Gates Rubber Company - Demolition Diary part 8
As exciting as a post all about the safe operation for Ring Cure Vulcanizers would probably be, I'm not writing about that today. I am writing about Gates. Because it's time, once again, to break open the Gates Demolition Diary. Today, that would be Part 8.
January 19, 2014.
An odd morning where I conducted a photo tour WITHOUT having worked a 13 hour overnight shift before driving around Denver, with a camera. On this morning, I left home too early in the morning to have enough daylight to take quality pictures from a moving car. Unless I was able to slow way down, to focus my cheap digital camera.
I'd get better ones...
Pictures and cameras...
Even slowing down my pass through the construction access road in front of the future Sprouts store, it was too dark for the picture I wanted.
Photoshopitizing helps...
Kinda like semi-polishing a turd...
Stopping at a red light also helps, allowing this photo of Kaufman's Tall & Big Shop to not end up all that blurry. Kaufman's was an Englewood staple for many years, but I never visited the store. I fit the description of big, more than tall, though I'm not overly either. Read recently that Kaufman's closed for good, earlier this year. And that's pretty sad to me. Even more so since I'm not there to take pictures of it all vacant.
I was in the turning lane so I could complete an urgent side mission at the Trolley Square King Soopers. Not sure what I needed to pick up, but it was very early on a January morning, so any food I was buying would stay nice and cold in the car, until I made it back home.
Just noticed there are no homeless people in front of King Soopers this morning. Making it a pretty rare event.
Wish I would have taken a few better pictures of A Bargain In Books, before it was gone. Now lined in brown paper, the windows were so full of stacks of books, you couldn't see inside them. This bookstore closed in late 2013, and after extensive renovation, it reopened as Cobalt (private workspaces and offices) and Salon Oxali's. Cobalt appears to be thriving today, while it doesn't appear that Salon Oxali has lasted through now.
But what we need to do is get up to Gates Rubber Company, and see what isn't there this week...
Looking at Gates from Broadway and Mississippi. The sun was now fully over the horizon, casting a bright yellow pall over the factory. Absolutely not ideal for photography...
Weaving my way around the RTD Park & Ride, and into the overflow parking lot, spanning much of the northeast corner of the Gates property. Allowing a great point of access for much of the demolition area.
It's really sad that you just don't see really ornate brick arrangements in buildings today. Pretty sure this was the oldest part of the Gates factory, dating back to around 1910. It didn't see 100 years of active business, but it possibly did stand for just over 100 years.
Now it's being peeled away, segment by segment, exposing to the world (or at least the drivers on south Broadway) implements of rubber making, previously hidden away for decades.
At least the sun did a decent job of illuminating the top three levels of Gates.
The first and second floors seem to have a lot of temporary walls put up. While the third floor has a lot of overhead rails running across the ceiling. Too bad the basement is filled with the crumbled and fallen in floors above it, so you can only see hints of that basement in places.
The building has collapsed on whatever that piece of equipment that is, with the big black wheel sticking out of the debris. I'm sure at some point it was responsible for making tires, or hoses or other rubber things.
Now it's just making a mess...
More racks and shelving, as you look further down the area I couldn't stand any closer to, because the fenced in RTD Park & Ride lot ends before the closed off Gates access driveways.
Before I get back in the old Blueberry Honksicle (it's roof is shown at the bottom right corner of the photo) to drive around to a better vantage point for photos, I have to snap a quick picture of the light rail train climbing the bridge to cross Broadway. I'd gone under that bridge to park here, and now it's time to move on.
If you look closely, you'll see that train is painted to promote the Colorado Rockies starting Spring Training, in less than a month. The fact that it's in Denver Broncos colors (of orange and blue) is definitely a mixed message.
Perhaps I would have had less difficulty with the sun in my photos, if I'd waited a bit before going to Gates? Maybe if I would have started my day with a good healthy breakfast, that big bright burning bully in the sky wouldn't be bringing me down as I moved my car?
I could've just stopped for breakfast at Breakfast on Broadway! Chewed up some time while I chewed up some pancakes. After all, I needed to take a better photo of the greatest sign in all of Englewood. 15 months later, I finally stopped.
Good job, Breakfast on Broadway, that sign is awesome!
A block or so north of the giant frying pan, sat a rather shabby looking abandoned building, that also warranted more attention.
it was difficult to take a decent photo, while driving north on Broadway. You had to try and focus the shot, while competing with southbound traffic and those irritating bushes in the median. As bad as this picture looks, it's one of the best I got of this building looking it's worst.
A few months later, I went back and snapped a few photos from the open windows facing the sidewalk.
Last used as a thrift store, this was what it looked like inside, on April 27, 2014.
Pretty sure that was another morning I stopped by Gates. Demolition was winding down by then, without a whole lot of the factory left.
