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Curtis Park was developed in the 1860s and 1870s
as a fashionable residential suburb north of Downtown Denver.
Today, Curtis Park remains one of the center city's most accessible
neighborhoods for Downtown workers, characterized by its tree-lined
streets, its broad range of housing types, and its social, economic
and ethnic diversity.
Curtis Park's housing mix is wide ranging:
single story duplexes stand next door to recently renovated
grand Victorian mansions;
flat-roofed rowhouses next to classic, two-story Denver Square
brick houses; Queen Anne-style houses with second floor porches
are also numerous. There are three designated historic districts
in the Curtis Park neighborhood: Clements, San Rafael and Glenarm
Place.
Since its founding, Curtis Park has always been
a mixed-income neighborhood. Interspersed among the neighborhood's
turn of
the century mansions are smaller houses built by waves of immigrants
who came to Denver to join the workforce during the city's
early
years. Throughout the neighborhood's history, many of Curtis
Park's residents have worked in Downtown Denver, which is
only a 15-minute walk or a quick ride on RTD's light rail--or,
in
past decades, on streetcars--from Downtown's businesses and
office buildings.
A current effort that is changing the landscape of Curtis
Park is the rebuilding of the neighborhood's housing projects
through
a $26 million federal HOPE VI grant. Four blocks of two-story
apartment buildings that were built for public housing in
the 1950s were demolished in 2000. The area is being rebuilt
to accommodate
market-rate apartments and condominiums alongside affordable
and low income units, creating a more economically diverse
community. Construction of the new housing is underway, remarkably
transforming
the neighborhood. |
