My sister Susan and I visited Stanley Marketplace a few weeks ago, looking around at the various shops and doing a little people watching. This shopping complex has over 50 independent businesses housed in what was once the manufacturing plant for Stanley Aviation, which made ejection seats for the air force and was located just off the main runway of what was once Denver's Stapleton Airport. It says on the Stanley Marketplace website that test planes would take off from this facility, and when the company developed an escape capsule for the B-58 Hustler, company owner Bob Stanley borrowed live bears from the Denver Zoo to test it. Now THAT would have made a great photograph. And by the way, the photograph I did take, seen on the left, is of my sister Susan checking the place out. She hates having her photo taken these days, and there would have been bloodshed if she had caught me snapping it. Talk about taking a risk.
This retail center is on the border of Aurora and Denver's Central Park neighborhood, which is where Stapleton Airport was once located. Stanley Marketplace began when a few neighbors got together to start a beer hall, and the idea for it began to grow from there. It now has several brew pubs, one of which can be seen in the photograph on the right, and the whole project has been a great success. And just why was the airport moved from this spot to it's current location, close to the Kansas border? The only thing I can figure is that since Stapleton was only a 20 minute drive from downtown, and DIA is 45 minutes away during the best of times, the taxi companies must have paid serious bribes to get it moved. What other explanation can there possibly be?
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