X-Mess 2013 - The Road To Fan Fair - Part 1
Five years ago today, it was X-Mess 2013. Laura was in Minnesota for the Holidays, just as she is today. That day, just like today, I'd made plans to drive around to a different part of town for photographs.
In late 2013, I'd really begun to get into taking pictures of Denver area urban decay. Spurred on by not only the gathering research for what would become WQ70: Abandoned Englewood, but the recent start of demolition of the massive Gates Rubber Company in Denver and the closure of the Columbine Shopping Center in Littleton.
The planned photography route for X-Mess morning 2013 had a specific theme; parts of town I frequented back in 1997-1999, when I was going to school in Aurora. Places I worked at, retail areas of significance, landmarks I specifically remembered and anything else that would illustrate the story I wanted to tell, with X-Mess as it's backdrop.
Plans for this specific voyage developed when a friend was visiting Denver in late November, 2013. I met him in the neighborhood where I used to go to school. It was later in the night, so it was dark when I picked him up, thus I couldn't take any pictures. But driving around that part of town again, brought back a bunch of memories that needed to be explored in the daylight...
Additions to my drive plan came a week before X-Mess, while driving Laura to the airport. I found more forgotten areas that I needed to photograph along that route. Both checklists were blended together for today's mission. I'd chosen early X-mess morning to do the odd shaped loop around southeast Denver, as I figured there would be less traffic on the roads, allowing me to get better pictures as I drove.
This day's photographs were all intended to become a featured story in a future issue of Wasted Quarter. I was already preparing the sequel to Abandoned Englewood, which was going to be titled "Abandoned Elsewhere".
The X-Mess morning 2013 photography mission lasted close to five hours, with well over 600 pictures taken. If this was still in the days of 35mm film, I could never have accomplished this without massive developing expense. This was a greatly expanded version of limited 35mm photo tours, I'd done in years past. Once the reigns were taken off, you could be a lot less discriminate in your point and click photo taking style.
As I edited each of them in Photoshop, I wrote this story in my notebook. It was transcribed to digital form less than a week later. Along with a preliminary cutting down of images. I'd hoped to print it in that issue before X-Mess 2014. I was aiming for the theme of: "Hey, this is what I did a year ago today..."
After only three hours of sleep, my alarm went off at 6:30am X-Mess morning. But I was not opening gifts... Within an hour, I was warming up the Honksicle for my pre-planned X-Mess 2013 Photo Tour.
The sun was still rising as I scraped the car windows. It was only 25 degrees this morning. Not a cloud in the sky, with the sun soon to be intensely bright, and in my face as I set out eastward for pictures...
Because I had procrastinated all of Tuesday when I should have washed the interior windows of cigarette smokey haze, I drove just south to the 7-11 on Broadway and Powers and did an acceptable job there. Windex freezing to the glass as I tried to wipe it away. They ended up a little streaky. After supplying up in the store, I set out for the first target, the not-yet closed King Soopers at Littleton Square. Two blocks south of 7-11
Laura told me a few weeks earlier that King Soopers would be closing and torn down. A sign announcing the closure had been posted when she stopped there for groceries. The closest King Soopers would be undergoing the same rebuilding project as the Belleview and Federal store received, two years earlier. Which makes good sense, this store is small and sorely outdated. But it would knock this store off the map for a year. Which kind of sucked...
I needed to get pictures of that and the rest of Littleton Village before it was gone. There always being tons of cars in front of it, today would be the best time for doing it, being a rare day that it would be closed.
This Soopers location closed for a good a few weeks later, and demolition began in early March, 2014.
Which will likely be covered here at some point in the future...
A new Soopersier Soopers opened on January 28, 2015. Bringing back a whole lot more convenience to my life.
Immediately north of King Soopers was a Walgreens that closed in 2010. Other than a Halloween store that rented the space for a few months every fall, the former drug store sat empty until it's 2014 demolition. Years later, you could still see a slight Walgreens label scar left behind. The temporary Halloween Store left it's own label scar, including a sweet distinct WEEN in the middle of the facade.
The north side of Littleton Square was being used by a church, H&R Block and a liquor store amongst other empty storefronts. After closing, the Apostolic Church moved three blocks west, into a long vacant building facing Littleton Blvd. H&R Block moved to a vacant store in the south wing. The drive through liquor store on the northwest corner closed in November 2013.
The former King Soopers gas station closed on January 31st, 2014, and was demolished September 19, 2014. I probably used the King Soopers gas station more than the grocery store itself. Built in 2006, to replace a Conoco on the south side of Littleton Blvd. The new station didn't have a retail store. Pay at the pump or the window only. You can get a car wash, but no snacks. I appreciated the simplicity. The newest gas station doesn't have a car wash.
From Littleton Square, I drove Broadway south to Arapahoe Ave. Driving that route leaves me feeling bad that I've missed the removal of many old buildings along this stretch of Broadway. Over the last seven years, almost every building has been replaced on the east side. Car dealerships expanded operations, taking over nearly everything available. Buildings of any degree of aesthetic beauty were flattened for more steel and glass showrooms for Jaguars and BMWs. The sun blinded pictures I took of this area today were nowhere near as cool as they would have been in 2007.
