolished in May 2017. The store closed the previous Fall when the building was sold. In the past few weeks, work has begun on building on this site. Not sure at this point what it will be...
Not long after the previous owners retired, some former employees opened a new store, named simply "Caboose". The new edition of the model train shop is located about ten miles west of Broadway, but on Alameda Ave.
Three blocks south of the former Caboose is the turn off for the Broadway/I-25 RTD light rail park and ride. Filled with hundreds of cars every day. Except today...
South of the RTD Lot was the rapidly disappearing remains of the giant Gates Rubber Company.
The Gates property has fascinated me since I moved to Denver. I would see it on every drive north on Broadway. I watched it slowly decay year by year. I used to bank at the on site credit union... I've watched parts of it disappear over the past decade, with new Luxury Apartments springing up in their place.
My friend even worked production on a terrible sci-fi alien zombie movie filmed inside the abandoned remains of Gates.
This place was awesome!
While I never had the balls to find a way inside, once I found out it was being demolished in November 2013, I made it a point to walk around the property at least once a week to take pictures of the structure. The demolition of the entire Gates factory took almost a full year. As new layers were peeled away from the massive structure, it allowed me to look inside what had driven me nuts with curiosity since 1996...
Once entering the RTD parking lots, there was a path that led underneath a light rail bridge, into an overflow parking lot that extended a good distance into the former Gates property. I could park back here and take great shots of the north end of the Gates buildings. Then a quick walk around to Broadway and down the sidewalk to get the east facing portions of the factory. Then around the southern edge of the block, towards the light rail tracks. A fence around the property would not allow you to go any further without breaking the law....
Hmmm... In 2017, a fence has been put up, blocking access to this parking lot...
When reading about the Gates demolition plan, the company in charge stated they hoped to clear ten sections (which they defined as the spaces between support beams) of four floors per week. This would keep them on schedule and leave the land clear in under a year from the start date (November 13, 2013).
As these sections fell, I loved seeing the arrangement of each level inside of Gates. How offices and production areas were laid out, stairwells, restrooms...
Or the elevator shaft that once killed an urban explorer...
Once I started walking around Gates once a week, taking pictures such as this, I was thinking that I needed some way to document it's falling better than a printed story in Wasted Quarter. Each week I was taking incredible pictures of ruins that would be gone forever in mere days. Even if I didn't have the best of format set up to pull this project off, I had to not waver in getting this material while I still could...
The demolition of Gates will not be an ignored regret!
The large hole on the left side of this picture is where the former front office building was located. It had been a large, mostly windowless, 4 story brick structure that extended out to Broadway. That was the first part of Gates to be demolished. I caught it completely by surprise aas I was driving north one morning, to get to downtown Denver.
Once the exterior walls (in this case, the basement) were peeled away, you could get awesome pictures of once hidden away Gates life, like this!
A wider shot of the suddenly exposed Gates basement.
Gates was built in segments, with multiple building additions spanning 1910, through the closure of the Gates factory in 1991. This was a newer addition on the south end, from the red brick structure in the middle.
The entrance to the southeast parking lot, looking north, towards Denver, behind the light rail bridge that I drove and walked under.
I didn't walk any further to the west today, since no demolition work was going on in that corner of the property. It was cold, so I chose to double back to my car, then continue south on Broadway. Up next was getting back to Englewood, to photograph my last few remaining subjects.
That damn little tree got in the way of a great shot of my favorite abandoned gas station in Denver. This old Sinclair station has never been open the entire time I've lived here. So, since at least 1996... It's a very well preserved example of 1940's style retail gas and service station architecture.
I have photographed this station a lot over the last few years, so this X-Mess 2013 shot doesn't have to be perfect.
After sitting empty (yet filled with trash) for decades, Sinclair received a massive renovation that stripped it down to it's outer walls and roof throughout this year. The former Sinclair became the Gates of 2017, with weekly photographs of the progress. It was really good to see the time and effort into turning the former Sinclair into this, without destroying the gas station and building something new on the land. They even saved, refurbished and are re-using the "inverted hockey stick" style property lights that Sinclair used.
