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1959 & 1963 Denver ads
Get a color TV at Downing’s! The first was at 33rd & Downing.
Color television was around in primitive form since 1953, but didn’t really take off until this year, 1963 (ads in this posting are from 1963, unless stated otherwise). By 1965 it became almost mandatory, as most networks started broadcasting most of their new programs in color.
This 1959 ad shows Downing’s was around since 1922!
Or maybe you need your television combined with your radio and record player as in this unit from Denver Dry Goods? (1959 ad)
Earl Muntz TV Center of Denver. Now this location is part of the Hi-Dive! (1959 ad)
Penney’s Downtown
Woolworth’s Downtown. These 1963 Christmas ads are from November (of course!)
Norman’s! I wish I had a photo handy, but this is that really cool, pitched-roof mod building on E. Colfax that houses the Cafe Africana Ethiopian Restaurant & Bar. (1959 ad)
Just a small illustration of Westland Auto Center, who were part of May-D&F in ‘63.
Typically cool International-style garage, gone now.
Nice illustration of The Vogue Furniture Store on S. Colorado, now gone. (1959 ad)
Ad for Design Center in Cherry Creek, 1959. This dark, mod building still survives at 3rd & Fillmore.
King Soopers was started in 1947. The ad shows five locations where you could get King Soopers Drugs, but they were up to nine stores at the time.
Fred Schmid Appliances, all of them gone now, I think. I assume the Denver location was in that building that Cricket on the Hill was in. Here is a Fred Schmid commercial from Colorado Springs in 1989:
Beautiful illustration for Roberts Carpets. This was in the building to the right of Famous Pizza on E. Colfax.
The mighty Buckhorn Exchange, still thee place to take out-of-towners when visiting Denver. Denver’s oldest restaurant, they have Denver liquor license number 1! (1959 ad)
Mountain States Telephone ad… fun read.
At the time of this ad in ‘63, the Western Federal Savings building (designed by Raymond Harry Ervin), was only a year old.
Close-up of the illustration, so you can see the ‘W’ peaking out over the top.
1959 ad for the Colorado Insurance Group Building in Boulder, still standing today (though altered and under-appreciated). Designed in 1955 by Boulder’s premiere International-style architect James Hunter, I think this also once housed a Joslin’s.
Close-up of the illustration.
Transistor radios at Joslin’s (You can click any of these ads to make them larger).
Lefty Martin’s, with a nice shot of Lefty.
Duffy’s Delicious Drinks’ ad with a shot of Frank Duffy. Looks like Duffy’s started in 1929, according to this 1959 ad.
Duffy’s lost their drink recipes in the years after Frank Duffy’s passing, but then they rediscovered all his old recipes in Frank’s unopened safe in 1995! Today, Duffy’s Rowdy Root Beer is made with the original recipe.
Robert Waxman ad from 1963. Waxman’s got rolled into Wolf Camera. Wolf’s are all closing soon.
The Electric Eye! The early days of auto-focus and auto-exposure from the Camera Exchange of Colorado in 1959.
Don’t know much about Shopper’s Mart except from the former addresses at the bottom of these advertisements, but there sure are a lot of fun items to see in these ads!
Cool toys from King’s Self Service Dept. Store in the Alameda Shopping Center. This shopping center has been recently redone and is now Alameda Square with the Pacific Ocean Marketplace.
More cool 1963 toys, this time from Spartan. One was at 44th & Wads, the other was in the shopping center at Sheridan & Jewell.
Gate’s Rubber tire ad. You could probably dig a foundation for a house doing burnouts in the mud with these babies.
Wrought-iron patio ad from ALSCO.
Another patio company, Pati-Port in 1959 (located next door to the Concrete Cowboy).
Fan Fair Discount City ad! Compare the illustration at the bottom of the ad to the photo below to get an idea of what it looked like back then.
This concrete-shell construction building is still standing in Aurora, though it will be taken down soon.
