The Lower Highlands

A number of years ago I did a photo project featuring the Lower Highlands neighborhood of Denver.  I have a photo collage from that project on the wall of my office at the DU Bookstore (it won't fit anywhere else).  At the time I took those photographs, the Lower Highlands was still a bit of an iffy neighborhood.  These days a national magazine has named it one of the trendiest neighborhoods in the country.  There is even a "bookstore" there called Williams and Graham that is actually a speakeasy down in the basement.  It is so trendy you have to make a reservation to sit at the bar.  I wonder how my old Chicago literary heros like Mike Royko, Nelson Algren, and Studs Terkel would react to a "reserved" barstool.  Not well at all I suspect.