Music Music Music! “Band in the Park” is back, with three bands, count’em, three! Pack up your picnics and set your toes a-tappin’ for this annual UPCC event at Observatory Park, August 1 from 4-8 p.m. The bands are The Minding, an eclectic blend of all types of music; Grasping at Straws – Americana; and Sway, a percussion band. This is part of the city’s Denver Days. (Remember- only 3.2 beer and no glass bottles in the park!)
Architect Jeffrey Sheppard, at INC (Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation) in UP June 13, said fast building growth can result in loss of human feeling, the heart of our neighborhoods. He suggests that one route to surmount this is through the stories of the people who have lived in a neighborhood a long time and have the feel for its character through time and change. The telling and reading of such stories helps personalize the neighborhood. So – longtime UP residents, start this narrative! We have a lot of tales from our 59 years here, too…Back in ’55, our neighbor had to give up her cow, when the new 1955 zone code insisted (but the pasture remains).
Fortuitously, there is a plan proposed by UP’s Legacy/Historic Preservation chair Rosemary Stoffel to do a study of UPark as a cultural entity, its vast variety of dwellings, people, businesses, open spaces (more later). Also, historian Steve Fisher of DU, who has written on the early University Park area, is now writing a book that takes UP from about 1950 onward. He’s looking for pictures – especially color pictures – of these years of change here and stories as well. Steve has volunteered to be UP’s archivist.
The Big House! No, not the jail – big houses being built throughout UP – some say one day folks will want to downsize and there will be too many big houses. What to do? Group homes? UP already has a number of them, did you know? “Shared” rentals? Or perhaps the kids will really all never leave home and multi-generational living will return. Jeffrey Sheppard says what’s really needed is small homes clustered around patios, near shops.
Other items: UP’s asking for sidewalks at Fillmore-Vassar and Observatory Park – where the veggie garden’s great! DU is not going to build at its drainage park at the north end of South Columbine. DU has a pedestrian safety project for South Josephine to South High St. on East Asbury.
As of July 21 Councilman-elect Paul Kashmann will announce neighborhood meeting-spaces – be thinking about your ideas to share with him. The University Park Community Council Board meets August 4 at 7p.m. Please contact President Traci Samaras with topics or to get on the UPCC email announcements list, president@upcc.us or 303-282-7281.
Surprise! On June 13, 300 volunteers came to Prairie Park/Buchtel Trail. They mulched all the trees, weeded the grassy areas, cleaned up trash and were just the nicest, most earnest and happy workers! 150 were from DU sororities and fraternities and 150 were high school students from the Colorado chapter of the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Foundation. This was a wonderful Denver Parks event.
Charlie and the prairie: We thank Councilman Charlie Brown for all he has done to help bring about this project. He joins a line of great councilpersons who have been stalwarts since the beginning – Paul Hentzell, John Silchia, Mary deGroot, Susan Casey – and hundreds of city folks as well. It was on Charlie’s watch that the prairie land finally was traded to the city by the Regional Transportation District! Charlie arranged for a celebration in Oct. 2004 complete with brass ensemble, the mayor, city managers, the DPS, the DU chancellor, councilpersons, UP’s Moras Shubert and yours truly, school children and many neighbors – and a great BBQ lunch! Charlie has paid for half the wonderful interpretive sign we will soon have on the prairie and there’ll be a little celebration then, too. Charlie has been UP’s councilman for a long time and our neighbor for much longer. He’s been helpful in so many ways…plus provider of great tomato plants! We look forward to seeing Charlie and Suzanne at UP events and wish Charlie all the best in his busy “retirement.”
If you have news or views of UP, ruly or unruly, please contact Diana Helper, 303-733-4902 or chapinhelper@aol.com.