Built two years earlier than the 1963 ad by William Muchow in 1961, it was engineered by Denver concrete-shell specialist Milo Ketchum.
1963 four-eyed fashions at Lee Optical downtown.
Thrift-Way food markets, with a Scottish cartoon mascot, no less. And notice the other cartoon, “Mighty Slimmin for us Women”.
Probably the only surviving Thrift-Way sign, now a home for pigeons.
Denver Drumstick ad from 1963. These were famous for having a railroad motif with a minature train running around the upper walls and serving chicken in boxcar boxes. All gizzard order?!
Here is my illustration of the Denver Drumstick building as it appeared in the JCRS Shopping Center on W. Colfax (same mall as Casa Bonita). The building is still there, though barely recognizeable. It is the empty standalone building in the parking lot that used to always house bingo.
1959 ad for The Normandy, which was replaced by a mod Muchow building in the late ’60s,
I think.
Awww!
Patsy’s Inn, still around today! Though today’s ads say 1921, this 1959 ad declares “since 1889″!
John Wayne sex-comedy-western(?!?) ad from 1963 for the Paramount, the sole surviving theater from the classic era of downtown Denver movie palaces.
Racy ad for the Lakeshore Drive-In, over by Sloan’s Lake and KIMN radio.
The Lakeshore is no longer. (That is Eve Meyer, Russ Meyer’s wife)
Esquire theater ad from ‘63. Even then, advertising “Unusual films”!
The Bandbox jazz club was not related to the ’50s-’60s Denver Band Box record label. It was originally a Pik-A-Rib, then the Bandbox (run by Al Levin), then it became Hawk’s, then Le Bistro a Go Go, then The Mad Rushin, then The Factory, then Good Friends and is now the perfect location for Annie’s Cafe! (1963 ad)
And here is close-up of top ’50s jazz guitarist Johnny Smith. He came a huge star in 1952 with his hit recording of Moonlight in Vermont (with Stan Getz). At one point he gave it all up and moved to Colorado Springs in 1958 where he still lives today! Other interesting facts: He had to relearn the guitar after slicing his hands up in a fishing accident and he wrote Walk, Don’t Run, the Ventures first hit!
Bill ‘Honky Tonk’ Doggett at the Rainbow Ballroom in 1959! Not the Rainbow later made famous by Barry Fey, but a rhythm & blues club that carried national acts like Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, Tiny Hill, Chuck Willis, Lefty Frizzell, Hank Locklin, Roy Milton, The Medallions, The Five Royales, Little Willie John, Lloyd Price, Freddy Rodriguez and Dizzy Gillispie.
Where was it? Well, maybe you can help me out if you know the whole story. This is what I think, please feel free to write in and correct me. O.K. Farr ran this place in the ’40s at 475 Lincoln. In ‘57 it was listed as at 5th & Broadway. In ‘59 it was listed as 38th E. 5th where it was run by Leroy Smith of the legendary Five Points Rhythm Record Shop. Then it was bought by Verne Byers and moved downtown to 1346 Stout. 1346 Stout became the Academy Ballroom and then later the Astronaut’s night club, Club Baja.
It may surprise you to know that drag shows are nothing new and in the ’50s & ’60s were advertised in the paper right alongside Disney movies and toy ads. This ad is for the Victory Theater at 14th & Curtis (the intersection where the entrance to the Denver Performing Arts Complex is now).
A small ad for The Tropics with some fun names.
1963 ad for The Exodus, a folk club in the basement of the Raylane Hotel. Judy Collins and The Smother’s Brothers played here before they were famous. The Raylane is gone.
The Vincent Brothers at the Keyboard Lounge in the Mesa Motor Inn on W. Colfax. The Keyboard Lounge was run by Morey Amsterdam who also ran Denver’s Finer Arts record label. The Mesa Motor Inn is still there!
The Merry Go-Round Lounge on N. Pecos. Still there and still called the Merry Go-Round!
