Abandoned Retail - Watson's Grocery, Denver, CO
I never went to Watson's Grocery, so I can't say much about the store itself.
This photo taken September 3, 2014, is the only one I have of Watson's Grocery while it was still open.
While I couldn't find a whole lot of actual information about Watson's online, through reading old Yelp reviews I figured out that it closed in late 2016. After being open for many. No definition of many could be confirmed by anything I found either. From from everything I did read, Watson's was a welcome feature in the neighborhood. A place to go at 11:30pm on a Tuesday for a pack of smokes, liter of Vodka and a box of Captain Crunch.
Early in the morning of September 9, 2017, I decided to photograph Watson's Grocery. The sun hadn't yet risen when I parked on 9th Ave and wandered the block.
Watson's was your typical convenience store with a full Liquor store inside. One with really tacky checkerboard floor tile.
Oh, and it's really dingy too...
Some of the old fixtures had to be the same place for decades.
The entryway opened to a glass wall, likely placed to separate the merchandise from the doors to prevent shoplifting.
Decorations by Coors Light and hangy Guiness shamrocks, which stayed up way past the end of Watson's Grocery.
Here's to football... I guess...
Behind the cashier booth was another glass walled-off area. My assumptions are this was the section of the store where the hard liquor was kept. Just a guess...
It could very well have been a really lame sauna...
In that year, I'd driven by Watson's a whole buncha times, without ever stopping to look. The intersection of 9th and Lincoln Street is fairly busy, with only on-street parking nearby. Surrounding Watson's is a bunch of massive apartment buildings and small niche shoppes. Usually when I drove by, it was a busy time of the day, with no parking nearby and people everywhere.
But from what I can tell, it's location would serve Watson's well with foot traffic from people living in the immediate area, but it would be hard to lure new customers in if they could never find a place to park. Perhaps that is why I'm photographing an empty building where Watson's Grocery used to be...
Out front, by the bus stop, is a vending box for a couple of locally produced Denver free magazines. The Westword and Rooster. The Westword is your typical tabloid style newsprint weekly that runs a couple of feature stories, wrapped in advertisements for bars, nightclubs, prostitutes and marijuana dispensaries. The Rooster is roughly the same thing, except is a monthly 4 color printed glossy perfect bound magazine. With their stories more geared towards live music, art, sex, alcohol and marijuana, also wrapped in advertisements for bars, nightclubs and marijuana dispensaries.
But no prostitutes! Rooster has class!
What word was under the blocked off part of the sign?
Pharmacy!
North of Watson's (in the same building) was a secure door and hallway that allowed access to the Archer Tower Apartments located just behind the building. In this picture, that door is on the far right side (under the "Available" banner). On the far left side of the picture, is an entrance to the underground parking garage for the Archer Tower Apartments.
Between those two points, previously sat Dazzle.
"Sorry for the inconvenience, we card everyone."
Not anymore you don't...
Dazzle closed at some point in 2017, and was still vacant in May 2018.
According to the 4 story banner on the side of the Northwest wing, Archer Tower was newly remodeled in 2017! The name of the apartments used to be named MezzO. The old sign for MezzO can be seen in the open Watson's picture I used at the beginning of this story.
But I know nothing else about the place...
At the bottom of the X-shaped Archer Tower sits Spire Digital, with it's defining U-Shaped roof.
Spire Digital sits next door to the north of Watson's Grocery, with the Archer Tower, and it's own, driveways in between.
I have no clue what Spire Digital does, and even less interest in finding out. But I do really like their building. That architecture screams 1960!
And look at that! The sidewalk stamp in front on the building is dated 1960!
And look at that! In Spire Digital's front conference room, it looks like someone forgot their purse!
Outside Spire Digital is a combination No Parking sign and memorial to Jose Luis Medina. Which grows it's own flowers!
No it doesn't...
With whatever is gone being gone, you can see the pink and white castle looking building that houses the Haddon, Morgan & Foreman attorney's office, amongst others.
I've driven up Lincoln Street hundreds of times in the 20 plus years I lived in Denver, but I can't remember what was once here...
To the Google machine!
Oh yeah! It was that cluster of old houses! Each with very difficult points of entry!
Now that I remember what they were, I felt kind of bad. These were really cool houses built on the hill. They still looked to be in good shape, so I'm guessing that some developer bought this part of the block with the specific intent on demolishing them to build something that has zero character and/or charm... Because they can make a HUGE profit on the property!
But that right there sums up Denver today...
At least before construction begins, the taggers got to hit Spire Digital's north wall!
I really like this No Trespassing sign with the Archer Tower Apartments behind.
A couple of weeks after I took my first set of Watson's Grocery pictures, I came back in better light to give the area a better walk around. After parking the car, I was able to take some usable pictures of the abandoned restaurant, Opal, on the southeast corner of Lincoln and 9th. Most of what I took when I was here before didn't turn out due to poor lighting.
Not enough people were interested in Nouveau American Cuisine, from the looks of the place.
All of the windows of Opal were decorated with small colored tagging.
Which almost looked intentional...
A little green wobbly creep...
Behind the creep...
You can see a reflection of Watson's across the street...
Some more Opal!
The front, north-facing wall of Opal. Built on a hill, going up and you go east on 9th Avenue.
Bar entrance of Opal.
Looking west down 9th Avenue at the southwest corner of Lincoln & 9th Ave. The Lincoln 9 Shops include the home of DJ's Cafe, which can be seen on the left side of this picture. More outskirts-of-downtown-Denver gentrification is taking place on Broadway, off in the horizon. The obscenely upscale Beauvallon condominiums are on the right side of this picture.
In the two weeks since I took the window shots of Watson's, whomever was clearing out the inside of the store finished their job and covered up the windows. So I guess my timing was good on that one...