I put new batteries in as the left turn arrow was red. Good timing on my part to finish in time for a nice shot looking south on Broadway at Arapahoe Road, just as the green arrow blipped over.
For a mile or so, I drove east into the blazingly cold morning sun, towards whatever they turned Southglenn Mall into; the Shops at Southglenn. Mixed use residential/retail overpriced grossness... I turned right onto High street, driving behind the stores and parking ramp, and into the former mall land at the south entrance by Sears.
When the mall was demolished in 2005, the Sears building on the south end was the only part of the mall saved from the original structure. Which was of course made of styrofoam, and just blew around the state until it landed here. It's fun to use old in-jokes from 1997, as if anyone reading now would get them!
The new Hollywood Theater at Southglenn is located approximately where the old JC Penney store previous stood.
I don't have any pictures of the original Southglenn shopping mall. But a search online turned up that image of the Southglenn JC Penney's building being demolished in 2005.
I drove my car up and down the streets of the new mixed use residential/retail zone, which bares zero resemblance to what Southglenn looked like in the early days of my Colorado life.
Back then I worked across University avenue at the Cherry Knolls Phillips 66. This photo was taken in October 1996, days before the gas station I was to be employed at would even open for business.
After I quit working down here in 1997, I never liked to go back to the Southglenn area. That part of Colorado has never clicked with me... Bad times... (Photo from May 1997)
Gas station life is always quality, but Colorado 99 Skick was no Crapids 99 Spillihp... However, i did get a tremendous amount of notebook writing done during my uberdead graveyard shifts... (Photo from May 1997)
Today it is a Shell gas station, and looks very different but still the same building. I didn't take any photos of my old job or stop in this time. This photo is from June, 2013.
I finished up shooting the shiny new non-mall buildings of Southglenn, then drove across University Avenue at Easter avenue, noting the old Amoco gas station on the corner had closed. A rather long time ago from it's appearances... Yaaaayyyy!
Southglenn Mall was on the west side of University, the east side housed the Cherry Knolls shopping center. Which has undergone a hefty renovation in the past decade. Even more than this new sign!
Up until it's closure in 2007, this side was anchored by an antiquated Safeway store. I used to grab stuff there in the morning after my gas station shifts. Their space is now split between Party City and Natural Grocers.
Most were occupied, with the notable vacancy in the former Famous Music store. This was a great place for used CD's, video games and movies back in the day.
After Famous closed in 1999, the building was mostly used by AT&T until they were mergered out of existence. You can see a faint faded Century Link placard in the Cherry Knolls sign if you look really really really really close...
Famous Music and the 99 Skick in October 1996... Moments after the picture from the intersection was taken...
Continuing my journey east into the sun, via Arapahoe Road, memories of gas station past swirling through my head, over the hills and through rows of identical suburban houses to Arapahoe Village...
A grotesque upscale cluster of retail, that serves a more affluent palette... I hate these people in this part of town... The Orchards was the former home of the Wild Oats natural grocery store, that I spent two months butcherizing meat at, between August and October, 1997.
This was my transition job between 99 Skick and Azzip Tuh. I was a terrible meat cutter, and would spend much of my shift scribbling out little Honkass notes all over whatever paper I could find...
The Alfalfa's/Wild Oats chain merged and was sold and then soldmerged and now exists as only a brand name for Whole Foods. The transition of ownership was hard to follow, so I gave up because I really don't care...
This store eventually became yet another King Soopers! Also closed today, thanks to X-Mess! My pictures of the building did not turn out at all thanks to the bright sun getting in the way of all angles. This picture was taken December 23rd, 2017. But doesn't look greatly different from the sun ruined 2013 pictures...
The Loaf n' Jug gas station at the entrance is a chain that is owned by Kroger. Kroger also owns King Soopers. So you will often see Loaf n' Jug stations very close to King Soopers. Their points for fuel discounts are very generous, so they've won my brand loyalty.
Back in 1997, this was an Amoco station. I have an old fashions dot matrix printed Amoco receipt from a mid-shift need for non-organic snacks, but it faded to the point where it looks like a blank Amoco credit card receipt that hadn't been used.
Other than the anchor change, the whole complex looked nearly the same as it did 16 years earlier. Tracing my steps from my Colorado beginnings made me thankful that my life no longer resembled what it did 16 years earlier...
Up north on Holly to Belleview avenue, then right turn east yet again to a left turn on Monaco Street. Where I could bypass this whole area and drive towards Micro Center at the very north edge of DTC.
I was driving in this area a lot back in 1997-2003, as Micro Center was the best place to look for Mac supplies, keeping FrankenMac going. It also was on the route from Platt to Wild Oats, so I would drive by daily after class and before meat cutting...
This area has changed drastically. Tall sprawling mega-partment complexes cover the landscape of vacant fields that I remembered from not so long ago. DTC keeps this area from dying, yet it has appeared old and run down since I've been coming here. The shopping center maintains a high occupancy, but it's got some oddball stores instead of just your usual chain fare.
With the cool buffalo mural etched into the concrete sound barrier, before it opens up to the RTD Park & Ride, Regal Cinemas and...
That's at the corner of Monaco and Hampden. So observe that before turning right and east all the way to Havana street in Aurora. Few businesses along this stretch of Hampden are the same from my 1997-1999 daily commute to Platt, but the same buildings are mostly still standing.