The Snug Harbour Tavern and The Captain’s Table located in the ‘fabulous’ Four Wind’s Motor Hotel on W. Colfax. The hotel is still there, though they painted over the original colors with dark drab a few years back. “Neutralized”, as Shannon likes to put it.
Get gassed-up at Big Al’s Gashouse in ‘63.
Laffitte’s, the seafood restuarant on the corner of 14th & larimer.
Paul Black and Joni Wilson were notable jazz players here in town in ‘63.
The Chez Paree, a strip club near The Brown Palace.
The Four Seasons Nite Club was a country bar way out on E. Colfax
on the other side of 225. Long gone.
The Olin Hotel still stands, though it’s an old folks home now (so not so much twistin’ going on).
The College Inn is still around today, or course.
The Mon-Vue Village in the old gas station at Garrison and Alameda, home to the Queen City Jazz Band, a still-extant Dixieland ensemble that held court here for 30 years or so. Today this bar is called the Paradise Cove and is right next door to the Mile Hi Church.
Ernie, Mac & Bill, another outfit similar to The Taylors, playing their regular gig at the Red Embers. There is an art-deco looking building here now, with the shop Platinum Cleaners. I am not sure if it is the original building, or it came later.
Close-up of Mac.
Al Fike, the Modern Minstrel Man, here playing El Rancho in Evergreen.
Al also was a regular at Taylor’s Supper Club.
Another Evergreen dinner spot, the Brook Forest Inn. Just call Evergreen 263. (1959 ad)
List of locations of Denver Compass Drive-In movie theaters from 1959. The old spot for the
West Drive-In is still vacant. The speaker poles might still be there.
List of Denver movie theaters from 1959. The buildings for The Golden, The Gothic, The Ritz (now Thrillseekers), The Federal, The Westwood (adult theater), The Holiday and The Santa Fe (The Atzlan) all still stand. From this list, only The Alladdin and The Victory are gone.
One more movie theater list from ‘59. The Centre, The Denver and The Aladdin are gone, but The Esquire, The Aurora Fox, The Mayan, The Ogden, The Bluebird, The Boulder Fox and The Longmont Fox still stand. Not sure where in Littleton The Woodlawn was located. Out of all three of these ads, only The Mayan and The Esquire function as fulltime movie theaters today.
Bob Jones Midway Motor Co. in 1959. Now a new location of Enterprise Rent-A-Car.
Bill Dreiling Motor Co. ad from 1959. If I am not mistaken, this is the home of Heidelburg Motors, Shannon Stanbro’s favorite German car mechanic.
A 1959 ad for Merchant’s Oil Company showing Denver’s first gas station! How cool is that? Merchant’s Oil gave us the Phillip’s 66 gas stations with the notable canopies. You may recognize the ghost of these stations around town, as they look like this:
And finally, a sad note from the year 1963.
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Note from an Eyeballer: If you have old Denver newspapers from the ’50s and ’60s you would like to donate (or just loan) to us, drop us a line at Tom’s email address in the “About The Eye” tab. Also write if you would like your historically mod house or a favorite neighborhood structure photographed and posted on The Eye!
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October 31st, 2012 / 3 Comments » / by Tom Lundin
Seasons Greetings from Zeckendorf Plaza
Photos © 2011 Alan Golin Gass, FAIA
A seasonal late-60s-era holiday shot of Zeckendorf Plaza, with lights displayed under the hyperbolic-paraboloid roof and out in the plaza over the ice skating rink.
A famous “lost” I. M. Pei & Associates design, the plaza was built in 1959 and sadly torn
down in 1996.
December 23rd, 2011 / 1 Comment » / by Alan G. Gass
Mile High Center
Photos © 2011 Alan Golin Gass, FAIA
Today we have guest photographer Alan G. Gass (esteemed architect, historian and in my view, city hero) with some 1950s-era shots of I. M. Pei & Associates’ Mile High Center.
If you look closely at this first shot of the entranceway canopy on Broadway, you can see Mr. Gass himself in the reflection of the front door, taking this photo.
