The restaurants on Colfax Avenue, Denver, Colorado is where I plan to try travel food, and activites for my vicarious armchair travels, for this blog.
Armchair travel is for travelers, like me, who can't actually travel for one reason or another. Colfax Avenue is a street that used to be a popular travel destination, but isn't anymore for one reason or another. Since armchair travelers and Colfax Avenue can have some things in common. Let's put them together and see if we can find a vacation somewhere.
Colfax Avenue is an eclectic multi-ethnic mix of the terrific and the tragic. Lives are made and ruined here, so just as when traveling to many a foreign country the caution is, 'Traveler Beware', (don't wander away from the recommended areas, unless you are with a native of the area that has been a long-time trustworthy friend). So, it is with Colfax Avenue.
Colfax is the longest continuous and contiguous street in the world. The continuous part of Colfax Avenue, going through Lakewood, Denver, and Aurora, is 26.8 miles long, and since 2005, a marathon has been run on it every year. However, the contiguous part of Colfax Avenue runs through the towns of Bennett, Strausberg, and Watkins, making it about 52 miles long.
I once lived a few blocks from Colfax Avenue, for 15 months. I also attended a church on Colfax Avenue for eight years. This time, I'm off to Colfax to experience my vacations vicariously through the travel foods that I can find there.
In fact, the Capitol Hill neighborhood, that East Colfax Avenue runs through, was my introduction to adulthood, at 18 years of age. Amazingly, back then, although I was surround by criminals that I called my friends, I lived there for 15 months without falling victim to a violent crime, and without committing a crime. I did experience several incidences of theft. I came back to Colfax Avenue 10 years later to attend a new church there, Church in the City. Sunday school at Church in the City was where my son spent his pre-teen childhood.
I have seen beyond many of Colfax Avenues doors and walls to know what really goes on there. Some of it is simply too tragic for polite blog postings. However, having attended church on Colfax Avenue for eight years, I also know many amazing stories of redemption. I have met many people and know of many organizations who brought hope to Colfax. And I've also had a lot of good clean fun on Colfax Avenue. So, for this blog, I'm back for the good clean fun.
This is Colfax Avenue's history according to the Denver post. Today, Colfax Avenue has been the subject of several revitalization projects since 1994. It became an decaying eye sore in the 1960's.
Personally, I know that many people believe that Colfax Avenue has been branded as a street where one can get away with anything, like Las Vegas, but without the gambling. However, that belief isn't completely true. On any given day, one might witness an undercover sting and subsequent arrest, in broad daylight. The police still come when on dials 911. And they have done a lot to clean up Colfax since the 1960's. Also, there are many non-profit organizations and churches on Colfax Avenue or who make it their mission to serve the people on Colfax Avenue. They have also brought a considerable amount of hope to the people of there. Where the police have left off with clean up, they have stepped in and brought hope.
According to the Denver Post, Colfax Avenue was born in 1864 as the illustrious Grand Ave, only six blocks long. By 1974 it was renamed Colfax, after US Vice President Schuyler Colfax, a newspaper editor, turned Whigs Indiana US Representative, turned Whigs Speaker of the House, turned Republican Vice President, turned lecturer on the subject of Abraham Lincoln. Colfax was a famous for being staunchly anti-slavery, pro-foreign-men-becoming-citizens, and pro-economic-development-of-the-West. He was also a friend of Horace Greeley, the man Greeley, Colorado was named after; the editor of the New York Tribune newspaper. Greeley was also pro-economic-development of the West.
It wasn't the first main street in Denver, I believe that West 6th Avenue was the first main street in Denver, but it was the main street right before the gold-domed capitol building was built. It was like what Cherry Creek is to Denver today, high society, high technology, a trolley, and all the latest and greatest. Everybody who was anybody in Colorado, shopped and socialized along Colfax Avenue.
Colfax could've become a first-rate street. It had and still has a giant world class gold-domed Classical Roman-style building, the Colorado Capitol Building. It also had and still has s a giant Gothic building, the Catholic Church's Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. It has and still has the only government money printing press in the Rocky Mountain region, The Denver Mint. It has the Metropolitan State University and Community College of Denver campus. It has the Invesco Field at Mile High, where the Bronco's Football Team plays when they are at home. It had and and still has a world class hospital, National Jewish Health. It had a famous military hospital, Fitzsimmons Hospital. It now has the huge Anchutz Medical Campus where Fizsimmons was. It had various fancy stores, hotels, and movie theaters. It still has many mom and pop shops and restaurants.
But, hard times came, and like many people in the US today, this street fell from upper class, to middle class, and then to lower class, and then lower still. Nobody wanted to shop or socialize on Colfax Avenue, when they could shop in the suburbs up and down Interstate 70, or when they could socialize in Cherry Creek. During the 1960's it was the place where those with money were moving out, leaving behind buildings that became, so squatters, and criminals moved in. Well, many of the current shop owners are hoping it will be great again.
Colfax and the current US Middle Class have a lot in common. Right now, like Colfax Avenue did in the 1960's, many in the US middle class are falling into the lower class. Many of us can no longer afford to vacation. So, I for one, have decided to join Colfax Avenue and my lower class travel budget together to try traveling vicariously via armchair travel on the longest street in the world.
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