With the exception of the No Frills Grill. This bar and grill was a favorite of mine and several friends in the late 1990's, for their great buffalo burgers and bunches of crazy crap stuck to the walls. Which went well with ample pitchers of beer and darts or a not so level pool table... The No Frills Grill was demolished in 2004. Today, it's a Qdoba.
Skipping forward now to where Hampden turns north and becomes Havana street... We'll cover those missing areas on our way back.
The Hampden/Havana transition curve area looks exactly the same as it did 15 years ago. The golf course is still there, as is the driving range and mini-golf course. With I-225 and the Cherry Creek Dam Road lurking behind and above...
The right turn on Dartmouth now features this 7-11/Conoco/Car Wash conglomeration, which was not here in 1997. I don't remember what was on the corner back then...
Just up Dartmouth sits the Fairways Shopping Center, featuring the Blue Nile Xpress Mart. Often a quick stop on my way to classes for cigarettes and/or caffeinated beverages... They used to sell gas here, but the pumps had long been removed. This where I would get gas sometimes because the 7-11/Conoco/Car Wash conglomeration hadn't been built yet...
Continuing east on Dartmouth, past the One Dartmouth Place apartments, where Amy with the big Hooters used to live, is the intersection of Dartmouth and South Parker Road. And the building for why I drove all the way out here today...
Many early mornings I drove up the slight incline to stop at the red light before going on to park the Vanilla Honksicle in front of Platt College. I attended class here 3-5 days a week, from 7am to noon, from April 1997 to February 1999. That and $40,000 got me an Associate's degree...
That building is the same as it was in 1997, but the sign now reads "Platt Nursing College". When I attended, Platt was all about graphic design. Then the Dot Com bubble burst and they realized they couldn't use the "be creative" pawn to sell perspective student on their program. So they started a nursing program alongside the graphic design program... That really doesn't seem quite right to me...
Today the medical industry is a much hotter field, so lets just drastically change the focus of the school, scrap that graphic design nonsense and pretend we are now experts at medical care. Makes me feel very confident in my degree... I wonder if the next few years will see the birth of Platt Fracking College?
When our class attended here between 1997-1999, we quickly gained a reputation as the wildest the school had ever seen. The large square planter was placed on the corner of the sidewalk specifically because our class would be out smoking and kicking a hacky sack multiple times each morning. Irritating the other businesses that were leasing the first floor of the building...
At one point they tried to shift us from the front of the building to the side entrance. Which didn't work at all... It was easier for us to get back upstairs in time to attend design classes, that would allow me to create such masterpieces as this...
A theme restaurant based on eating in my apartment! With my cleverly designed "Happy Stomach Guy" logo! Pancakes are seasonal!
I sat on the hood of my car in the parking lot and lit a cigarette after snapping pictures around the large parking lot. The Safeway that closed in 1997 is now split in two, half being a Dollar Tree, and the other half being an ARC Thrift Store.
Surveying the area and looking east down Parker, the Wendy's, Shell gas and Star of India are still operating as they were in 1997, but the awesome bagel place is gone. It's now a T-Mobile Store...
Sitting on my car reflecting on those days gone by brought an idea into my head: What about that bizarre massive abandoned domey building north on Havana? I wonder if that is still there? If so, I must have pictures of it!
Way back in the day, a friend in our class lived just south of Havana and Colfax in Aurora. Not the safest of Denver neighborhoods, but why not? Myself and others would sometimes go up to his house and party after classes got out. And sometimes pass out there until scary late hours in the night...
Those days always started off at the Hooters a few blocks west of Platt, sometimes more drinking at the Stampede cowboy bar or Pitchers shitty bar, before we would carpool up to Joe's house for more drinking and smoking fun times in a tiny run down white stucco house, in a really gross part of town. On the drive there, a large white cement building set a ways back off Havana, stood mysterious and sealed up. Asking a friend in the car once, I was told it had been a Target store that closed many years ago. For years, I accepted that information as truth. I could picture the building as clear as day, but I didn't remember where it was exactly....
We used to drink a lot of beer at this Hooters... Like in June, 1998! One day I carved Platt into this table with my car keys. I have a picture of it, but it's really blurry, so I opted for beer instead...
After snapping a shot of our Hooters on South Parker Road, I drove north on Havana which I wasn't nearly as familiar with.
The further north I drove, the less I recognized. I remembered this part of town as being very run down, but everything now looked pretty revitalized. Later research told me that this area had been undergoing a massive makeover during the last five years. The city of Aurora was making a large effort in cleaning up Havana street. Amongst the biggest gentrification plans saw the Buckingham Square Mall recently torn down and replaced by shiny new lifestyle centers.
But as I continued north, I found a few more boarded up store fronts. Even found a Blockbuster Video that was still open, though only for a few more days...
Everything seemingly was brand new, until I drove north of Alameda avenue. I didn't know where the abandoned bubbley domey building I was looking for was. It felt like it would be close, but it easily could have been torn down years ago, just like most of the old stuff in the area had been.
I turned onto the property and parked behind a run down looking liquor store, with the coincidental name, on the northeast corner of the property and surveyed what had already been done.
