6 MARCH 14-20, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | CALHOUN | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Is El Chapultepec History? IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK, THEY’D BE SCREAMING RIGHT NOW. BY PATRICIA CALHOUN “The British are coming, the British are com- ing.” The empty bottle of rotgut might have addled his other senses, but it had spared this fellow’s sense of humor. From his position on the sidewalk corner near El Chapultepec, he had a good view of all the action on the streets around him, including me as I walked past him from our offi ce at 18th and Wynkoop streets to one of Denver’s most legendary bars: El Chapultepec, at 1962 Market Street. This was before Coors Field was constructed just two blocks beyond that offi ce, before Den- ver even had a major-league team, back in the late ’80s when the Lower Downtown Historic District had just been formed in an area only recently nicknamed “LoDo.” I was on my way to meet Karle Seydel, then the unoffi cial mayor of what was known affectionately as “NoDough” and offi cially the fi rst director of the Larimer Square North Merchants’ Association. From that spot, Seydel had an equally good view of the developing action in the area. At times, he was the only action. He worked with that other unoffi cial mayor of NoDough, Eddie Maestas, the owner of Johnnie’s Market, to host chile festivals and other events to bring people to the 2000 block of Larimer Street. Beyond the Mexican cafes and pawn shops and mom-and-pop stores, the neighborhood’s real draw, of course, was El Chapultepec, which had gained an international reputation as a place for cold beer and hot jazz (and, inci- dentally, very hot green chile). But things were beginning to change as Denver’s great-city ambitions grew and LoDo spilled to the north. “The British are here,” Seydel said, as I told him of my encounter and we sat at the bar drinking those cold beers, listening to the free jukebox — “because this is America,” said the fellow holding up the bar a few stools away — and talking with owner Jerry Krantz about changes already coming to the area. El Chapultepec had opened on that most American of days, the day after Prohibition was repealed in December 1933. Krantz began bartending at El Chapultepec in 1958 and inherited the business — but not the building — a decade later from his father-in-law, Tony Romano. While mariachi music had been the featured genre, Krantz turned the place into a jazz club. For decades, it was a lonely and cru- cial cultural outpost, but then the British and everyone else really started coming. Denver got major-league baseball, the area just northwest of El Chapultepec was chosen over two other spots as the future home of the ballpark, and developers were pouring in. But the music at El Chapultepec contin- ued, with that tiny stage hosting everyone from local pick-up groups to legends like Ella Fitzgerald, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger, and even Bill Clinton (not on the same night). Seydel passed away in 2010, and Krantz passed away two years later, at the age of 77. “He was there every night,” musician Freddy Rodriguez told the author of Krantz’s obituary; he’d met him in 1979 and played at El Chapultepec for decades after that. “He’d sit in the back all night every night. He never came and sat down front where the music was happening, but he knew what he wanted and he just loved the jazz community.” Angela Guerrero and Anna Diaz, Krantz’s daughters, took over the bar in 2012, under a lease with new landlord Shames Makovsky. But then came the pandemic. Rodriguez passed away soon after coronavirus struck four years ago this March, and by December of that year, Diaz and Guerrero were through. “I want to make sure we’re not going to be too quick to point the fi nger at COVID and our shutdowns for being the reason for this closure,” Diaz said at a December 8, 2020, announcement. “Undoubtedly, that makes an impact in our decision. But there are so many things that led to this choice.” In the mix: Rockies fans disrupting shows after games, safety concerns from nearby tent cities, and LoDo drunks pouring out of Market Street bars, explained Diaz: “It’s just really taking a toll on us. And it’s just that Denver’s different than it used to be, and 20th and Market is different than it used to be.” And it was about to get even more dif- ferent. In early 2021, Shames Makovsky leased the building to Valentes Corleons, a club owner who’d already run into trouble with other LoDo venues and was about to run into more, even as he transformed El Chapultepec into what he planned to call Cantina, after the sign painted on those legendary