Why is it called 5 points denver

As whites moved to outlying neighborhoods, they practiced discriminatory housing policies designed to keep blacks segregated in Five Points. Segregation meant crowded conditions and older housing, but it also made the area almost a city unto itself. A vibrant black business community began to take shape, especially along Welton Street. The Baxter Hotel at the Five Points intersection, for example, was owned by and catered to whites when it opened in , but in the late s, it came under black management and was renamed the Rossonian after manager A.

Most blacks in Denver continued to work as railroad porters, waiters, or domestic servants, but Five Points was also home to a growing number of black professionals and office workers.

The American Woodmen Insurance Company employed more black office workers than any other business in Denver. Five Points experienced explosive growth during and after World War II, as its black population nearly doubled to at least 13, in Throughout this period, Five Points remained socially and culturally diverse.

Justina Ford, for example, treated a mix of black, white, Korean, Japanese, Latino, and Hispanic patients during her fifty years in the neighborhood. The most important jazz club in Five Points was the Rossonian Lounge. In the late s and early s, a cluster of major changes fundamentally transformed Five Points. In Denver passed a Fair Housing Act, and the state Supreme Court struck down racially restrictive covenants and bans on interracial marriage. Seven years later, the federal Civil Rights Act of reinforced and expanded the new social opportunities available to minorities in Denver and across the country.

These advances improved the lives of blacks, who could now move to newer housing in better neighborhoods, but they hollowed out older black neighborhoods like Five Points, where few remained if they could afford to move elsewhere. The area lost half its population from to As people moved away, businesses closed their doors. During these years, the neighborhood was roughly 40 percent Latino. Many older buildings in Five Points were torn down from the s to the s in the name of urban renewal or to make way for parking lots.

The annual Juneteenth celebration on June 19, which started in Denver in the s and marks the day in when Texas slaves learned they were free, hit its peak in the s. In the late twentieth century, the city of Denver invested redevelopment money into Five Points to attract residents and businesses. These projects and others like them helped drive development northeast from LoDo into Ballpark, River North, Curtis Park, and other parts of the larger Five Points neighborhood.

It contains collections and exhibitions focused on black history in Colorado and the West. New development surged in Five Points in the early s, as hundreds of millions of dollars poured into the area. New buildings and redevelopments popped up along Welton Street, including a proposed project that would add a new structure behind the Rossonian and turn the complex into a mixed-use development with a hotel, restaurants, a jazz club, and ground-floor retail.

Gentrification poses challenges to the character of Five Points as housing prices and property taxes increase. In whites outnumbered blacks and Latinos in the neighborhood, and the median price of a house soared 31 percent from to For now, longstanding local institutions like Zion Baptist Church, popular community celebrations like Juneteenth and the Five Points Jazz Festival , and the adaptive reuse of historic buildings continue to keep the rapidly changing neighborhood connected to its past.

At that time, the population declined and businesses closed after new housing laws made it possible for middle-class blacks to find better housing elsewhere. Five Points started to change in the late s and s, as upper-class whites moved to new mansions in Capitol Hill and blacks began to move close to their jobs in the rail yards along the South Platte River.

The Baxter Hotel at the Five Points intersection, for example, was owned by and catered to whites when it opened in In the late s, it came under black management and was renamed the Rossonian after manager A. Justina Ford, for example, treated a mix of black, white, Korean, Japanese, and Latino patients during her fifty years in the neighborhood. But Five Points was most closely associated with black culture.

Top black musicians who visited Denver often stayed at the Rossonian Hotel because white hotels turned them away.

These advances improved the lives of blacks, but they also hollowed out older black neighborhoods like Five Points, where few remained if they could afford better accommodations elsewhere.

Gentrification poses challenges to the character of Five Points, as housing prices and property taxes increase. For now, longstanding local institutions like Zion Baptist Church, popular community celebrations like Juneteenth and the Five Points Jazz Festival, and the adaptive reuse of historic buildings continue to keep the rapidly changing neighborhood connected to its past. Five Points is a historic neighborhood near downtown Denver.

In Denver Fire Station No. In March of , four African-American firemen lost their lives fighting a fire at St. James Hotel. She faced many obstacles throughout her career, being both African American and a female in the medical field.

Despite that, she was determined to bring medical services to the disadvantaged. In its earliest incarnation, Five Points was a mix of residential structures — some grand and stylish, others more modest — and business and industrial concerns.

In contrast to the mixed use for land in Five Points, Whittier was almost entirely residential from its inception, with its most significant commercial or business enterprises found in two-story brick corner stores and shops. Temple Emanuel, established in , constructed its synagogue at Curtis and 24th Street in , before removing to 16th and Pearl in Manual High School, established in Whittier in , became a central public facility for the neighborhoods, and a beloved institution for many residents long after they had departed once familiar streets.

