BEFORE HE gets down to business in his latest piece-by-piece, neighborhood-focused history of Denver, author Phil Goodstein finds it necessary to explain what specific area hes concentrating on.
Unlike many area Jews, for whom the term West Side conjures nostalgic, mostly 20th century memories of a heimische neighborhood along West Colfax, Goodstein employs even older terminology. The West Denver that is the subject of this book dates back to the citys earliest days, when a merger between Denver City and Auraria led to the christening of the former town as East Denver while the latter was termed West Denver.
Goodsteins West Denver is the collection of neighborhoods nestled close to the bosom of downtown, within a triangle bordered by Cherry Creek, the South Platte River and Sixth Avenue.
Conversely, the West Side usually referred to by Jews is in a part of town which the author trying to overcome decades of Denvers urban directional confusion calls North Denver, an area he has covered extensively in earlier volumes of his ambitious and comprehensive history of the city.
In 21st century terms, Goodsteins West Denver includes Sports Authority Field at Mile High, West High School, the once-again-fashionable Golden Triangle district, a wide expanse of mostly industrial businesses that remains largely unexplored by most modern Denverites, and the area once again known as Auraria, home today to a bustling urban campus instead of the working class neighborhood that it replaced during the citys frenetic urban renewal phase in the 1960s and 70s.
THE AUTHOR calls West Denver the citys missing link, since it has seen far less attention and recent development than the more popular neighborhoods to the north, east and south. Only now, in the early 21st century, is West Denver starting to come into its own, Goodstein argues.
He points out that West Denver was never particularly glamorous, never boasting Capitol Hills prairie castle mansions, Highlands lofty panoramic views or South Denvers bucolic rural setting. This was a tougher, grittier region, home to working men and the breweries, scrap metal yards, factories and warehouses they worked in.
Immigrants tended to dwell here, most notably Hispanics in recent decades, which explains why West Denver was the epicenter for local Chicano activism in the 60s and 70s, and why it serves today as a lively hub for Hispanic arts and culture.
Before the Hispanics became the areas dominant ethnic group, however, immigrant Jews were major players in West Denver, well before their improving fortunes drew them further uphill and westward, into the West Side of local Jewish lore.
In the early days, Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues were commonplace here, especially in Auraria and nearby neighborhoods that were later obliterated by Bears Stadium and its subsequent Mile High progeny.
Among the handful of small, Orthodox shuls in which they worshipped, the fabled Shearith Israel, remnant of Israel, was the most prominent. It literally did represent the remnant of Aurarias seminal Jewish community, since many of its original members had been active with earlier, smaller congregations that more or less evanesced into the 10th St. Shul.
Founded in 1903, and housed in a stone building that originally served as an Episcopal church, Shearith Israel remained an active congregation all the way to 1958, long after most of Aurarias Jews had moved elsewhere.
The old synagogue still stands today, one of the handful of original Auraria buildings to survive the wrecking ball as the Auraria Higher Education Center was being built. It functions today as an art gallery, its Hebraic masonry serving as a mute reminder of one of Denvers earliest Jewish enclaves.
HOW THE West Side Won includes other stories of Jewish interest in old West Denver how Golda Meirs house became part of the Auraria campus, for example, or the areas occasional outbursts of anti-Semitism but this is mostly a story of Denvers Hispanic community, which came to be the group most associated with the area.
This is a compelling tale in its own right, considering how many community and civic leaders West Denvers Hispanic community would produce over the decades.
Jews will recognize many things similar to their own ancestral stories. The Hispanic communitys deep commitment to family, close relationship to religion and sustained efforts to maintain and enhance its cultural heritage all echo similar dynamics in the Jewish community.
Like all of Goodsteins histories, this one is replete with an amazing amount of detail, but never so much that the big picture grows obscured. One comes away from the book with a solid understanding of how the neighborhood developed into what it is today and how it might evolve in the future.
The book also conveys the authors deep understanding of the city whose chronicle has become his lifes work, as well as his empathy and love for that city.
Its evident on virtually every page and, it should be noted, tends to be contagious.
Chris Leppek can be reached at IJNews@aol.com.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
