Can the Lowenstein Center house both books and bros?
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I often find myself describing Denver as the little city that could. An attitude seems to pervade this city that anything is possible; maybe it comes from having a chip on our shoulder at being labeled a “fly-over” or maybe we’re just so shit-faced off microbrews we walk around constantly believing our own hype. Whatever it is, it’s working. The city has gone from cow-town to legitimate destination in my lifetime, and even though hillbilly neck-beards are de rigueur once again here, make no mistake about it, Denver continues to be a city on the move—which means development.
And round here development tends to rear its ardent head in one of two ways: attempts at conservation and Soviet bloc-style mixed-used condo facilities with exteriors the color of toddler
shit. Generally speaking, new residents prefer the latter; it’s easier to get your dry cleaning, and there’s plenty of patio space for Ohio State flags. But the old Denver guard, myself included, loves to see the transformation of neglected buildings into historic landmarks, almost as much as we love buying expensive outdoor equipment to store in our front hall closets. It just makes us feel good about ourselves.
Which is why the Lowenstein Project was met with such fanfare.
Located on East Colfax between Elizabeth and Columbine streets, the dilapidated 55-year-old Lowenstein Theater was purchased by Denver developer Charlie Woolley and the St. Charles Town Company several years back. It was converted into retail space, which immediately attracted local business titans Tattered Cover and Twist & Shout. Although the space was also rumored to spark the interest of the Denver Film Society, that deal never materialized; instead Neighborhood Flix Cinema And Café set up shop in 2007 and promptly began serving expensive sweet-potato fries to art-house gang-bangers. It was a coup for neighborhood residents who watched a junkie junction transform into an indie haven. And as an alumnus of East High School just across the street from the Lowenstein, it made my heart soar too, knowing that those teens would be able to steal CDs and DVDs, then sell them to buy drugs from the junkies who had moved one block down.
But Neighborhood Flix closed in a year, and now Tavern Congress Park—a new bar/restaurant from the Tavern Hospitality Group, which also owns the Soiled Dove, Cowboy Lounge, Tavern Uptown, among others—intends to open in that space sometime in late 2010. (A liquor-license hearing is scheduled for later this week.) It’s great that THG is a local entity, but have you ever been to the Cowboy Lounge? That’s where you go to hear huge tits say “like” too much and then puke into their own abandoned high-heels. Or the Tavern Uptown? It’s where popped-collars bet on sports games and bum your cigarettes. Not exactly your book-reading and documentary-watching crowd.
Woolley feels the space will be more like a music venue akin to the Soiled Dove, though, and not a bro-dude haven like Cowboy Lounge. “The original vision was books, records and movies,” he says. “I think this is books, records, live music, and entertainment. What we learned about our vision was that because of the incredibly competitive nature of the movie business, we weren’t able to get a successful movie house to take on the space. But the alternative, in this case the music assembly, we think is pretty darned good. People have been actually requesting it.”
But will that logic stand when NIMBY neighbors down the block are monitoring jock-fights from their upstairs windows?
The Lowenstein was a beautiful building and it deserved to be saved; efforts in doing so, and to rejuvenate the block, have been noble. But how long independent book and record stores can continue to stave off their demise is nebulous. And, if God forbid, someday our heroic local storefronts go the way of the ivory-billed woodpecker, what will replace them? Whole Foods? Super Target? LoDo’s on the ’Fax? What will those conservationist denizens of Denver say then? That they were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think whether or not they should? Maybe they’ll say that. And if they do they’ll be quoting Jeff Goldblum directly from Jurassic Park. And can you really blame them for doing that? He was incredible in that movie.
