I’m back on the project! Whew-hoo! It’s been quite a few months, had some oral history consulting, job searching and trying to stay warm all winter in my cold house.
Today, I was down in Denver retrieving a lost sweater at Tattered Cover bookstore and I decided to mosey down to Lawrence and 19th Streets to investigate a view. I had the 1978 print, but haven’t yet located the 1937 image, either in print or xerox format. This view (037) shows either the front or the back of Sunset Park–now owned by Volunteers of America–and Okner’s Firestone shop. Okner’s goes back to the 30’s. It took quite awhile to find the right building, and it looks like Okner’s is either a parking lot now or obliterated by a modern, large building. Meanwhile I’m hunting feverishly for the ’37 image.
I am also editing my list of photographs. Since I took many of the pictures a year apart (separated by my gig on the railroad), I know that I duplicated some and may have missed a few others. In addition, I was given a bunch of small prints by the photograph librarian at CHS (who I succeeded in 1980), and apparently I didn’t rephotograph those in ’80. Ah well–so who knows what the streets looked like in 1978-80? The important thing is that I got the bulk of the project done.
My plan is to get everything organized in terms of paperwork and finish the photography this summer. I hope that Sam can join me again on a shoot. We’ll do a few streets and then have lunch and a beer at the Wynkoop. (Wyan-koop, not Win-koop, folks.) I’ve developed a new love for downtown Denver–Denver in general–after commuting down to DU for awhile. Boulder’s a great town but Denver’s alive. I imagine some of it is nostalgia for the late 70’s, but it’s still a very different place.
I try to imagine the urban historians of 2100 and wonder what they will make of this project; hopefully it will exist. Climate change looms, of course…
That’s a sad note to end on…I try to keep up optimism.
After this project who knows where I will go with photography?