I later read that demolition had begun the week before with a small ceremony by the city of Aurora. Wish I'd have known... Even though I didn't get photos of the Fan Fair building fully intact, but this is still very cool for me to get these pictures!
The northern third of the building was already gone, exposing the vast open darkness inside. Given the light and sun conditions of the day, it was very difficult to see inside the dark cavernous structure. The floors were bulldozed down to the bare concrete. The exterior support beams were still standing, yet supporting nothing.
Temporary security fencing was holding me back from getting any better shots from where I was. The same temporary security fencing was still standing five years later.
Looking south, I found that I could move my car to the bonus abandoned gas station in front of Fan Fair, park and and get a lot closer. It would be easier to walk around to the back of the property as well.
Luckily I made it here before the front entrance was smashed apart. I was able to get some good clear photographs of the former front doorway and the strange art of the walls above it.
From my new parking space, on the north side of Woody's Wings, I walked to the south end of the building and around the back and north to the other side.
In doing some online research, I found this structure was originally built in 1961 as a giant indoor shopping center, named Fan Fair Discount City. The date of this advertisement is unknown.
After a couple of years of great success, Fan Fair quickly flopped due to mismanagement and a litany of problems. The store closed in 1965.
The building was leased by Western Electric in 1969, and would be used as their offices and training center until 1983. The Fan Fair building was then closed for good and would sit empty until 2013.
In 2013, the city of Aurora finally decided to demolish the structure. After nearly 30 years of sitting empty, besides people breaking in to squat or trash the place, it had filled to near waist deep in places with dead animals, bird shit and garbage. At one point it was rumored that a pack of wild dogs lived inside the structure.
I found this picture of the inside of Fan Fare once the structure had been cleared of asbestos and all the decaying nastiness. This picture was taken likely days before demolition began. Once it was shined up a bit, Fan Fair looked really cool inside...
I walked around the southwest corner of Fan Fair, getting photos from all angles. The building did and still does fascinate me...
Including all the open doorways in the back. Around ten of them, and that's only the parts that hadn't already been demolished. To anyone who wanted to try throughout the years, Fan Fair was reportedly very easy to break into...
Someone left a pair of dirty maroon underwear in the street. Whenever I see something like this while out photo taking, I always want to know the story that led up to this...
The interesting artwork at the front entrance was commissioned specifically for the Fan Fair shopping center, when it was built. It was called "The Dance", and could still be seen as the building around it was being destroyed.
In an unbelievable coincidence, a door in the back of the building was left open enough to look directly across the open building and see a glimpse of the artwork from inside Fan Fair. I would have expected this artwork to be destroyed the very next day the workers came back to the site.
I have to once again credit the amazing coincidence of randomly remembering Fan Fair just in time for these pictures, after not thinking of it for well over a decade.
Too bad no one could find a use for this place in over 30 years of neglect. People looked into it over the last 15 years, but the cost of refurbishing Fan Fair into something functional today just didn't make enough sense I guess...
I made plans to get back here in the next week to see what was still standing at that point, but work overtime and an ill-timed snowstorm cancelled those plans until only half of the back wall was left.
Before getting back to the car, I snapped a bunch of pictures of the abandoned gas station before getting back in the car to go back south for other legs of my photo tour. The next goal for today was weaving around to Gates Rubber Factory, to continue documenting it's demise across town.
A quaint little boarded up gas station, that didn't appear to have been closed for all that long a period of time. Old and minimal, this space packs a lot of charm into non-pretentious petroleum dispensing...
This abandoned gas station stole my heart and quickly became one of my all time favorite abandoned gas stations... I didn't know if it was scheduled for the same demolition as Fan Fair was...
Mile High Gas (as it is now called) sunk a few bucks into refurbishing the place... They took this plain wall, with multiple different coverings, (and anti-graffiti paint bucket on the roof) and turned it into this...
Meanwhile, back in 2013, I took one final look at a fairly intact Fan Fair, then back southbound on Havana, towards the other parts of Denver on my X-Mess 2013 photo needs list...
On December 10, 2017, I drove back out to Fan Fair, to see what the city of Aurora had done with the highly valuable chunk of land over the last five years...
In late 2013, I'd really begun to get into taking pictures of Denver area urban decay. Spurred on by not only the gathering research for what would become WQ70: Abandoned Englewood, but the recent start of demolition of the massive Gates Rubber Company in Denver and the closure of the Columbine Shopping Center in Littleton.
The planned photography route for X-Mess morning 2013 had a specific theme; parts of town I frequented back in 1997-1999, when I was going to school in Aurora. Places I worked at, retail areas of significance, landmarks I specifically remembered and anything else that would illustrate the story I wanted to tell, with X-Mess as it's backdrop.
Plans for this specific voyage developed when a friend was visiting Denver in late November, 2013. I met him in the neighborhood where I used to go to school. It was later in the night, so it was dark when I picked him up, thus I couldn't take any pictures. But driving around that part of town again, brought back a bunch of memories that needed to be explored in the daylight...
Additions to my drive plan came a week before X-Mess, while driving Laura to the airport. I found more forgotten areas that I needed to photograph along that route. Both checklists were blended together for today's mission. I'd chosen early X-mess morning to do the odd shaped loop around southeast Denver, as I figured there would be less traffic on the roads, allowing me to get better pictures as I drove.
