Auraria continued from page 9 could be avoided in the future. While state and federal agencies focused on building Chatfi eld Dam, Mayor Tom Currigan looked at the dev- astation in the Central Platte Valley and pushed for an array of Denver redevelopment projects. “In Response to a Flood,” a city-produced bro- chure, invited readers to imagine “a beautifully sculpted channel with inviting walkways… new and modern industrial parks throughout the valley. … Picture old Auraria at the confl u- ence of the Platte and Cherry Creek, and a separate village when Denver was founded, transformed into a vibrant urban college.” Center, collected 2,000 signatures on a peti- tion opposing the project. But they could not dissuade Denver’s boosters. As plans and funding came together, the Denver Urban Renewal Authority displaced 330 households and 250 businesses, many of them moving to neighborhoods north and west of Auraria. While construction of the campus couldn’t be stopped, a few buildings had the protection of the 1967 Denver Preservation Ordinance, adopted after the Skyline Urban Renewal Project threatened 26 blocks of old buildings in downtown Denver. The Denver Landmark Preservation Commission recommended St. Cajetan’s, built in 1925; the Tivoli Brewery, González family, who had created much more than a restaurant at 1020 Ninth Street. Casa Mayan was a melting pot of Colorado and Auraria history, a physical representa- tion of the neighborhood. “This was the original Auraria higher education center,”Alcaro says. “It was a place where people from all walks of life could come together and learn from each other.” People co-existed; no one assimilated. “The mission of the Casa Mayan res- taurant was a mission of bringing people together across cultural boundaries,” says Jim Walsh, political science professor at the University of Colorado Denver and a longtime friend of Alcaro’s. of Memories, a project of History Colorado that includes storytelling, workshops, art and grassroots efforts to bring to light memories of old buildings and neighborhoods. “I’m so happy for everybody to help the grandchildren we know to go to school,” said Gregory Gomez, who grew up at 1050 Ninth Street, just three doors down from Casa Mayan. He remembers his mother teaching him to make empanadas, tamales and chile in that house. Others spoke of life on the Westside, where doors were never locked and kids would play together outside their homes, the smell of lilacs blowing through the Colorado wind. Carolina González ran Casa Mayan for three decades; her grandson, Gregorio Alcaro (above), remembers when she had to leave. Only one of Currigan’s grand plans came to pass: a higher-education campus in the heart of the city. The Auraria Higher Educa- tion Center, a new state entity, was created to oversee an educational oasis that would be home to the University of Colorado Denver, the Community College of Denver, and what was then known as Metropolitan State Col- lege. But to create the campus, 169 acres of Auraria would have to be swept clean. The U.S.Department of Housing and Ur- 10 ban Development estimated that the project would cost $24.2 million; the feds would pay $12.6 billion of that, the State of Colorado $5.6 million. Residents of the city of Denver voted to approve close to $6 million in bonds for the rest. The Auraria Residents Organization fought the plan, as did Chicano activists who were part of a larger movement already sweeping the city. They wanted to preserve what they called the Westside, keeping hous- ing costs low and preserving the character of the area. Reverend Peter Garcia of St. Cajetan’s Catholic Church, along with Waldo Bena- videz, director of the Auraria Community built in 1870 (and today a student union); and the Emmanuel Shearith Israel Chapel, built in 1876, for landmark designation. Historic Denver, which had formed in 1970 when the Molly Brown House was threatened, revved up again to preserve a slice of the original Auraria neighborhood: a block of old houses on Ninth Street, which were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, the same year Casa Mayan served its last meal. Construction of the campus was com- pleted in 1976. The fourteen houses pre- served on what had become Ninth Street Historic Park were now owned by the Aura- ria Higher Education Center, the entity that manages the three institutions. Gregorio Alcaro, 59, remembers when his grandmother, Carolina González, learned she would have to leave Casa Mayan. She bought a duplex off Federal Boule- vard with the money she received for her home; the city also offered her a location in a strip mall for the restaurant. “I remember going down and seeing these places,” recalls Alcaro. “It was not a fast-food Mexican res- taurant. That was traumatic.” It also seemed a slap in the face for the In 2006, Alcaro and Trini H. González founded Auraria Casa Mayan Heritage, a nonprofi t that works to preserve the his- tory of Auraria. They believe in the spirit of Casa Mayan and how it still represents all that Auraria was before displacement. And they also believe that the Auraria Higher Education Center has some promises to keep. Many former Auraria residents remem- ber being told that AHEC would give schol- arships to people who’d lived in Auraria between 1955 and 1973, but nothing was documented. After years of campaigning by the community, in 1994 the schools agreed to offer those scholarships to displaced resi- dents of the Auraria neighborhood, their children and their grandchildren. Between 1998 and 2021, more than 600 people re- ceived a displaced-Aurarian scholarship. The arrangement became more formal on June 8 of this year, when HB22-1393 was signed into law. It acknowledges the displacement of Auraria residents and of- fers up to $2 million in scholarships to the descendants of those who were displaced to attend any of the three schools on the campus indefi nitely. “I testifi ed before the House, which pre- served the scholarship, which prior to this year was an oral history documenting schol- arships. Now it’s a piece of legislation,” says Leora Joseph, who was the general counsel and chief administrative offi cer for AHEC at the time. On June 14, former residents of Auraria celebrated the new law at the Displaced Au- rarians Memory Workshop, part of Museum They remembered Ernie Lopez’s bar- bershop, a pickle factory, their elementary school and other businesses that used to make up the fabric of the community, includ- ing Casa Mayan. They spoke of their past memories as well as a future that would be better because of those scholarships. But that’s the least of what the schools should do to atone for what the people of Auraria lost, according to Alcaro. “That’s to me the idea that higher education is going to preserve our culture, and it’s not,” he says. “I still feel to this day that they were not compensated justly.” Today the Auraria campus is home to Metro- politan State University of Denver, a four-year public institution with 16,396 un- dergraduate students, 50.3 percent of them people of color. The University of Colorado Denver has 10,200 undergraduate students, half of them people of color. The Community College of Denver has 8,032 students, with 49.3 percent of them Hispanic, African- American or Asian. The campus has been on a building binge of late, but over the past year, as it prepared to mark the fi ftieth anniversary of the dis- placement, offi cials became more involved in preserving the history of the neighborhood and helping its former residents. Putting the scholarship promise into law was just the start. Both AHEC and the University of Colo- rado Denver have been looking at the Ninth Street buildings they oversee and consider- ing how they can be worked back into the community. continued on page 12 JULY 28-AUGUST 3, 2022 WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | westword.com COURTESY OF AURARIA LIBRARY DIGITAL COLLECTIONS EVAN SEMÓN
