Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's do this. So Governor Polus has an idea for
a bridge to go from somewhere around the state capitol
to some other place, and he had some out of
town designer, you.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Know, do this thing.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
And I guess it's supposed to look a little bit
like a river. And it's not a terrible looking bridge,
but it sure is not attracting a lot of positive
attention so far or positive response so far. The Denver
Gazette says Historic Denver and that's both capitalized. It's the
organization name Historic Denver opposes proposed Lincoln Street pedestrian walkway,
(00:33):
joining us to talk about it. John Deffenbaught is president
and CEO of Historic Denver. Hey, John, thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hey thanks for having me. So don't you just.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Love a new bridge to get people from here to there?
What could be wrong?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, I think the question we all need to ask
ourselves is where is here and where is there? This
doesn't take pedestrians from a to be in a way
that works for them. It takes them on a huge detour.
And also, I'm not quite sure how many pedestrians want
to get from the corner of Broadway and Lincoln to
the front door of the State Capitol. In the first place,
people are still going to use the crosswalks, People are
(01:09):
still going to be concerned to traffic. This bridge doesn't
really solve any particular problem.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, but at least it's expensive.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
There is I believe they're working through. It approves one
point five million in design fees just now and then
I think it's like eighteen to twenty million four construction
that's been floated of potentially a mixture of public and
private money.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
So I feel like I want to be a little sarcastic,
but I mean, it sounds like you're saying, not only
is the bridge, you know, too big to this to that,
but it's it sounds like you're also saying it's not
solving an actual problem that needs to be solved.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Is that what you're saying, Yeah, that's totally true. It's
the way I understand it from the state is that
this is intended to take school kids from the corner
of Lincoln Broadway and now call Fax to the front
door of the state Capitol. And that's a totally admirable goal.
But is the number of school kids and is that
benefit worth the intrusion into a really historic built environment.
(02:18):
Civic Center is one of the most historic public spaces
in Denver, if not the state. It's continuously evolved for
over one hundred years. There's design guidelines to ensure it
evolves thoughtfully and maintains its historic characteristics. And this bridge
just flies in the face of those design guidelines and
a totally alien presence into the space.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
You know, I was just doing some math. If it's
twenty million dollars, and if one hundred thousand people walk
that bridge, or if you want one hundred thousand school kids,
that's still two hundred dollars a person, which is a lot.
And that's really if they were to get it done
at twenty million dollars. Okay, I think we made an
(03:02):
I've made enough of the monetary point. I would like
you to explain a little bit more from your perspective
representing historic Denver. Elaborate on what you just said about
the design aspect. Well, design isn't exactly right, the kind
of the macro, how this does or doesn't fit in place.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Sure, Civic Center across the land ownership. Part of its
owned by the state, part of it's owned by the city,
But nevertheless it's involved really consistently with a lot of
cohesion over the past one hundred and twenty years. It's
one of the most complete examples of the city beautiful
movement in the US, and key characteristics of that are imitary, elegance, restraints,
(03:45):
and it's those characteristics that made it worthy of becoming
a National Historic Landmark. In twenty twelve. There's only twenty
six hundred National Historic Landmarks in the entire US, which
is really a handful compared to the size of the country,
so that this one of the key spaces to the
story of the entire country, and the key things that
(04:06):
make it relevant to that is the city beautiful movement
and the symmetry, the restrain, the elegance, and the consistency
across the entire park. Inserting a bridge into part of
the park that is Kirby Worthy is asymmetric, is very
counter to the characteristics that make the park special. Starts
(04:27):
to undermine the historic value and historic integrity of the
overall park. And that's not to mention the opportunity for unfortunately,
those without permanent shelter potentially gathering around the bridge for
projectiles or banners to be hung from the bridge or
thrown from the bridge. There's a lot of practical considerations
(04:50):
as well to take into account.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
So other than that, what don't you like that? I'm
just about out of time, but I just wanted to
mention something, you know, so your president and CEO of
Historic Denver. I am president of the Bad Analogy Club,
And yeah, and you know, as I as I as
I think about this, it reminds me a bit of
if you had some very lovely could be Renaissance, but
(05:16):
could be a little bit later than the Renaissance landscape painting,
and then you drew into it a surrealistic rename of
Greed or Salva or dolly Well bridge. Let's say, it
would just feel a little a little odd. And I
don't know, maybe that's not that bad an analogy, but
(05:37):
I'll give you the last seventeen seconds to wrap up.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, I think your analogy of a Dolly is justified.
You know. Look, it's it's a good looking bridge. Yeah,
it's just in the wrong location. In another location, this
could fit in really well. It's Kurby, it's very interesting,
but it's just in an inappropriate location. It doesn't fit
in with this storic characteristics that make this part one
(06:02):
of the most special public spaces in the state.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Sorry, give me a very quick answer to this. Do
you guys have any authority to stop it?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I think the public opinion and trying to rally public
opinion mobilize the debates. Thank you for being curious and
talking about it, because the more we talk about it,
the more we can all come to a public consensus
about what is and is not appropriate in one of
our very own public spaces.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
John Defenboss, President and CEO of Historic Denver, the website
Historicdenver dot org. Thanks for your time, John, We'll keep
in touch on this issue.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Thanks so much.