Very much unlike the fate of the Broadway Motel, which closed in February 2017, and was demolished in April 2017. The iconic Broadway Motel sign was cut from it's base shortly after the motel closed, and was removed from the property before any pre-demolition prep work began. No idea what happened to it, but I would assume that meant it was being preserved by someone. Construction began on the Luxury Condopartments on the site, late last Summer.
In addition to taking pictures of abandoned buildings and collecting baseball cards, previous hobbies of mine included collecting old toys.
Specifically original 1980's Transformers...
Before Darrel took it over in the early 2000's, it had been a decent toy shop, that I dropped a few bucks at here and there. I'd not been to the store since it became Darrel's until once in 2010, when my friend was visiting from out of town. After a few seconds of looking around, a teenage kid working there asked what we were looking for. I said original G1 Transformers. He looked at me lost, and repeated the word back as if it was a question.
"Yeah... Transformers... The little robots that turned into cars and planes and stuff... You know, what your sign above your window is advertising that you carry..."
He continues looking baffled and suggests that I check their ebay store for stuff like that...
No thanks, I will just check the exit...
I never returned to Darrel's, and saw that it had closed in late 2016.
The building has since been turned into a women's consignment antique boutique...
Or something...
Gennaro's has good garlic knots...
Smoke Signals still looks like it's made of Fruit Stripe Gum...
Former Funtastic Fun's building was beginning asbestos removal to prepare for it's demolition in April 2014.
Today Funtastic Fun is a Chick Fil-A, which opened in February 2017.
The night before it opened, people filled the parking lot, camped out in tents, in hopes to be one of the first 100 or so customers when the restaurant first opens. Whenever a new Chick Fil-A opens, tradition is the first 100 (I think) customers get free food for a year. Not sure how it worked, because I had to work, and wasn't about to camp out in February for that...
But there they are...
King Soopers Englewood! Broadway and Floyd franchise!
This is the Soopers I frequent. It's sometimes pretty entertaining. Just watch out for customers fist-fighting trees in the parking lot!
100 years ago, this was a movie studio, soon to be an airplane factory, before becoming city hall, after being an amusement park...
And I used to buy cigarettes here...
Here is Health One Occupational Medicine and Rehabilitation Center. While looking like your basic single story health clinic from the outside, the interior gives away this building's previous life as a grocery store. Safeway operated out of this space from the early 1950's, until the early 1980's, when their new store was built two blocks southeast. The front of the building was redone, but the inside still has the arched ceiling style common to grocery stores of that era. Although I don't think Safeway had a pool. And if it did, why did they ever move from here?
They closed in 2016. It's still sitting empty today.
The former Masonic Temple in Englewood will definitely be a story posted here in the future...
Before the Masons used this building, this was the location of the old Lowell Elementary School. Lowell Elementary was built in 1910, and held classes until 1956, before it was purchased and reused by the Masons. I could find no information clearing up my question weather the Masons demolished the Lowell School building and built new, or if the large grey marble rectangle was the result of a massive renovation of the existing school building.
Several years ago, the Masons moved out, leaving the large grey marble rectangle to sit and decay. The Masons first planned to redevelop the site, which did not happen. Ownership of the property was eventually transferred to private groups. The beautiful and weathered grey marble slate building had been sitting vacant since at least 2007, but likely a lot earlier... I couldn't find out when it was abandoned.
The once glorious Englewood Masonic Temple was demolished very quickly in July 2015.
The property has since been turned into Luxury Senior Apartments.
I bet that dood in the lower left corner was irritated that I took a picture of him...
At the time I took the is, I thought this small medical office across the street from the Mason's Temple was being prepped for demolition...
But it was just getting a (pretty nice) renovation.