This day's photographs were all intended to become a featured story in a future issue of Wasted Quarter. I was already preparing the sequel to Abandoned Englewood, which was going to be titled "Abandoned Elsewhere".
The X-Mess morning 2013 photography mission lasted close to five hours, with well over 600 pictures taken. If this was still in the days of 35mm film, I could never have accomplished this without massive developing expense. This was a greatly expanded version of limited 35mm photo tours, I'd done in years past. Once the reigns were taken off, you could be a lot less discriminate in your point and click photo taking style.
As I edited each of them in Photoshop, I wrote this story in my notebook. It was transcribed to digital form less than a week later. Along with a preliminary cutting down of images. I'd hoped to print it in that issue before X-Mess 2014. I was aiming for the theme of: "Hey, this is what I did a year ago today..."
But that never happened...
So now in a completely different format, I present to you:
5 Year Anniversary of the writing of the X-Mess 2013 Photo Tour: The Road to Fan Fair!
With updates that were only possible by ignoring this story for 5 years!
(Where applicable, including the pieces from this story that were printed in Abandoned Englewood.)
Have some birds...
******
Wednesday, December 25th, 2013:
After only three hours of sleep, my alarm went off at 6:30am X-Mess morning. But I was not opening gifts... Within an hour, I was warming up the Honksicle for my pre-planned X-Mess 2013 Photo Tour.
The sun was still rising as I scraped the car windows. It was only 25 degrees this morning. Not a cloud in the sky, with the sun soon to be intensely bright, and in my face as I set out eastward for pictures...
Because I had procrastinated all of Tuesday when I should have washed the interior windows of cigarette smokey haze, I drove just south to the 7-11 on Broadway and Powers and did an acceptable job there. Windex freezing to the glass as I tried to wipe it away. They ended up a little streaky. After supplying up in the store, I set out for the first target, the not-yet closed King Soopers at Littleton Square. Two blocks south of 7-11
Laura told me a few weeks earlier that King Soopers would be closing and torn down. A sign announcing the closure had been posted when she stopped there for groceries. The closest King Soopers would be undergoing the same rebuilding project as the Belleview and Federal store received, two years earlier. Which makes good sense, this store is small and sorely outdated. But it would knock this store off the map for a year. Which kind of sucked...
I needed to get pictures of that and the rest of Littleton Village before it was gone. There always being tons of cars in front of it, today would be the best time for doing it, being a rare day that it would be closed.
This Soopers location closed for a good a few weeks later, and demolition began in early March, 2014.
Which will likely be covered here at some point in the future...
A new Soopersier Soopers opened on January 28, 2015. Bringing back a whole lot more convenience to my life.
Immediately north of King Soopers was a Walgreens that closed in 2010. Other than a Halloween store that rented the space for a few months every fall, the former drug store sat empty until it's 2014 demolition. Years later, you could still see a slight Walgreens label scar left behind. The temporary Halloween Store left it's own label scar, including a sweet distinct WEEN in the middle of the facade.
The north side of Littleton Square was being used by a church, H&R Block and a liquor store amongst other empty storefronts. After closing, the Apostolic Church moved three blocks west, into a long vacant building facing Littleton Blvd. H&R Block moved to a vacant store in the south wing. The drive through liquor store on the northwest corner closed in November 2013.
The former King Soopers gas station closed on January 31st, 2014, and was demolished September 19, 2014. I probably used the King Soopers gas station more than the grocery store itself. Built in 2006, to replace a Conoco on the south side of Littleton Blvd. The new station didn't have a retail store. Pay at the pump or the window only. You can get a car wash, but no snacks. I appreciated the simplicity. The newest gas station doesn't have a car wash.
From Littleton Square, I drove Broadway south to Arapahoe Ave. Driving that route leaves me feeling bad that I've missed the removal of many old buildings along this stretch of Broadway. Over the last seven years, almost every building has been replaced on the east side. Car dealerships expanded operations, taking over nearly everything available. Buildings of any degree of aesthetic beauty were flattened for more steel and glass showrooms for Jaguars and BMWs. The sun blinded pictures I took of this area today were nowhere near as cool as they would have been in 2007.
Then my camera batteries died...
I put new batteries in as the left turn arrow was red. Good timing on my part to finish in time for a nice shot looking south on Broadway at Arapahoe Road, just as the green arrow blipped over.
For a mile or so, I drove east into the blazingly cold morning sun, towards whatever they turned Southglenn Mall into; the Shops at Southglenn. Mixed use residential/retail overpriced grossness... I turned right onto High street, driving behind the stores and parking ramp, and into the former mall land at the south entrance by Sears.
When the mall was demolished in 2005, the Sears building on the south end was the only part of the mall saved from the original structure. Which was of course made of styrofoam, and just blew around the state until it landed here. It's fun to use old in-jokes from 1997, as if anyone reading now would get them!
The new Hollywood Theater at Southglenn is located approximately where the old JC Penney store previous stood.
I don't have any pictures of the original Southglenn shopping mall. But a search online turned up that image of the Southglenn JC Penney's building being demolished in 2005.
I drove my car up and down the streets of the new mixed use residential/retail zone, which bares zero resemblance to what Southglenn looked like in the early days of my Colorado life.