Black plastic was placed on the south facing windows, while the existing blinds on the west facing windows were closed off. I could not take any more pictures of anything going on inside of Watson's, as of October, 2017.
So let's see if there's anything interesting happening on the north end of the block...
But wait... RT Cafe & Bar is closed! So this block gives me another abandoned building to check out! Apparently European Cuisine is just as unpopular as Opal's Nouveau American Cuisine was, in the area of Lincoln Street. So what do these people like for their cuisine?
Well, they do like dry cleaning, pizza and weed...
RT's grill hood is still in place...
And there's RT's microwave on the prep table...
And it looks like they are keeping the sun in the back room when it's not in the sky...
And that's all I know about RT's Cafe & Bar!
Doesn't take a genius to see how this ends.
Turning around from RT's, you cant miss missing the Beauvallon extreme luxury condos.
In case you are wondering what kind of shoppes are at the Beauvallon?
This is something they considered witty...
No wonder a place like Watson's Grocery across the street couldn't co-exist...
(Photo April 8, 2018)
And actual work had begun north of the Spire Digital building.
The sidewalk had been shaved down to street level, with the stairs and elevated portion removed.
Cement pillars planted to support some new structure.
Building construction was in too early of a stage to tell exactly what was going to be going on in here.
So let's see what has happened at Watson's Grocery & Liquor in the past few months!
While the sign remains, all interior identifying markings of Watson's are gone.
Some people!
Watson's former entryway...
Watson's former entryway, looking north into the empty store...
Across the center of the store. The rusty square in the floor is roughly where Watson's once answered the often asked question: "Where's to Football?"
The north end of Watson's. I'm assuming those rooms and walls will be cleared out before renovations are completed.
The north end of Watson's from a slightly different angle...
And no, I don't count that "We Card" sticker on the glass by the door as an identifying mark of Watson's. That sticker just says that a tobacco and/or alcohol retailer was previously operating here. But that could have been for Twatson's Grocery and Liquors, any more than it could have been for Watson's!
After I took these pictures, I got in my car and left the neighborhood. I don't remember where I was headed that day. Likely up a few blocks to Colfax, then off in either direction. Either way, I'm sure that some of those pictures will appear someday on this page.
Then I moved out of state. So I don't know what happened to Watson's Grocery & Liquor.
Recently, I asked the Google Machine what was going on at 900 Lincoln Street in Denver. But Google had nothing new for me.
And I'm kind of okay with that.
The idea of all the people living on the east facing side of the Beauvallon, having to look at a crusty old abandoned convenience store sitting in your shadow everyday, kind of amuses me!
May not be that way forever, or even anymore, but as long at Watson's signs are on the facade of that building, I'm happy!
It's driving me nuts now to remember what used to be where Beauvallon was built. I remember there was a steakhouse restaurant and bar that one of my graphic design classes at Platt College ~2002/3 had me go to for a lame networking event that I remember more for the head-splitting headache that an over-vodka-ized (vodka and I don't always get along) Mudslide than anything else. When the restaurant first opened in the early 1990s, I was so wanting to go check it out, but shortly after my one and only visit for college the area became really seedy, fell out of hipster favor, the complex of businesses there folded one after another, and eventually it was felled to build Beauvallon. The new building may be fancier to look at but I have never once felt any inclination to visit it like I did its predecessor I can't remember the name of anymore. Oh the joys of a middle-aged Colorado native! I can't tell you a thing about Watson's but I enjoyed your write up all the same.
ReplyDeleteThe walled off section of watsons was the grocery / convenience section. You had to make your food purchases separately.
ReplyDeleteWatson’s started out in the 1930s or 1940s as a pharmacy, and that’s primarily what it was all the way through the 90s when I was going there as a kid! They were a mom & pop pharmacy, but they also had some convenience items. Interestingly, from the 1950s thru the 1990s, they had an entire ice cream parlor section that served food (hamburgers, fries, etc), traditional ice cream sodas, and ice creams. They had an entire seating section with black booths, and there was a steady stream of customers who just came there for the food alone. Even in the 90s, they still wore the traditional 1950s soda fountain uniform with the white shirt and white paper hat, and they played 1950s music. And their food was actually really good! Oh and by the way, it didn’t used to be all ratty and dingy; they kept that place pristine. The checkered floor was there from it’s days as a soda fountain and pharmacy, and it was not all disgusting like it is in the pictures. The whole place was decked out in original 1950s stuff, and it was a really cool place. I liked going there to get ice cream.
ReplyDeleteWhen the new millennium came along, it changed hands and the new owners turned it into a liquor/convenience store. Obviously they ditched the pharmacy services that were once offered there. But they kept the name Watson’s (I guess for name recognition or something). Or maybe they were just too cheap to install new signage. The place became a dump with lots of homeless people congregating there. That’s pretty much the rest of the story. I wish you could have seen it in the 90s because it was a completely different place that you’d never imagine.
I went to Watsons Pharmacy when I was a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s. Good old fashioned soda fountain. Miss that place. Was sad when it closed.
DeleteThe area between 9th ave and 10th ave, where they built the expensive condos, part of what was there included an office supply/print shop that was named The Purple Store. Down at ground level, there was a restaurant with Mediterranean food called something like Olios or Ilios. The restaurant had just expanded (it was popular and business was good) when the property was sold and evicted everyone (and Olios was told by the city something like 'Don't you guy's ever read the paper? This land has been actively marketed for months!). The back portions of the property I think included the lot where the old Racines was located on Bannock. There was a whole lot of property in this section owned by Excel Energy aka Public Service Co of Co, and was frequently referenced as 'the golden triangle' and Denver city council had that entire area designated for 'urban renewal'.
ReplyDelete