Jul. 27, 2002 - 19:49 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Times Change

In Denver when I was a boy, rush hour was just about an hour, twice a day. People went to work at eight AM in the morning and came home after they got off work at five PM, years before staggered hours came into being, there weren't too many second and third shift jobs or the going to and fro was not noticeable for the ones on second shift and third shift had even fewer people working.

That was before automobiles were used to go to and from work but used for weekend pleasure outings mostly. So, the streets weren't crowded with auto traffic at any time of any day. Transportation then was by trolley car which had the tracks and overhead power wire. The trolleys would be so crowded in the morning rush and the evening rush that trailers would be used, then dropped off after rush hours. The employees who took fares on the trailer were lower on the totem pole than the motormen because all they had to do was take fares and pull the bell cord to let the motorman know when all was clear for him to proceed.

In summer time the trailers were open air and in winter closed but unheated. I loved to ride in the summer time when there was a trailer we could board.

Especially in the summer back then the two lane concrete highway (US 85 - 87) from Denver to Colorado Springs had the name of, "Suicide Drive." On the week ends the Highway would be packed with cars in each direction, morning and evening, in the early morning maybe spread out a bit but as dusk approached it would be almost bumper to bumper going each way. The Sunday night rush was the worst as most men had to get home in time for a night's rest before they had to go to work on Monday. Consequently the impatient types we had even back then would take unearthly chances to gain a car's length, just to go back into the bumper to bumper line again with but a few car lengths gained. If one wasn't the nervous type it was a circus to see the road ahead resembling an ant pile with the top kicked off. Usually the daring would get safely back in line with no one hurt except for the rise in blood pressure of the crowded drivers.

Then as the Depression began to ease and credit buying became more popular more and more people would drive to and from work, making the streets terribly crowded during the rush morning and night.

My folks first car was a 1925 Studebaker Coupe. What a monster that was, heavy as all get out, Dad bought that one second hand. I can remember the next car, a new 1937 Plymouth sedan, he bought for $900 or something dollars at Leeman Auto Co, about 6th and Broadway (building still there but devoted to other businesses) Leeman's advertising still stands out in my mind, "No payment while sick or disabled." Guess if one was out of work the car would be repo'ed ? But it was still ahead of its time I think.

The city streets would seem totally lifeless on a Sunday.

World War Two came, passenger trains became more crowded than ever and trolleys too. No new cars were available, gas and tires rationed and many of our men were serving overseas. Then the cruch began. Many of the service people who had been stationed at Lowry Field, Buckley Field and Fitzsimmons Military Hospital liked the area so well that they settled here after they got out of the military. Of course it seemed as if our native sons -- those who were left -- returned to the Denver area also.

The growth of the suburbs was amazing and far outstripped any possible extension of trolley car lines. So the fare was raised and people who wanted to drive their cars to and from work anyway no longer rode the street cars but competed for street space with the street cars. With a row of parked cars on each side of the street, dual street car tracks in the middle, if someone was not ahead of the street car at the traffic light it was almost impossible to get past and made it necessary to follow in the wake of the streetcar and watch the passengers get on and off at each intersection.

Things seemed to go on about the same until the Korean conflict was over. Along about that time the first Mall was opened. It was either Cinderella City in Englewood or Cherry Creek Mall at First Avenue and University Boulevard. Our downtown area suffered greatly, a lot because the merchants down town were never willing enough to give up enough space for buyers to park free. The Malls had vast prairies to use for parking, so commerce began to leave the downtown area and go to Malls which soon began to crop up in the outlying areas.

Our streets stayed pretty much the same, some were made one-way in an effort to ease the crowding -- didn't seem to help much, just complicate things. The street cars gave way to trolley buses and motor buses on the side routes. But the pressure of population glutted the city streets with bumper to bumper traffic. There was no longer one retail center in the downtown area, they scattered everywhere and the downtown continued to go downhill.

Later on TV came to town and the big fancy movie theaters downtown began to fade like lights going out, one by one. The nabes began to lose out too. VCR's and video tape was almost the death knell for movie theaters. Most of them were torn down and the huge theater organs were no more to be heard. Who wanted to be in the thundering herd going out to the movies when a show could be watched from the comfort of an easy chair in comfortable clothing, watching and consuming fresh popcorn at probably one twentieth of the concession stand price at the movie theater, and having snacks that were wanted instead of the over priced dreck sold at the stands there ?

Nowadays with improvement on our streets and highways lagging behind maybe twenty years and often people by necessity work catty corner across the Metro Area because no matter how carefully one chooses a place to live a change in the job or company would necessitate just that.

Now in the area it is rush hour twenty four hours a day. Just slowing down a little through the middle of the night.

We now are as ants, lots of them, compared to the size of the pile, scurrying in an eternal bumper to bumper gridlock. Heather looked over at me while waiting for any evidence of the traffic ahead of us moving and said, "Times Change" . . . . . . .

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