Many of the features shown in the photos, of this early important work of I. M. Pei, no longer exist, as many of the spaces were absorbed into the design of One United Bank Center (now Wells Fargo Center, the “Cash Register Building”).
In this shot you can see the canopy as it crosses through the fountains to connect to the restaurant and shops of the Transportation Building. Behind the plaza you can view some of the details of the remodeled bank building, which is the third building of Mile High Center design.
Viewing east toward the fountains, past the row of lights on the bank, this photo nicely depicts the interrelationship of all three buildings with the plaza.
And lastly, a shot of the concrete barrel-shaped roof of the Transportation Building. You can also see additional details of the bank building. This is the intersection of 17th and Lincoln, compare how different this looks today.
November 22nd, 2011 / 4 Comments » / by Alan G. Gass
Mile High Center model
Photos © 2011 Alan Golin Gass, FAIA
The original model for Denver’s first skyscraper, the Miesian-style
Mile High Center, completed by I. M. Pei & Associates in 1956.
In this model you can see the tapestry-like interplay of the white enamel
panels with the dark aluminum bands on the Mile High Tower. To the
left of the model is a four-story renovated bank and on the right is the
two-story, barrel-roofed Transportation Building.
September 25th, 2011 / 2 Comments » / by Alan G. Gass
1950’s Denver skyline
Photos © 2011 Alan Golin Gass, FAIA
Two shots of the Denver skyline in the late-1950s taken from Mile High Center. The
first looks Northwest when the Denver Club Building (1954 by Raymond Harry Ervin)
still dominated the view.
The second looks North over the roof of the Brown Palace toward the triangular sign
atop the Conoco Oil Building.
August 3rd, 2011 / 1 Comment » / by Alan G. Gass
South Broadway from Mile High Tower
Photo © 2011 Alan Golin Gass, FAIA
Looking south down Broadway from Mile High Tower, circa late-1950s.
(Notes from editor: To the far right is the edge of the demolished Majestic Building.
Moving left you can see the back of the Philips 66 sign reversed. Below that is probably
the construction zone for the Petroleum Club building.
On the left edge you can see the Colorado State Capitol. The white building to the right
of that is the Colorado State Capitol Annex and the building to the right of that standing
tall on the horizon is the Sherman Plaza Apartments, which are still standing.)
(click to enlarge)
June 30th, 2011 / No Comments » / by Alan G. Gass
Court House Square render
Nice render of Court House Square, just a little mangled by the pagefolds of the
publication it came out in in 1959. Still no Hilton yet in this illustration. (Click to enlarge)
It is interesting to contrast the difference between this illustration and the true building in
the Alan Gass photo below. They did seem to get the hyperbolic paraboloid right, though.
This outstanding piece of engineering was the widest concrete shell in the country at 132
feet by 113 feet.
June 13th, 2011 / 1 Comment » / by Tom Lundin
Court House Square
Photo © 2011 Alan Golin Gass, FAIA
Looking at I. M. Pei & Associates’ Court House Square from Mile High Tower
(another I. M. Pei & Associates building). Photo taken 1959.
Construction fences still surround the site and the Hilton Hotel has not yet been completed.
You can see the May D & F building with it’s original aluminum panels, the hyperbolic
parabaloid and the skating rink.
The tall building to the right is the original Republic Building, designed 1927 by
G. Meredith Musick.
June 10th, 2011 / No Comments » / by Alan G. Gass
Hilton Hotel window
Photo © 2011 Alan Golin Gass, FAIA
Looking out of the Mo-Sai grillwork of the Hilton Hotel window at the hyperbolic
paraboloid and May D & F building of Court House Square.
Court House Square designed by I. M. Pei & Associates, completed 1960.
(Note from the editor: This is the first, of hopefully many photos to be posted on
the Denver Eye by esteemed architect and photographer, Alan G. Gass, FAIA)
June 6th, 2011 / 2 Comments » / by Alan G. Gass