These big sections, just to the right of that large, black wheeled machine, were certainly gone by then.
Without the benefit of the sun lighting these floors up, you couldn't see too far inside the floors to the south.
Very small structure on the roof of Gates. Before the floors underneath were starting to collapse, I thought this may have been an elevator shaft. But now that I can see underneath it, it's clearly not for elevators...
Looking directly south, gives you a better idea of how massive the Gates factory was,
As walls were peeled away, you could see stuff that Gates left behind. There were all sorts of carts visible on all four floors of Gates. Left to die where their last last loads were deposited.
Northeast corner of Gates. I'm loving the peek at the four flights of stairs, just beyond the non-demolished walls. If you look very closely at the lower left corner of the photo, you can see that US Bank, on the corner of Broadway and Mississippi is still open. The parking lot used for many Gates photography missions, and the bank itself was covered previously as a stand-alone piece in the Gates series.
Better look at that staircase, and all the darkness behind it.
RTD Park & Ride signs discarded in the parking lot.
Since I didn't have breakfast today, as I walked to a new photo taking site outside Gates, I started thinking of some dining options that aren't available because it's still too early in the day...
I could've gotten an order of those delicious Garlic Knots from Gennaro's...
Or some incredibly disappointing food from The Rebellion...
We ordered delivery from The Rebellion fairly often at my old Denver job. The Chicken Fingers and Onion Rings were usually a safe bet. But pretty much anything else you ordered from them would arrive late, burned, ice cold and wrong. However you kept calling, because if they didn't screw it up, and it was hot, their food was really good.
Alienation is a tough thing for businesses to recover from, and eventually just having an edgy gimmick isn't enough when your product is easily duplicated. The Rebellion closed in late 2016. The building painted a bunch of loud colors, and it became Turtle Boat. A vegan, gluten-free, sushi restaurant. Not my thing, but they're still open. So that counts for something.
There was no vegan sushi available at Gates.
These frozen banks of snow in front of the fence, provided an excellent boost to photography. The top of the fence (covered by an dark green opaque canvas) was above my eye level. Standing on ice and snow that would support my weight, was a big help in seeing what I wanted to take pictures of.
Like this room!
Or these third floor overhead rails!
And some of these material storage racks!
And the uncharacteristically clear front entrance driveway.
With pieces of undestroyed support columns laying amidst the crushed concrete floors and walls.
Second through fourth floors, northeast corner.
Hmmmm... Earlier when I said I was going to move the car to the Gates driveway... Well, I was wrong.
But I did it now...
Backing out of my RTD parking spot, by the Gates Electric Building, and driving around and out to Broadway, I made a right turn and re-parked in the unfenced part of Gates driveway. But for the sake of this story, I'm going another 8 blocks south, and making a U-Turn. So I can cover a few other pictures I took on the drive to Gates this morning,
Like this unfortunately blurry shot of the Broadway Motel. This 20-or so room roadside motel, dating back to the 1950's, was once a very nice place. By January 2014, it was run down and rather gross looking. By January 2017, it was in it's final days. In April 2017, it was demolished. And I was there with some more nice and blurry photographs!
How about a non-blurry photo of that sweet Sinclair station on Broadway.
Since this station had been abandoned for at least as long as I lived in Colorado, I never knew when the day would come that I'd drive by and the building would be gone. Or at the very least, having a fence placed around it. You don't see too many of these style gas stations around anymore, and that one was sitting this close to downtown, in this good of condition, is rather shocking.
I took some time this morning to snap some pictures around the property. There were no cars parked on the lot or next to the building for a change, so I was able to get some nice up close images from this former gas station.
At least there's a happy ending to this story. In 2017, Sinclair underwent a massive 10 month renovation, reopening in December as the newest Snarf's Sandwiches franchise!
They did an amazing job! Down to minor details, like keeping the same Sinclair shaped sign, to restoring those vintage parking lot lights. The saving of this old Sinclair station is another story I've been meaning to get to. There's over 300 pictures of Sinclair, and it's slow transition into Snarf's, on my back-up drives. So that'll happen someday.
After my photo detour at Sinclair, I buzzed up the alley, and back out to Broadway, via, Arkansas Ave. Snapping a photo of the completely unabandoned ARC Thrift Store, on my way north.
Okay, back to what I was doing!
My car is safely tucked away by the gate to Gates.
The parts of the building to the right are older than the newer additions seen on the left. I have no idea what year they were added to the Gates complex.
More of those umbrella style support columns. These were spaced out at a distance i can't remember, throughout the factory. I think I read they were all 20 feet apart. Maybe 25 feet apart? This -plus a massive amount of rebar- provided the support needed for the heavy weight and stress of rubber manufacturing. Either way, the company in charge of tearing this place down, used these columns as a way to measure pace and progress of their demolition work. Their goal was to clear 10 or 12 of these columns per day. From the top down, so it can be cleared and sorted before the sheer amount of debris became overwhelming.
