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?
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