My long time performance partner Ray Schelgunov moved away a few years ago (we were the Two Significant Guys), so I decided to make a little film about loneliness, temporality, and the ever changing urban landscape. The video was shot at the corner of 12th and Broadway in Denver on August 15th, 2010 at 8 o’clock in the morning with three cameras and some special effects.

You can watch a previous video from this series entitled “Feed The Kids”

-Hugh Graham

— by Brian Shearer

B50 Note: Brian Shearer is a designer, cartoonist, and creator of Mr. Skully. As Brian mentions, the Denver Public Library has some great information on the areas cemeteries available online. Brian can be reached via email.

B50 Note: After 60 years of cutting hair at the same location on Colfax, Walt Young hangs up his scissors on September 30th, 2009. You can read more about Walt at 9news and the Denver Post. Walt Young’s digital story was produced by Daniel Weinshenker and the Center for Digital Storytelling in conjunction with the “Imagine A Great City” exhibit at the Colorado Historical Society. More stories from the series are available at the Mile High Stories website.

Father Joseph Hirsch (1944-2009) attending to a gravesite in the Orthodox section at Riverside (photo from the Denver Post)

It was with great sadness that we received the news of the death of Father Joseph Hirsch, who was the Dean of the Holy Transfiguration of Christ Cathedral in Globeville for the past 25 years. Father Joe was a fixture at Riverside, whether conducting a service or tending to the graves in orthodox section of the cemetery.

Father Joe, along with his wife Paulette, has long been a tireless advocate for Riverside, for the congregation, and for the Globeville community.

Both Father Joe and Paulette have supported the efforts of the Friends of Historic Riverside through their advise, their membership in our organization, and by allowing our group to use the community hall at the church for our annual meetings.

Among his other accomplishments, Father Joe was the driving force behind the Orthodox Food Festival and Old Globeville Days, held in Argo Park just across from the church, an event that uses the best food at any festival in Colorado to bring visitors to their neighborhood.

Father Joe was also a regular at community planning meetings, and could be counted on to advocate for a neighborhood that has been too often overlooked in the planning process. Though he was a fierce fighter for causes he believed in, he engaged each person with a unique combination of humanity and kindness.

Our deepest condolences go out to Paulette, the Hirsch family, their friends and the congregation of the Holy Transfiguration Cathedral.

More information on Father Hirsch and his family can be found on the cathedral website, www.transfigcathedral.org

— by Hugh Graham, originally posted on the Friends of Historic Riverside Cemetery website.

—By Patrick Stephenson

Although I was born in Denver and have lived in the surrounding area my entire life, I didn’t actually move to within city limits until 1999; the summer I turned thirty-eight. That same summer I met my wife, Donna, and a year or two later we met our friend John Henderson, a tall, slender African American man with a glowing character. We met because Donna and I walk our dogs together on a near daily basis, frequently to City Park, a journey that takes us by John’s storefront if we take the 21st Street route.

If you happen to peer in while passing by you can see his collection of imported African arts and crafts, and on the days he’s there (Friday and Saturday), with a closer inspection you can see John sitting in his frayed office chair reading a magazine, listening to the radio or chatting with one or more of his many friends. He’ll be eighty-eight years old this summer, but has the mind, body and spirit of a much younger man.

Before John opened his store (The African and American Trading Company) at 2217 E. 21st Ave., he was Denver’s first African American architect and the first licensed in Colorado. He worked for many prominent Denver architectural firms, including his first job with Fisher Davis & Sudler in 1959 (working on the Federal Courthouse), and Gio Ponti & Sudler (on the first Denver Art Museum). He worked on the Denver Botanical Gardens and a slew of other architectural gems in Denver.

In 1961 he designed a modern home for himself and his wife Gloria, which is near his store. The home is adorned with full height panels of glass and clean lines, reflecting the style of his favorite ‘master architect’, Mies van der Rohe. At the entry John has created beautiful window weight sculptures, and at Christmas he and Gloria assemble large mobiles of ornaments you can see through the full height corner windows.

John has been retired from architecture since 1981, and lives a much less complicated life at his store selling eclectic African art for two days a week. His store has baskets, carved wooden bowls, phone wire art, jewelry, and tribal dolls. He also sells some American art, and odds and ends such as assorted teas, nuts and maple syrup from Vermont. But he has said that the main reason he has his store is for the opportunity to engage with people who pass by, and those who, like me and Donna, come by routinely just to see him. It’s rather like a barber shop environment, where you can sit and swap stories, or just take in one of his stories from his long and remarkable life.

B50 Note: Patrick Stephenson is an architect who lives near City Park with his wife Donna and their dogs Waylon and Huck. You can find out more about his work at his website.