At least the post office looks the same as it did in 1996... It's a hell of a lot busier too...
Southglenn Classic had no such signage...
Back then I worked across University avenue at the Cherry Knolls Phillips 66. This photo was taken in October 1996, days before the gas station I was to be employed at would even open for business.
After I quit working down here in 1997, I never liked to go back to the Southglenn area. That part of Colorado has never clicked with me... Bad times... (Photo from May 1997)
Gas station life is always quality, but Colorado 99 Skick was no Crapids 99 Spillihp... However, i did get a tremendous amount of notebook writing done during my uberdead graveyard shifts... (Photo from May 1997)
Today it is a Shell gas station, and looks very different but still the same building. I didn't take any photos of my old job or stop in this time. This photo is from June, 2013.
I finished up shooting the shiny new non-mall buildings of Southglenn, then drove across University Avenue at Easter avenue, noting the old Amoco gas station on the corner had closed. A rather long time ago from it's appearances... Yaaaayyyy!
(From behind) That place was hopping back in 1996.
Today it's the home of Chase Bank. Boooooo....
Southglenn Mall was on the west side of University, the east side housed the Cherry Knolls shopping center. Which has undergone a hefty renovation in the past decade. Even more than this new sign!
Up until it's closure in 2007, this side was anchored by an antiquated Safeway store. I used to grab stuff there in the morning after my gas station shifts. Their space is now split between Party City and Natural Grocers.
The rest of the center was a bunch of smaller outward facing specialty storefronts.
Most were occupied, with the notable vacancy in the former Famous Music store. This was a great place for used CD's, video games and movies back in the day.
After Famous closed in 1999, the building was mostly used by AT&T until they were mergered out of existence. You can see a faint faded Century Link placard in the Cherry Knolls sign if you look really really really really close...
Today it's a Perfect Pets!
My apologies for the less than perfect picture...
Famous Music and the 99 Skick in October 1996... Moments after the picture from the intersection was taken...
Continuing my journey east into the sun, via Arapahoe Road, memories of gas station past swirling through my head, over the hills and through rows of identical suburban houses to Arapahoe Village...
Home of another King Soopers...
A Village Inn that I've eaten at with many different people over my 20 years in Colorado...
From there, it would be north on the nicely landscaped Holly street...
Under the menacing crosswalk lights...
And up to The Orchards shopping center!
A grotesque upscale cluster of retail, that serves a more affluent palette... I hate these people in this part of town... The Orchards was the former home of the Wild Oats natural grocery store, that I spent two months butcherizing meat at, between August and October, 1997.
This was my transition job between 99 Skick and Azzip Tuh. I was a terrible meat cutter, and would spend much of my shift scribbling out little Honkass notes all over whatever paper I could find...
Like the paper I was supposed to be wrapping meat in!
The Alfalfa's/Wild Oats chain merged and was sold and then soldmerged and now exists as only a brand name for Whole Foods. The transition of ownership was hard to follow, so I gave up because I really don't care...
This store eventually became yet another King Soopers! Also closed today, thanks to X-Mess! My pictures of the building did not turn out at all thanks to the bright sun getting in the way of all angles. This picture was taken December 23rd, 2017. But doesn't look greatly different from the sun ruined 2013 pictures...
Wish I would have taken a picture of Wild Oats back in the day...
The Loaf n' Jug gas station at the entrance is a chain that is owned by Kroger. Kroger also owns King Soopers. So you will often see Loaf n' Jug stations very close to King Soopers. Their points for fuel discounts are very generous, so they've won my brand loyalty.
Back in 1997, this was an Amoco station. I have an old fashions dot matrix printed Amoco receipt from a mid-shift need for non-organic snacks, but it faded to the point where it looks like a blank Amoco credit card receipt that hadn't been used.
Other than the anchor change, the whole complex looked nearly the same as it did 16 years earlier. Tracing my steps from my Colorado beginnings made me thankful that my life no longer resembled what it did 16 years earlier...
It was really time to get out of this part of town... It was making me hate 22 year old me...
Up north on Holly to Belleview avenue, then right turn east yet again to a left turn on Monaco Street. Where I could bypass this whole area and drive towards Micro Center at the very north edge of DTC.
Here's that intersection today... Or last Saturday...
The Quincy Avenue bridge, looking south over I-25 and the light rail tracks...
The Denver Tech Center was only starting to exist in the mid 1990's when I moved here.
Now it's it's own city...
I said it's it's...
I was driving in this area a lot back in 1997-2003, as Micro Center was the best place to look for Mac supplies, keeping FrankenMac going. It also was on the route from Platt to Wild Oats, so I would drive by daily after class and before meat cutting...
This area has changed drastically. Tall sprawling mega-partment complexes cover the landscape of vacant fields that I remembered from not so long ago. DTC keeps this area from dying, yet it has appeared old and run down since I've been coming here. The shopping center maintains a high occupancy, but it's got some oddball stores instead of just your usual chain fare.
To get north to Hampden avenue, I doubled back and used the I-25 frontage road.
With the cool buffalo mural etched into the concrete sound barrier, before it opens up to the RTD Park & Ride, Regal Cinemas and...
Hey! Another King Soopers!
