As it turns out, I’m far too consumed in attending the National Performing Arts Convention to write about its content yet. But I hope to do so over the coming days. In the meanwhile, I’ve been struck by the curious contradictions in the particular part of Denver we’re in.
The Colorado Convention Center is a monster of a venue, constructed, no doubt, to increase tourism, convention business, and re-focus investment and activity in this part of town. Surrounding the massive investment, of course, are new and renovated hotels, a large, multi-venue performing arts center, and lots of construction (many parking structures among them).
So, here’s the contradiction: These large capital investments by public, private, and nonprofit players have certainly transformed the convening capacity in Denver’s downtown. But they have also de-activated the streets. The convention center, the parking lots, the hotels (despite their occasional restaurant or coffee shop), create block after block of glass or stone walls at the street level, many of them without a door (at least an open one) for hundreds of feet at a time. As a result, there are very few people populating the street, stopping to talk with each other, people watching, lingering, and realizing they’re in an urban streetscape of diversity and energy.
To be fair, this may well be the intent, since just blocks away is the 16th street mall with shops and restaurants and cafes and such. And it’s obvious the evolution of this neighborhood is continuing. Although the blocks and blocks of walls that now line the sidewalk would make significant spacial or social change unlikely.
Ultimately, as with many major cultural and civic facilities, it’s odd to wander among the mammoths, to know there are likely thousands of people convening somewhere within the skins of glass and stone and steel, and to feel, essentially, alone…that is, other than the large, blue, geodesic bear that’s peering into the convention center, wondering (along with you) what’s inside.