Let's do this. So Governor Polus has an idea for
a bridge to go from somewhere around the state capitol
to some other place, and he had some out of
town designer, you.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Know, do this thing.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
And I guess it's supposed to look a little bit
like a river. And it's not a terrible looking bridge,
but it sure is not attracting a lot of positive
attention so far or positive response so far. The Denver
Gazette says Historic Denver and that's both capitalized. It's the
organization name Historic Denver opposes proposed Lincoln Street pedestrian walkway,
(00:33):
joining us to talk about it. John Deffenbaught is president
and CEO of Historic Denver. Hey, John, thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hey thanks for having me. So don't you just.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Love a new bridge to get people from here to there?
What could be wrong?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, I think the question we all need to ask
ourselves is where is here and where is there? This
doesn't take pedestrians from a to be in a way
that works for them. It takes them on a huge detour.
And also, I'm not quite sure how many pedestrians want
to get from the corner of Broadway and Lincoln to
the front door of the State Capitol. In the first place,
people are still going to use the crosswalks, People are
(01:09):
still going to be concerned to traffic. This bridge doesn't
really solve any particular problem.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, but at least it's expensive.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
There is I believe they're working through. It approves one
point five million in design fees just now and then
I think it's like eighteen to twenty million four construction
that's been floated of potentially a mixture of public and
private money.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
So I feel like I want to be a little sarcastic,
but I mean, it sounds like you're saying, not only
is the bridge, you know, too big to this to that,
but it's it sounds like you're also saying it's not
solving an actual problem that needs to be solved.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Is that what you're saying, Yeah, that's totally true. It's
the way I understand it from the state is that
this is intended to take school kids from the corner
of Lincoln Broadway and now call Fax to the front
door of the state Capitol. And that's a totally admirable goal.
But is the number of school kids and is that
benefit worth the intrusion into a really historic built environment.
(02:18):
Civic Center is one of the most historic public spaces
in Denver, if not the state. It's continuously evolved for
over one hundred years. There's design guidelines to ensure it
evolves thoughtfully and maintains its historic characteristics. And this bridge
just flies in the face of those design guidelines and
a totally alien presence into the space.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
You know, I was just doing some math. If it's
twenty million dollars, and if one hundred thousand people walk
that bridge, or if you want one hundred thousand school kids,
that's still two hundred dollars a person, which is a lot.
And that's really if they were to get it done
at twenty million dollars. Okay, I think we made an
(03:02):
I've made enough of the monetary point. I would like
you to explain a little bit more from your perspective
representing historic Denver. Elaborate on what you just said about
the design aspect. Well, design isn't exactly right, the kind
of the macro, how this does or doesn't fit in place.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Sure, Civic Center across the land ownership. Part of its
owned by the state, part of it's owned by the city,
But nevertheless it's involved really consistently with a lot of
cohesion over the past one hundred and twenty years. It's
one of the most complete examples of the city beautiful
movement in the US, and key characteristics of that are imitary, elegance, restraints,
(03:45):
and it's those characteristics that made it worthy of becoming
a National Historic Landmark. In twenty twelve. There's only twenty
six hundred National Historic Landmarks in the entire US, which
is really a handful compared to the size of the country,
so that this one of the key spaces to the
story of the entire country, and the key things that
(04:06):
make it relevant to that is the city beautiful movement
and the symmetry, the restrain, the elegance, and the consistency
across the entire park. Inserting a bridge into part of
the park that is Kirby Worthy is asymmetric, is very
counter to the characteristics that make the park special. Starts
(04:27):
to undermine the historic value and historic integrity of the
overall park. And that's not to mention the opportunity for unfortunately,
those without permanent shelter potentially gathering around the bridge for
projectiles or banners to be hung from the bridge or
thrown from the bridge. There's a lot of practical considerations
(04:50):
as well to take into account.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
So other than that, what don't you like that? I'm
just about out of time, but I just wanted to
mention something, you know, so your president and CEO of
Historic Denver. I am president of the Bad Analogy Club,
And yeah, and you know, as I as I as
I think about this, it reminds me a bit of
if you had some very lovely could be Renaissance, but
(05:16):
could be a little bit later than the Renaissance landscape painting,
and then you drew into it a surrealistic rename of
Greed or Salva or dolly Well bridge. Let's say, it
would just feel a little a little odd. And I
don't know, maybe that's not that bad an analogy, but
(05:37):
I'll give you the last seventeen seconds to wrap up.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, I think your analogy of a Dolly is justified.
You know. Look, it's it's a good looking bridge. Yeah,
it's just in the wrong location. In another location, this
could fit in really well. It's Kurby, it's very interesting,
but it's just in an inappropriate location. It doesn't fit
in with this storic characteristics that make this part one
(06:02):
of the most special public spaces in the state.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Sorry, give me a very quick answer to this. Do
you guys have any authority to stop it?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I think the public opinion and trying to rally public
opinion mobilize the debates. Thank you for being curious and
talking about it, because the more we talk about it,
the more we can all come to a public consensus
about what is and is not appropriate in one of
our very own public spaces.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
John Defenboss, President and CEO of Historic Denver, the website
Historicdenver dot org. Thanks for your time, John, We'll keep
in touch on this issue.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Thanks so much.
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