To begin, a bit of geographical clarification.
Phil Goodstein, prolific chronicler of Denver neighborhood history, makes the point early on in his latest tome that the unofficial zones of North Denver, East Denver, South Denver and West Denver have never been clearly delineated. What is North to some is West to others.
For the purposes of this book, Goodsteins North Side is defined as the area northwest of the Platte River, north of (roughly) West Colfax Avenue and extending to the citys northern and western boundaries.
It is an area that has long been considered north, he explains, because of its proximate relationship to Denvers original settlement.
It is a big chunk of Denver, encompassing many of the citys most distinctive neighborhoods, including Berkeley, Highlands, Sloans Lake and crucial to the Jewish reader the proverbial West Side, or West Colfax, neighborhood.
Goodstein, as always fascinated by the dynamics of urban ethnic and migratory patterns, spends considerable time on North Denvers Irish, Italian and Hispanic communities, but devotes even more to the colorful Jewish community that once clustered along the West Colfax corridor.
Area Jews used to joke, he writes, that the Colfax bridge was the longest bridge in the world, linking Denver to the east with Jerusalem to the west.
Goodstein tells the West Sides story thoroughly and in considerable detail, thus providing Denver Jewry with its first truly comprehensive history since the 1950s, when Ida Uchill published the heimishe and folksy Pioneers, Peddlers and Tsadikim in 1957, and Allen duPont Brecks scholarly The Centennial History of the Jews of Colorado came out two years later.
The rest of this article, from our Rosh Hashanah edition, is available in the IJN’s print edition only. Contact Carol to order your copy at (303) 861-2234 or email.
