Walking The Historic Buchtel Boulevard Trail At Prairie Park

Someone sideswiped my car when I was in Florida, knocking off part of the front driver's side bumper, requiring me to drop it off yesterday morning to be repaired. Since the car repair shop is only a mile or so away, I walked back to my condo along the Historic Buchtel Boulevard Trail at Prairie Park, as seen in the photograph above. Which always reminds me of Diana Helper, who was a resident of Denver's University Park neighborhood for 60 years, a community activist, and wrote a monthly column titled "University Park News and Views" for the Washington Park Profile. She spent 30 years working to establish this park, which preserves a bit of the long-gone prairie along Buchtel Boulevard between Colorado and University Boulevards. Helper always attended the monthly University of Denver "Good Neighbors" meetings, which I began to attend as DU began planning a major development across the street from my condo building. As long-suffering blog readers know, I was the Finance Manager at the University of Denver Bookstore and worked there for almost 30 years before the store was outsourced. Each month store managers would meet with the Vice Chancellor for Business and Financial Affairs, and I couldn't help but notice that there was a huge map of the campus on the wall of his office, and right where my condo building is located was a light rail station and parking garage. DU's plans evidently included moving the station to where my building is located so that people getting off the train would have a dramatic view of DU and a gateway to the campus. I contacted Diana Helper, and she reassured me that no way would that ever happen, despite what DU wanted. Sadly, she is gone now, as is the Washington Park Profile, and the dramatic vision for that part of campus across the street has been significantly revised. Not surprising, since last year DU was $30 million under budget and has undergone a lot of budget cuts and layoffs as a result. In any case, Diana Helper did a lot for the University Park neighborhood and the City of Denver, and it is important to keep her memory alive.