South Pearl Street

I took a long walk through the neighborhood around my condo last week, and decided to head over to Denver's South Pearl Street to see what changes have taken place since I last visited.  Like Old South Gaylord Street, located on the opposite side of Washington Park, Pearl Street has a combination of businesses and residences, and is a pretty fun place to walk around.  The street originally had a lot of modest turn-of-the-century homes like the one in the photograph on the left, but these are quickly being replaced by new apartment buildings and duplexes, in addition to a slew of new restaurants and businesses.

One of the things I noticed on this walk was an airplane fuselage sitting on the patio of a corner coffee shop, which to me seems a bit on the strange side.  I assume this was not the location where the plane crashed - certainly this would have made the local paper - and so it must have been brought here on purpose.  But why not the whole plane, not just a part of it?  That is a question I will probably ponder for the rest of my life.  But it does show that there is always something to catch your eye in this neighborhood.

While the south end of Pearl Street is mainly residential, the upper end of the street has a lot of restaurants and shops, including Stella's, one of Denver's most popular coffee shops / hipster hangouts, and Kaos, my favorite pizza place / beer garden. Unfortunately, it has been a few years since I was last here, but I am glad to see it is still going strong.  It is a real pleasure to get a happy hour beer here and then sit down and watch the locals parade up and down the street.  I would suggest this place as a happy hour destination for some of the old DU Bookstore gang, but I'm afraid it might be a little too late in the year for this, unless of course global warming gives us a few more days in the 70s.  One can only hope.