walls. He’d already ripped out the historic stage and booths by the time he returned the keys to the landlord in early 2022, complaining about permitting holdups from the city and a few other challenges, like his club Beta being named a public nuisance. “That’s the end right now,” Corleons said of giving up his club empire. “The city thinks I’m a bad guy, and they hate me so much. It breaks my heart that they never got to know me and listen to what I’ve been through, see my side. They never treated me as a business guy.” Or as an engineer or architect. In November 2022, Shames Makovsky sold the building — or what was left of it — to Monfort Companies, which already owns many of the structures along that block of Market. The company also snapped up the building at 1320 20th Street that houses the Giggling Grizzly. “The forthcoming rehabilitation and amalgamation of El Chapultepec and the Giggling Grizzly will build upon the momentum prevalent in this neighborhood and, ideally, catalyze continued investment here. We see investment in this neighborhood as an economic imperative that will help Denver claim its spot as a top enter- tainment destination nationally,” said Kenneth Monfort, executive vice president of Monfort Companies, in announcing the deal. Kenneth is the son of Charles Monfort, a co-owner of the Colorado Rockies with his brother, Dick. Beyond that, Kenneth wasn’t revealing what kind of entertainment would go into the combined venues. “Live music, broadly,” he said. “But yes, there will be a jazz element.” In the meantime, El Chapultepec served as sort of a music clubhouse, initially known as the 87 Foundation, for the number of years El Chapultepec had been open, and now ONE Denver. But Krantz’s daughters didn’t want much to do with that group, and came up with their own plan for their family’s heritage: the El Chapultepec Lounge at the relocated Dazzle, and the Legacy Project that would push Denver’s jazz heritage. And now Monfort has some plans of its own: to demolish El Chapultepec completely. There’s no question the building is in bad shape — what age didn’t do on its own, Corleons helped along by removing structural elements without permits. But music fans never really worried about the ultimate fate of El Chapulte- pec; since the building is in the Lower Down- town Historic District, they assumed it would automatically be saved. Not so, it turns out. When the LoDo historic district was estab- lished nearly forty years ago, El Chapultepec was determined to be a “non-contributing structure,” and thus potentially eligible for demolition. According to Historic Denver, which has led the charge to save this city’s historic structures for more than fi ve decades, “Non-contributing structures are those built outside the Period of Signifi cance, or those that have been altered and no longer have historic integrity.” And in El Chapultepec’s current condition, the latter might apply, except... Since the Lower Downtown Historic Dis- trict was created, other criteria for landmark eligibility have been added, beyond the historic signifi cance of how the building was used, or the pedigree of who created it. Now also considered are whether applicants “represent an era of culture or heritage that allows an understanding of how the site was used by past generations; be a physical attribute of a neighborhood, community, or the city that is a source of pride or cultural understand- ing; be associated with social movements, institutions, or patterns of growth or change that contributed signifi cantly to the culture of the neighborhood, community, city, state, or nation.” And those three alone could push El Chapultepec’s eligibility over the top, even if there’s no top of the building to save. The exterior walls, with their iconic signs, could be enough to save; Historic Denver has worked with less before. Having caught wind that Monfort Com- panies is planning to fi le plans that would require the demolition of El Chapultepec — its footprint would be used for an outdoor patio, reportedly — Historic Denver hurriedly work on a landmark application for the structure that was fi led late March 11. Beyond that, no one was talking on Mon- day, not offi cially. Anna Diaz offers only this: “The magic of El Chapultepec is the people,” she says. “Part of what pulled our heartstrings, when faced with potential destruction, is the collective mourning over all we’ve lost over the last decade. There have been a lot of cultural losses, losses of community gathering places.” If these walls could talk, it would no doubt be music to our ears. Email [email protected]. CALHOUN KEEP UP ON DENVER NEWS AT WESTWORD.COM/NEWS Jazz once echoed off these walls. JON SOLOMON