That's at the corner of Monaco and Hampden. So observe that before turning right and east all the way to Havana street in Aurora. Few businesses along this stretch of Hampden are the same from my 1997-1999 daily commute to Platt, but the same buildings are mostly still standing.
With the exception of the No Frills Grill. This bar and grill was a favorite of mine and several friends in the late 1990's, for their great buffalo burgers and bunches of crazy crap stuck to the walls. Which went well with ample pitchers of beer and darts or a not so level pool table... The No Frills Grill was demolished in 2004. Today, it's a Qdoba.
Skipping forward now to where Hampden turns north and becomes Havana street... We'll cover those missing areas on our way back.
The Hampden/Havana transition curve area looks exactly the same as it did 15 years ago. The golf course is still there, as is the driving range and mini-golf course. With I-225 and the Cherry Creek Dam Road lurking behind and above...
The right turn on Dartmouth now features this 7-11/Conoco/Car Wash conglomeration, which was not here in 1997. I don't remember what was on the corner back then...
Just up Dartmouth sits the Fairways Shopping Center, featuring the Blue Nile Xpress Mart. Often a quick stop on my way to classes for cigarettes and/or caffeinated beverages... They used to sell gas here, but the pumps had long been removed. This where I would get gas sometimes because the 7-11/Conoco/Car Wash conglomeration hadn't been built yet...
Continuing east on Dartmouth, past the One Dartmouth Place apartments, where Amy with the big Hooters used to live, is the intersection of Dartmouth and South Parker Road. And the building for why I drove all the way out here today...
Many early mornings I drove up the slight incline to stop at the red light before going on to park the Vanilla Honksicle in front of Platt College. I attended class here 3-5 days a week, from 7am to noon, from April 1997 to February 1999. That and $40,000 got me an Associate's degree...
That building is the same as it was in 1997, but the sign now reads "Platt Nursing College". When I attended, Platt was all about graphic design. Then the Dot Com bubble burst and they realized they couldn't use the "be creative" pawn to sell perspective student on their program. So they started a nursing program alongside the graphic design program... That really doesn't seem quite right to me...
Today the medical industry is a much hotter field, so lets just drastically change the focus of the school, scrap that graphic design nonsense and pretend we are now experts at medical care. Makes me feel very confident in my degree... I wonder if the next few years will see the birth of Platt Fracking College?
When our class attended here between 1997-1999, we quickly gained a reputation as the wildest the school had ever seen. The large square planter was placed on the corner of the sidewalk specifically because our class would be out smoking and kicking a hacky sack multiple times each morning. Irritating the other businesses that were leasing the first floor of the building...
At one point they tried to shift us from the front of the building to the side entrance. Which didn't work at all... It was easier for us to get back upstairs in time to attend design classes, that would allow me to create such masterpieces as this...
A theme restaurant based on eating in my apartment! With my cleverly designed "Happy Stomach Guy" logo! Pancakes are seasonal!
I sat on the hood of my car in the parking lot and lit a cigarette after snapping pictures around the large parking lot. The Safeway that closed in 1997 is now split in two, half being a Dollar Tree, and the other half being an ARC Thrift Store.
Surveying the area and looking east down Parker, the Wendy's, Shell gas and Star of India are still operating as they were in 1997, but the awesome bagel place is gone. It's now a T-Mobile Store...
Sitting on my car reflecting on those days gone by brought an idea into my head: What about that bizarre massive abandoned domey building north on Havana? I wonder if that is still there? If so, I must have pictures of it!
Way back in the day, a friend in our class lived just south of Havana and Colfax in Aurora. Not the safest of Denver neighborhoods, but why not? Myself and others would sometimes go up to his house and party after classes got out. And sometimes pass out there until scary late hours in the night...
Those days always started off at the Hooters a few blocks west of Platt, sometimes more drinking at the Stampede cowboy bar or Pitchers shitty bar, before we would carpool up to Joe's house for more drinking and smoking fun times in a tiny run down white stucco house, in a really gross part of town. On the drive there, a large white cement building set a ways back off Havana, stood mysterious and sealed up. Asking a friend in the car once, I was told it had been a Target store that closed many years ago. For years, I accepted that information as truth. I could picture the building as clear as day, but I didn't remember where it was exactly....
After I finish up at Hooters, I must find it!
Hooters crayons for the kids.... How many kids caught the double meaning behind the crayon slogan?
We used to drink a lot of beer at this Hooters... Like in June, 1998! One day I carved Platt into this table with my car keys. I have a picture of it, but it's really blurry, so I opted for beer instead...
After snapping a shot of our Hooters on South Parker Road, I drove north on Havana which I wasn't nearly as familiar with.
The further north I drove, the less I recognized. I remembered this part of town as being very run down, but everything now looked pretty revitalized. Later research told me that this area had been undergoing a massive makeover during the last five years. The city of Aurora was making a large effort in cleaning up Havana street. Amongst the biggest gentrification plans saw the Buckingham Square Mall recently torn down and replaced by shiny new lifestyle centers.
I hate our new language...
But as I continued north, I found a few more boarded up store fronts. Even found a Blockbuster Video that was still open, though only for a few more days...
Everything seemingly was brand new, until I drove north of Alameda avenue. I didn't know where the abandoned bubbley domey building I was looking for was. It felt like it would be close, but it easily could have been torn down years ago, just like most of the old stuff in the area had been.