Here is Swedish Medical Center, a few blocks east. They saved my life... Twice...
It's also grown quite a bit vertically in the last five years...
In case you were wondering what was in the vacant lot in the right side of newer bigger Swedish picture, just a few months ago, it was this... One of the last old brick buildings that housed hospital related goods and services; a few restaurants and a flower shop. The types of things that makes sense to be in the neighborhood of a major hospital. And Swedish definitely is that... All of those businesses closed several years ago, and this has been sitting empty ever since.
Across Hampden Aveune from Swedish, the south side of street was once lined by old brick buildings. I used to deliver pizza to some of the crusty old apartments and bars that were here 20 years ago. After the demolition of this building in December 2017, all that now exists across the street from Swedish Hospital is parking lots...
Pretend for a moment there is a dingy dark brown brick building here...
After Bally's closed, they never bothered to board up the glass front entrance. While I never photographed it (and regret that now), I remember driving by often and sneaking a quick look inside from Hampden. The glass doors were dirty and cracked, but I knew that if I would just pull over and go look, I could probably see a great deal of what was left behind. But I never did. For over 10 years, I turned down every opportunity to get some cool pictures of a building I saw daily. Bally's was finally demolished in August 2012. This was a shot of the Bally's land on X-mess 2013.
The likely pool divot was filled in and the land was used as a construction staging area while Swedish Hospital grew additional multiple stories. Once that construction was completed on Swedish, construction began on Rite Aid, which opened in January 2017.
Driving south on Clarkson, past my old home at Kenyon, I turned onto the new access road to the new Englewood High School on Lehigh Ave. There's Kenyon through the fence and across some soccer fields.
The new road takes you to a small parking lot behind the football stadium. I shot a few pictures here, then drove around to the front. Thsee stands would be demolished and rebuilt as part of the overall reconfiguration of the entire Englewood High School, over the next year.
In a 2011 election, Englewood passed a bond issue that would allow for a completely rebuilt high school and middle school, all housed in the same campus. Phase one had just been completed in November 2013, when the students moved from the old high school, a few hundred feet north into the new school.
Englewood high school along Mansfield Ave. I drove this route nearly every day for seven years. Going from my apartment, south, then west to Broadway. I was very familiar with seeing those blue panels and windows facing the street, as I drove by the south facing glass hallway.
I love the orange "Stay Out" spraypainted across the doors to the business wing.
Demolition has begun on the southwest corner of the school, less than a month after it held it's last class. Front doors look to be next to get munched.
I parked and walked around the south and west sides of the school. So far, only the front offices were gone, with some sad empty book shelves left behind...
School's out forever!
The older section of the soon to be demolished Englewood High School had most of the windows knocked out, but appeared to be ready for class in all other aspects...
Rooms still had desks, dry erase boards and even stacks of books left behind on tables...
I guess that lesson plan is completed...
After I finished walking around, shooting up the high school, I got in my car and drove home.
It was a little after noon now, and I still took the long way to get there. Going south on Clarkson Avenue into Litlleton, then around Littleton Blvd, back to the first King Soopers of that day...
Snapped a picture of the Littleton High School (that was NOT being demolished, or related to Columbine) football field, with bright green astroturf.
I think you can see my apartment from here. But I'm not certain of the perspective...
******
Between the two parts of my X-mess 2103 story, I glossed over a whole lot of great locations that demand more attention...
Fear not!
I've got photos of hundreds of abandoned buildings, so I wont be running out any time soon...
As I prepare to move on into the new year, I'm consolidating the massive card collection. The other night, I found a whole unscanned album of 1969-1981 Montreal Expos cards. I've got a lot scanning and packing to do as I prepare to relocate nearly the entire card collection over the next couple of weeks...
Happy new year to all!
You would have loved what the Cherry Creek Mall area used to be in the 1980s and early 1990s before the movie theater and nearby old shops were torn down to build that snobby mall. I used to know the projector operator at the theater.
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