Doors Open Denver - Five Points And Curtis Park

This past weekend Doors Open Denver took place, an event that showcases various neighborhoods and buildings throughout Denver.  There are guided tours for $10 each, or you can visit the many free sites that participate in the event. This year a lot of the sites were in Five Points and Curtis Park, which were traditionally black neighborhoods that in recent years have been (for the lack of a better word) gentrified, which has become quite a hot button issue here in Denver, now that rents and real estate prices have gone through the roof and people are being forced out of neighborhoods due to the cost.  In any case, the first place I stopped at was the Rossonian Hotel, seen in the upper left in the collage, which has been getting a lot of publicity lately.  Basketball player Chauncey Billups is part of a group that is going to restore it to it's former glory, and all the television stations have been reporting on this.  It was once a popular jazz spot back when Five Points was known as "the Harlem of the West."  Does that mean that Harlem was called "the Five Points of the East?" But I digress.  The place is currently just an empty room, and needs a lot of work.  I also visited the Puritan Pie Company, which is basically a warehouse with a lot of junk in it, although it did have a 1950s era Cadillac Fleetwood in perfect condition sitting in there (do the American Pickers know about this?).  But what struck me most were all the beautiful Victorian houses in the neighborhood, evoking the feeling of a different era.  I would have liked to have toured some of those, although I was hesitant to walk up to the front door of these places and ask for a tour.  That might have seemed a bit pushy.