When walking down Market Street in Lodo, myriad sights and sounds flow from the row of nightclubs lining the street. Electronic dance music remixes of the latest pop songs spill onto the sidewalks as crowds wait to get in. But on March 29, boozy drinks were cast aside in favor of handmade signs as Denverites gathered to save the building that once housed the famous El Chapultepec jazz club from demolition. Amid supportive honks from passing cars, “Save the ‘Pec” supporters fondly remembered the good old days on the street.
“Visiting there for the first time back then, when Denver was a much more isolated city, really opened up my world as I learned about and enjoyed jazz as a young adult,” said Jill Carstens, “Save the ‘Pec” rally organizer..
El Chapultepec, a former cantina and jazz club, closed in 2020 due to COVID-19 and the challenges of a changing neighborhood. The 130-year-old building that once hosted the likes of Frank Sinatra, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Santana was bought by developers Monfort Companies in 2022. The new owners claim the building is in disrepair, posing a safety hazard. The company plans to combine a new building with the one next door that houses Giggling Grizzly while doing its best to preserve El Chapultapec’s history. But many aren’t satisfied with this proposal. On March 11, the urban preservation nonprofit Historic Denver filed a landmark designation to protect the building from demolition in hopes of reaching a compromise.
“The first time I came [into the Chapultepec], it was as humble as the building seems and it was like walking into a wonderland because it was very welcoming and warm and I liked that it was kind of gritty, being a young person,” Carstens said. “The music was so accessible and I was kind of shy about jazz because I didn’t think I knew enough about it, but people would just come in and listen. I just love jazz and that started my journey.”
Carstens further recounted her first time at the ‘Pec in a dedicated chapter to the jazz club in her memoir “Getting Over Vivian,” which she wrote is a “love letter to a Denver that is long gone.” Back then, she wrote, it was in “the forbidden north edge of town.” without a cover where everyone was welcome and if you “listen to the old guys’ stories” they would buy you drinks. . .
“Everything’s being purchased and bought up and mostly renovated beyond recognition, unfortunately,” Carstens said. “There’s a city planner, who was also a philosopher about development named Jane Jacobs, and she was from the mid-60s and talked about diversity in a city meaning diversity of businesses on the street, ages of architecture and of people. Really, you can’t get that if you kick out all the old businesses and all the people that used to live there.”
Carstens said the overdevelopment in LoDo is similar to her home area of Tennyson Street in North Denver. For many, favorite places are now gone or slowly disappearing as if they are time travelers in the wrong period.
“We have chain stores that are nationally owned now. You don’t have the connection to the ownership that used to live in the neighborhood that they were doing business in,” Carstens said. “Overall, you lose a sense of community too because, even though you got these bright, new, shiny places, some of them are wonderful, but they’re all brand new and they don’t have any history. It’s just bland, it’s kind of suburbanizing.”
Cindy Snailam, who attended the “Save the ‘Pec” rally, had similar observations to Carstens, noting the rapid displacement of longtime residents. Last year, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition found that 27% of Denver neighborhoods are currently gentrifying, making Denver the second-most gentrified city behind San Francisco.
“It doesn’t feel anything like the city I moved to 30 years ago and it just had so much heart, and Denver doesn’t have that heart anymore,” Snailam said. “With a lot of people moving here, they don’t know the history behind some of these places.”
Hailing from the East Coast, Snailam went to the ‘Pec in the 80s before her move to Denver, due to her husband being a big blues and jazz fan.
“It was always crowded and the beer was pretty bad, but the music was always great,” Snailam said.
Award-winning music director of KUVO Jazz for 20 years Arturo Gómez remembers El Chapultepec as the place to be at night. Even before Gómez moved to Denver, he knew about the ‘Pec because of its reputation and notoriety among jazz musicians nationwide. After their concerts in Denver, many famous musicians would walk to the cantina, causing anticipation among patrons as to who they could run into at the ‘Pec. The home of legendary local artist Freddy Rodriguez Sr.’s house band is now a skeleton of the lively jazz club it used to be.
“There’s no question that for 30 years, this was the place to come and listen to jazz before there were all of these other jazz outlets that we have now,” Gómez said as he also shared that the ‘Pec was the only place where folks could go and get their dose of jazz almost every night. “You would sit down and listen to some great jazz music. It could be somebody who they brought in from out of town or who were local musicians.”
Gómez recalled seeing teenage musicians—who were too young to drink and not allowed to stay after their sets—stand outside the side door listening to the music streaming out of the club the rest of the night.
“A lot of those young musicians that did that are now very famous and have gone on to live in New York and play all over the world. People like Brad Linde, Javon Jackson, Greg Gisbert and others. This was their school for jazz,” Gómez said. “They’ve taken what they learned here from the local musicians and those that would come in traveling to play here and they’ve gone all over the world taking music and representing Denver.”
Historic Denver has attempted to work with Monfort Companies for almost a year by offering suggestions for preserving the building and actively using the space, but Carstens says the advice has been dismissed. The ‘Pec is scheduled for a landmark preservation hearing on May 7 where a decision will be announced.
“You cannot move forward without taking the past with you. To destroy the past, you are then walking on shaky ground,” Gómez said.
Should the El Chapultepec building be demolished to usher in the future, or should Denver’s history be preserved? Let us know in the comments!
Yes. Denver needs to keep this beloved building. It holds such a significant story of our connection to jazz and the important local music culture. It would be a travesty to lose it to a culture of development for the wealthy, by the wealthy.