While I'm not certain of any of these numbers, the entire factory was torn down ahead of schedule. After coming here on a weekly basis, I've seen a pattern to how they're taking this massive structure down.
Work is now focused on the east side of the factory. Concrete and other recyclable materials are being hauled away, from where the basement of the Broadway facing office building used to be. Trucks are loaded in that recessed area, then up the ramp, out the south property exit onto Mississippi, and a quick exit onto south I-25. I don't know where they took all the pieces of Gates, but they were constantly moving it out.
Walking around to Broadway, then south on the sidewalk, in front of Gates. In order to get photos of the building collapsing in towards the basement. This shot gives a more accurate picture of just how large this structure was.
Foundation walls for the front office building at the center/left of this picture.
Looking into the opened up floors behind it.
There's even an exit sign still attached, above a doorway in this third floor room.
Wonder what they were used for?
Well, whatever it was, when you were done doing it, this was apparently the door you used to signify you were finished...
Despite the bright sun this morning, it was still very cold and pretty windy. Something I'd noticed was there would occasionally be papers left inside Gates that would fly out of the building during demolition. Some of them would eventually make their way out to the sidewalk.
Like this very important tutorial on safe use of Ring Cure Vulcanizers!
Walking down the sidewalk in front of this area, I found this 8.5" x 11" sheet, against the fence. Well, it's on public property now, so I'm claiming it as property of Wasted Enterprises. Because I need reminders to keep the floor around my unit clean and clear of hazards.
Especially lubricants...
Here's another view of the stairway and exit to the outside world.
And the split between old and new buildings. With that stairway just on the other side of the door, lots of Gates scrap has spilled into the now open basement.
Zooming out even further to show one of the shovels used to load that scrap onto trucks, that will use those sand and gravel ramps.
Those trucks would enter the property, turn around behind here, then pull down into the basement.
Quite the system needed to get this building down and out of here.
Pulling back from my sidewalk vantage point for as much of Gates as I could get in one shot. Bear in mind these pictures were taken by holding the camera above my head, and the sun obscuring the camera screen. Still this gives you an idea of the effort involved in clearing the site.
Maybe if I stood on this bench, I could get a better shot?
Good enough. Well, I'm cold and it's too windy to walk down to the end of the block and around the south side of Gates. There wasn't anything going on there yet Anyways.
It's also a lot warmer in my car...
Leaving Gates, I drove east on Mississippi and pulled into the parking lot of the old Gates Credit Union.
Where my sister worked for a brief period of time in the late 1990's!
I had an account here from 1998-2003. Gates Credit Union was re-branded as New Horizons Credit Union in 2004, relocated in 2005 and their building was demolished by 2006. The rest of this property was occupied by other buildings of the Gates campus. Including a fairly large series of medical and dental offices. and lots of parking for employees. Today (well, January 2014) apartments have replaced all the Gates that used to be here.
That shorter white building at the center of this photo, is a Sprouts grocery store. It was still being built at this point, and would open in the Summer of 2014. In recent years, apartment buildings have spread through the former Gates neighborhood, like a virus. Four years later, these apartments will have continued their advances to beyond where the last picture was taken.
Even this parking lot is now covered by apartments. Cut at an angle, due to I-25 crossing through the north side of the lot.
The apartments were not yet open when Laura and I moved to Minnesota, in June 2018. But were very close. Probably already leasing, but no one moved in. This photo is from roughly the same spot on Mississippi, as the one before. But this picture, taken December 10, 2017, shows a large influx of new residents are about to call what used to be Gates, home.
Severely outclassing that sweet round liquor store, on the opposite corner of Mississippi and Logan. I chose to take Logan south back to Englewood, instead of the usual Broadway route, because the last stop on this morning's photo tour was also located on Logan.
The demolition of Englewood High School was well underway, and required my attention. Seven months earlier, I was making a point of daily visits to Flood Middle School's own demolition (previously written about here: Part One and Part Two), so Englewood's former high school would be similarly covered.
But I have yet to do an actual write up of it...
There was a very old can of motor oil sitting on the curb, just behind the chain link fence.
That's pretty cool.
But if there's one very important lesson I could impart on you...
Please watch out for Danger Holes!
They could be anywhere!
******
Catch up on any and all of the Gates that you may have missed!
Those last two would have been at the front of this photo, taken May 13, 2018. The large tree and red brick visible on the left side of this picture, are leftover from US Bank. (East Asia Garden and the other stores would have been on the far right of this picture.) Both of which were demolished in 2015.
According to the Googles, they're still there today.
That's pretty cool!
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