Soon, I could see over a slight incline in the road, there was my building!
Holy shit, it's currently being demolished! Great timing on my part!
I turned onto the property and parked behind a run down looking liquor store, with the coincidental name, on the northeast corner of the property and surveyed what had already been done.
I later read that demolition had begun the week before with a small ceremony by the city of Aurora. Wish I'd have known... Even though I didn't get photos of the Fan Fair building fully intact, but this is still very cool for me to get these pictures!
The northern third of the building was already gone, exposing the vast open darkness inside. Given the light and sun conditions of the day, it was very difficult to see inside the dark cavernous structure. The floors were bulldozed down to the bare concrete. The exterior support beams were still standing, yet supporting nothing.
Temporary security fencing was holding me back from getting any better shots from where I was. The same temporary security fencing was still standing five years later.
Looking south, I found that I could move my car to the bonus abandoned gas station in front of Fan Fair, park and and get a lot closer. It would be easier to walk around to the back of the property as well.
Luckily I made it here before the front entrance was smashed apart. I was able to get some good clear photographs of the former front doorway and the strange art of the walls above it.
From my new parking space, on the north side of Woody's Wings, I walked to the south end of the building and around the back and north to the other side.
In doing some online research, I found this structure was originally built in 1961 as a giant indoor shopping center, named Fan Fair Discount City. The date of this advertisement is unknown.
After a couple of years of great success, Fan Fair quickly flopped due to mismanagement and a litany of problems. The store closed in 1965.
(Walking around the south end of Fan Fair to the back...)
The building was leased by Western Electric in 1969, and would be used as their offices and training center until 1983. The Fan Fair building was then closed for good and would sit empty until 2013.
In 2013, the city of Aurora finally decided to demolish the structure. After nearly 30 years of sitting empty, besides people breaking in to squat or trash the place, it had filled to near waist deep in places with dead animals, bird shit and garbage. At one point it was rumored that a pack of wild dogs lived inside the structure.
Did anyone get pictures of that?
I found this picture of the inside of Fan Fare once the structure had been cleared of asbestos and all the decaying nastiness. This picture was taken likely days before demolition began. Once it was shined up a bit, Fan Fair looked really cool inside...
I walked around the southwest corner of Fan Fair, getting photos from all angles. The building did and still does fascinate me...
Including all the open doorways in the back. Around ten of them, and that's only the parts that hadn't already been demolished. To anyone who wanted to try throughout the years, Fan Fair was reportedly very easy to break into...
Someone left a pair of dirty maroon underwear in the street. Whenever I see something like this while out photo taking, I always want to know the story that led up to this...
The interesting artwork at the front entrance was commissioned specifically for the Fan Fair shopping center, when it was built. It was called "The Dance", and could still be seen as the building around it was being destroyed.
In an unbelievable coincidence, a door in the back of the building was left open enough to look directly across the open building and see a glimpse of the artwork from inside Fan Fair. I would have expected this artwork to be destroyed the very next day the workers came back to the site.
I love this picture...
I have to once again credit the amazing coincidence of randomly remembering Fan Fair just in time for these pictures, after not thinking of it for well over a decade.
Too bad no one could find a use for this place in over 30 years of neglect. People looked into it over the last 15 years, but the cost of refurbishing Fan Fair into something functional today just didn't make enough sense I guess...
And that's sad...
I made plans to get back here in the next week to see what was still standing at that point, but work overtime and an ill-timed snowstorm cancelled those plans until only half of the back wall was left.
Before getting back to the car, I snapped a bunch of pictures of the abandoned gas station before getting back in the car to go back south for other legs of my photo tour. The next goal for today was weaving around to Gates Rubber Factory, to continue documenting it's demise across town.
A quaint little boarded up gas station, that didn't appear to have been closed for all that long a period of time. Old and minimal, this space packs a lot of charm into non-pretentious petroleum dispensing...
A little bit of fading 99 Spillihp branding is still visible on the pumps...
And you gotta love that sign!
This abandoned gas station stole my heart and quickly became one of my all time favorite abandoned gas stations... I didn't know if it was scheduled for the same demolition as Fan Fair was...
Well, I guess not...
Mile High Gas (as it is now called) sunk a few bucks into refurbishing the place... They took this plain wall, with multiple different coverings, (and anti-graffiti paint bucket on the roof) and turned it into this...
Now isn't that nicer?
Meanwhile, back in 2013, I took one final look at a fairly intact Fan Fair, then back southbound on Havana, towards the other parts of Denver on my X-Mess 2013 photo needs list...
Sad for it's fate, but ecstatic for my timing...
*****
On December 10, 2017, I drove back out to Fan Fair, to see what the city of Aurora had done with the highly valuable chunk of land over the last five years...
I parked in the same location that I first did on December 25, 2013....
That's it huh...
*****
I was fooling myself thinking I could say everything planned here in just one post...
We'll be back soon enough with part 2 of the X-Mess 2013 Photo Tour!
The Road Back From Fan Fair!
They are now building a new mixed residential and retail community on the grounds of Fan Fair. Not much to look at from the Havana side with a big pile of dirt blocking your view. As a life long Saudi Aurora resident, I enjoyed reading your post here. Platt College graphic design student, 2000-2004.
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