THERE are precious few nooks and crannies in Denver buildings, streets, alleys, bridges, corners and who knows what else that Phil Goodstein has not peered into with his comprehensive, erudite and often critical insight.
With Curtis Park, Five Points and Beyond, Goodsteins latest neighborhood exploration, the Mile High Citys unofficial peoples historian examines and dissects the venerable neighborhood he calls Old East Denver, including not only such historic districts as Curtis Park, Five Points, San Rafael, Clements and Enterprise Hill, but up-and-coming redevelopment hotspots like the RiNo arts district.
With both microscopic and macroscopic lenses, Goodstein portrays the area northeast of downtown as historically symbolic of the city as a whole, a place whose wild swings of fortune have often mirrored the notorious boom and bust cycles that have long dictated Denvers destiny.
In the salad days of the 1870s and 80s, when Denver was flush with an economy fueled by mineral wealth, Curtis Park and its adjacent areas became the address of choice for the citys nouveau riche. They built elegant, gingerbread-laden Victorian, Italianate and Second Empire houses, planted trees, created parks and took leisurely strolls in their best finery.
The graceful era didnt last very long. The panic of 1893, which resulted in the devaluation of silver Colorados economic trump card affected Curtis Park terribly.
Many of its wealthier residents and businessmen quickly found themselves in financial ruin. The panic forced many of the once well-heeled residents to leave, many of them heading south to the perceived greener pastures of Capitol Hill and, eventually, the Country Club area.
In the case of Curtis Park, the bloom was off the rose. There followed nearly a century of decline in which the area was largely forgotten by Denvers elite.
Plenty of other people, however, were happy to make their homes and establish their businesses there, many of them poor or otherwise relegated to Denvers social sidelines.
These included African Americans, who made the Five Points district the center of their community.
Goodsteins detailed description of the black experience in Five Points is engrossing, covering not only such well-known episodes as the fabled Rossonian Hotel and its role as the premier jazz and blues venue between the Mississippi River and Pacific Ocean, but the areas less-discussed tradition of political corruption and backroom deal-making. It also served as the epicenter for the militant black liberation movement in the 1960s.
While the author admits that as a white Jew he does not feel qualified to write a comprehensive history of Denvers black experience, the treatment he delivers in this book is among the best, if not the best, attempt to date to encapsulate that fascinating story.
THE story of Curtis Park is also very much a Jewish one, although many members of todays Denver Jewish community might not know it.
The area was the seedbed of the citys East Side Jewish community, which continues to flourish today, albeit considerably further to the east and south.
Contrasting with the mostly Eastern European, mostly observant, Jews who settled west of downtown along Colfax Avenue, the Jews who helped build Curtis Park were mainly German by extraction and of a considerably less religious orientation.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many legendary figures in Denver Jewish history lived there Maurice Rose, famed general and namesake of Rose Medical Center; Seraphine Pisko, a pivotal figure in early Denver philanthropy; Louis Anfenger, a pioneer merchant who was involved in numerous Jewish activities, including Temple Emanuel, which was nudged into existence after the bris of his son, Milton Anfenger, himself a legendary Denver figure and one of the founders of the Intermountain Jewish News.
Goodstein deftly uses the history of Anfengers former house in Curtis Park to illustrate the wild ebbs and flows of the neighborhood itself.
The imposing edifice, complete with wrought iron widows walk, began as an elegant mansion; was eventually subdivided into apartments; later, dubbed the House of Nightmares as a Halloween attraction; later yet, used as a controversial church practicing voodoo; later still, vandalized and boarded up; and finally saved from the wrecking ball by Historic Denver and restored to its former glory as a symbol of the neighborhoods heritage.
The Curtis Park area was the original home of both the Reform Temple Emanuel and BMH, an Orthodox-leaning congregation founded in the 1890s.
Still standing, and, Goodstein notes, still awaiting a long overdue restoration, is the imposing building that once served as a synagogue for Emanuel, BMH and Beth Joseph, a spinoff of BMH, that also took root in the neighborhood.
The luminary rabbis of Emanuel and BMH William S. Friedman and Charles Hillel Kauvar, respectively were the undisputed pillars of the old Jewish community in Curtis Park. Both were ambitious, learned and well respected men, both in and out of the Jewish community.
Despite their religious differences, they also tended to be quite competitive with each other, writes Goodstein, who in characteristic fashion manages to shine light on a few uncomfortable skeletons from the closets of both spiritual leaders.
LONG after such Jewish leaders, and most Jews for that matter, left Curtis Park behind for newer parts of town, the area is poised to enter another boom period.
Starting slowly in the 1970s, and accelerating considerably in the 21st century, yuppies, hipsters and assorted bohemians have been steadily gentrifying the long neglected neighborhood.
They are restoring 19th century homes (a surprising number of which still stand), starting new businesses (often in historic structures), creating new neighborhood institutions (some of which integrate art and social interaction) and are even transforming vacant plots of land into urban farms.
Among them are young blacks and Jews who seem to understand and respect their ethnic history in the neighborhood, Goodstein writes.
And while these human agents for change might not yet have come as far as those who have been restoring such historic areas as Highlands and Washington Park and while not every resident is comfortable with all this new energy and money they seem determined to bring a new renaissance to Curtis Park. A casual drive through the area will reveal that theyve already achieved a great deal.
In that sense, Goodsteins latest history is actually more than a history. While its a fond look at the past, its also an encouraging glimpse of the future.
Copyright © 2014 by the Intermountain Jewish News
