Moments after finishing a tour of LoDo’s warehouse district, Sebastian Montenegro scanned a list of Doors Open Denver’s annual tours of the city’s architectural icons as he picked out a second trip through history on the city’s streets Sunday.
Montenegro, 30, a landscape architect, moved to Denver recently from Rotterdam, Netherlands, and was taking advantage of the event, which features tours of neighborhoods and historical buildings to learn more about Denver. “I am enthusiastic about all these events,” he said, pointing to a long list of tours posted on a wall inside Union Station.
Allison Baxendale, 34, who was also on the tour, said it gave her an opportunity to learn about the history of buildings that Denver residents and visitors to the city pass each day without a thought. “I didn’t know anything about the warehouse district at all,” she said.
The brick and stone edifices that remain from Denver’s early days escaped the urban renewal that destroyed old buildings throughout the country in the mid-20th century and continue to house businesses and, in some cases, lofts.
“It’s awesome that they have been able to repurpose these buildings,” Baxendale said.
Groups spread out across the city Saturday and Sunday as tour guides explained architectural details gracing buildings erected in the 19th, and early 20th centuries.
The Denver Architectural Foundation puts on the event each spring, giving the community opportunities to connect with architectural surroundings through tours, guided and self-guided.
Cindy Miller, a member of preservation group Historic Denver conducted the warehouse district tour. She pointed out the architectural flourishes that mark so many of the city’s grand old buildings.
She brought history to life, telling stories behind the sometimes-puzzling features of building facades. For example, there are no stairs leading from the street to a doorway that seems stranded at the second story level of the facade of the building now occupied by the Tattered Cover Book. The door provided an entry way into C.S. Morey Mercantile Co., and others that later occupied the building, from a viaduct that ran above street-level train tracks.
Miller said that when she looks at these old buildings, she wonders about the stories they would tell “if walls could talk.”