Comment Thread for Aurora photo tour-- Iliff Ave (Denver, Parker: middle-class, extended stay)

[vegaspilgrim]

Please post your comments for my Aurora photo tour-- Illif Ave here.

[Count David]

Nice tour, vegaspilgrim! It's funny to see "home", to see things/places I see on a daily basis on my computer screen instead of from my car.

[denverian]

That about sums up Aurora - strip malls galore! But you do show the diversity of Aurora as reflected in its stip malls. I think the first picture shows the extended stay hotel I stayed in when I first moved to Denver in '05, waiting on our new house to be completed. I ate at that diner a few times!

[vegaspilgrim]

Originally Posted by DenverAztec

Fun post, you even caught the office building I work in! Thanks for the tour!

The one by Parker/Iliff with the big clock on it? I love that building. On one hand it's just another modern office building, but I like the proportions and little design touches, like the glowing clock. There's another building similar to that one by Arapahoe and Yosemite in the Tech Center. One of the reasons I included those shots was to show that Aurora is not strictly a bedroom community; many people actually work in Aurora too. Also, if you look carefully one of my photos was of a brand new new-urbanist style condo development called "Iliff Place," right by Iliff and Xanadu Wy. When the Fastracks project expands the light rail up I-225, that development will be walking distance to a future light rail station. My photo tour also shows the folly of deriding all strip malls as bland, generic chains. As my photos show, some of those old strip malls in Aurora are chock full of family-owned, ethnic businesses. A lot of people are completely unaware that the Denver metro area, via Aurora, has a huge Korean population. People on the Phoenix forum thought I was lying to them when I told them Denver actually has more diversity than Phoenix. Now I have a photo tour (and hopefully some more to come) to prove them wrong.

In fact, Iliff Ave in Aurora (and this is only scratching the surface... Parker Rd, Havana, and Colfax offer even more than what I've shown) is a lot more interesting than the 16th st mall in downtown Denver, IMO. Sure, the 16th st mall is a great atmosphere to walk around, people watching, etc, and it's much more asthetically apealling, but it's pretty much all chains with a starbucks on every corner. It's a mile long but only an inch deep. Aurora has plenty of chains too, especially when you get into newer construction, but in some of these older areas it's actually more independent businesses than chains! Ditto for houses-- those four homes I took in a row (in the neighborhood by Overland High School) don't look "cookie cutter" to me; they actually have a lot of character, especially with the full grown landscaping. The other thing I like about Aurora is it's a solid middle-class community. It doesn't have the pretension of a Greenwood Village or a Washington Park/ Cherry Creek North/ Hilltop. Not that Aurora doesn't have problems (it has a SLEW of them), but it deserves a lot more credit than it receives. Aurora also has one of the best central libraries (by Alameda and Chambers) in the state.

[denverian]

That's interesting about "Iliff Place". I thought it looked quite different by the picture.

Don't forget all the new development over at Fitzsimmons (Anshutz) and the skyline that's grown up over the past 4 years. Still more buildings and lots of redevelopment on Colfax to come. I heard they're re-developing the Buckingham mall too - haven't driven by there lately to see what's going on.

One thing I noticed when I was staying at that hotel on Iliff - the neighborhood to the east looked like almost every house was originally built with solar panels - or maybe it was a builder option. I'd say the houses were built in the late 60s/early 70s and the panels were the old type that stuck way up, but interesting anyway. And that area seemed truly racially diverse - almost evenly divided among white/black/Hispanic families and people.

[tfox]

Great tour, vegaspilgrim. I think it shows a side of Aurora that many people don't know about: its international flavor. Some of your shots reminded me of some of the eastern suburbs I've seen with the strip malls with signs written in Korean.

I think you could do a similar bit on Parker Road, Havana, and Peoria and discover a lot of the same things.

[vegaspilgrim]

Originally Posted by tfox

Great tour, vegaspilgrim. I think it shows a side of Aurora that many people don't know about: its international flavor. Some of your shots reminded me of some of the eastern suburbs I've seen with the strip malls with signs written in Korean.

I think you could do a similar bit on Parker Road, Havana, and Peoria and discover a lot of the same things.

Thanks, tfox. I actually have a Parker/Leetsdale tour coming up... as soon as I upload the photos. I promise, this will be the last one for a while. I think this might actually be helpful to a lot of people looking at Denver, because while photos of downtown areas and historic city neighborhoods are a dime a dozen, and can be found all over the internet, a lot of people want to know what the place "really" looks like-- for the masses who live in neither a gentrified historic neighborhood nor a brand new suburbia neighborhood, but rather everything in between-- the old, "inner ring" suburbs. These photo tours are also my future ammo against anyone who claims Denver is not diverse. Stay tuned...

[vegaspilgrim]

I figure we may as well keep using this comment thread for my new photo tour: Parker Rd/ Leetsdale Dr photo tour, since the themes are pretty similar.

[denverian]

I've eaten at Emerald Isle and it really is a hidden gem. You almost feel like you're on the beach eating out on the deck overlooking the reservoir!

[Count David]

Pass on Viva Burrito, it really is nothing special. Below average Mexican food, but one of the few places you can find it in the middle of the night.