Five Points changed as those with wealth, aspiration, or affectation moved to other neighborhoods that had become fashionable and desirable for residences. More modest homes were built in Five Points after the economic panic of the s. Gross as its first president; a little more than a decade later in , the city would be host to a national meeting of the NAACP.

Clarence Holmes Jr. Segregation and inequality also reached into the neighborhood schools, including Morey Junior High School and Manual High School, where in a group of African American students and their parents successfully sued Jessie H.

Newlon, Superintendent of Public Instruction of the City and County of Denver, for establishing a separation of social functions for students based on race, contrary to the Colorado constitution. Yet Five Points and Whittier were never simply black neighborhoods, and others found a home, or even a haven, within its bounds.

By the time Curtis Park began its revitalization in the s, some Hispanic residents were the third generation to reside in the Five Points neighborhood. Japanese American residents established themselves in the neighborhood before the entry of the United States into World War II, and during the war years the neighborhood became a home to Japanese Americans who found an alternative to internment in Denver and Colorado.

With the opportunity to acquire homes in other neighborhoods, most notably the immediately adjacent precincts of Park Hill, residents began to move. And with that movement, the populations of Five Points and Whittier went into precipitous decline.

In , the population of Five Points was 32,; by , it had declined to 8, In a pattern repeated in other American cities, this decline was met with a succession of efforts to resurrect both the neighborhood and community. Nevertheless, revitalization brought its own challenges, and raised questions about the future character of these neighborhoods and making changes sensitive to their histories.

Revitalization brought the prospect of gentrification, with its potential displacement of long-time residents of limited resources by affluent newcomers. Some in the Five Points community opposed plans to extend a new urban rail line to the neighborhood, eventually opened in , seeing it as an effort to divide the community and alter the character of Welton Street.

Others remained ambivalent about the prospect of return. By the early twenty-first century, Five Points had undergone dramatic demographic changes. Nevertheless, many African Americans continued to regard the Five Points neighborhood as home and to frequent its social, cultural, and religious institutions.

In , Reverend Frank Davis of Zion Baptist Church noted that his congregation numbered some , but he estimated that fewer than 10 percent of his congregants resided in Five Points. Students at Manual High School in Whittier were a reflection of change, and their halting, and sometimes uneasy, conversations about race and changes to their neighborhood reflected the tensions of such transformations.

I have a love affair with Five Points. The Five Points neighborhood when seen on a map does in fact appear to have five distinct points. Starting at 17th and Downing on the east edge, the Five Points neighborhood extends north along Downing to 38th Street.

The boundary continues in the northwest direction from the corner of 38th and Ringsby Court to 20th Street. At the corner of Ringsby and 20th the boundary continues southeast on 20th until it intersects Washington, at which point the boundary continues in a southeast direction until returning to the 10th and Downing intersection. Not as extensive as the Five Points neighborhood, the Whittier neighborhood is located on the east side of Five Points.

Boulevard, and runs west until it intersects with Downing, where going south it ends again at the corners of 23rd and Downing. It is debatable when the company was originally founded. Some accounts mention and others mentions Whichever the case, brothers Henry E. Niederhut founded the company. Both brothers were born and educated in Germany and migrated to the United States not long after finishing their education there. Upon coming to Denver the brothers worked several odd jobs and eventually started shoeing horses and making carriages and wagons for their new company, Niederhut Bros.

Along with name changes, the services of the company evolved as well. The company effortlessly transitioned from horse drawn vehicles during the turn of the 20th century, to automobile manufacturing in the s, and eventually to creating custom truck bodies for local businesses. Being one of the largest transportation manufacturing companies in Denver in the early 20th century, a major calamity occurred around when a fire broke out, destroying many of the business records.

Not long after, the Niederhut Carriage Company closed its doors in Clarence and his older brother William grew up at Curtis Street. They moved briefly to Pueblo, Colorado in , but returned to Denver in While not the first licensed African American dentist in Colorado, a distinction that belongs to Dr. In later years, Holmes recalled some initial opposition to his membership, most notably a fear he might attend a dance.

He wryly observed that his wife did not dance, and he had no intention of joining a dance club. During the Depression, he performed free extractions for people as part of a Community Chest program. Holmes retired from his dental practice in Dorsey grew up on 22nd and Downing, and she is now a hyperlocal business owner who has watched the area transition for more than two decades.

Highlighting the many construction projects along Welton Street , she noted that developers and civic leaders have a real chance to honor the history that was once evident in Five Points. She hopes they do more than acknowledge it but ensure that it is preserved.

To wrap up, I headed to Cold Crush. My good friend and favorite party rocker DJ Ktone was up. After taking in the art and snapping a few photos, I stepped outside for a breath of fresh air and ran into club owner, Brian Mathenge. He started off by recounting his experience as one of the most successful Black business owners in Denver.

To some, changing the name of this historic neighborhood may be simply that, a name change.