Then and Now

Over the years I have captured the first sunrise in Denver of the year. As the city continues to grow looking at the current year and comparing it to the prior you may find changes. However when you look over the years you start to easily see the differences in the growth in the city.

On this image I took at the start of 2014 the skyline is filled in with the growth since the start of this latest boom in the central core of Denver.

 

Fast forward to 2021, or seven years later, and a handful of buildings make a noticeable change along the skyline. Looking careful you can also see some tower cranes in image.

In the next few years we will continue to see the growth of the skyline. However it may be harder to notice it from this perspective as the growth continue to head north of the downtown core. Other buildings added will be behind by those already along the skyline in most instances. It will be interesting to see how this will look in five to ten years.

During the summer of 2011 the Tennyson Streetscape project took place in Northwest Denver. I spent most of the summer documenting the changes taking place on Tennyson between 38th and 44th Streets. In addition to the walkability of the street they also removed the streetcar track which were under the current paving. The following scene was taken just north of 38th looking north along the street.

The rail which you see here is most likely 100 years old as it was starting to be removed from the street. The majority of the rail extracted was recycled and in talking to the contractor they included this in their bid to lower the cost for the city.

This past fall I revisited this area on a Sunday morning to capture the difference along the street over the nine years. From about the same location I was able to capture this image.

One of the first things you may notice is the development which is starting to go vertical along the street. After the streetscape project took place lots of new development moved into the area onto Tennyson but also the streets nearby as well. A new development is also in the works for the building beyond the orange barrel in the original image and also behind the white truck in the recent. It will be interesting to visit this same spot in the upcoming years and see how it continues to change.

In 2010 as I wandered around the Commons Park area I came across the following perspective of the skyline of Denver.

This was taken from north of 20th looking across the Union Station area. Just like many others in the Then and Now series it has changed over time to what it looks like today, ten years later.

While the long grasses which mimic the buildings still exist in this area, there is another layer of growth between the then and now of the two scenes.

Between the two images you can place two of the same buildings i the scene. The first is to the left of the frame which is 1999 Broadway (built in 1985), and in the now is covered up just a bit so you only see the upper portion of the building. The second is in the middle of both images which is 1225 17th Street and was built in 1982.

In 2012 I found myself walking across one of the newer pedestrian bridges from the Commons Park area of Denver towards Union Station. This bridge crosses the three mainline railroad tracks which run north and south along the front range as well as some light rail lines for RTD.

On this morning you could see the buildings in the distance of downtown Denver and the cranes for the start of the revitalization of Union Station and the bus depot area.

With the majority of the build-out of the Union Station area now complete I revisited this area eight years later (October 2020) to see the change which has taken place.

There have been quite a few buildings built over the past few years in the Union Station area which provides a perspective much different now. Where the cranes were in the original image is about 1/4 mile away from this vantage point and there are 4 buildings between this spot. The immediate building are The Grand Apartments, followed by two towers of Union Denver and finally one of the newest additions The Coloradan. The transformation over eight years is quite amazing and the majority of these buildings have gone up in just the past few years.