The Eyes And Ears Of Fairfax Street
Geneva Goldsby Reminisces On 54 Years
By Sierra Fleenor, Executive Director, GPHC, Inc.
Geneva Goldsby has lived on Elm Street between 28th and 29th avenues for 54 years. During that time, she has seen the neighborhood change significantly, including the area referred to as the Fairfax Street Shopping Strip, which spans the 2800 block of Fairfax Street in the heart of Greater Park Hill.
As we prepare for the changes ahead, Goldsby sat down with me to discuss the history of the 2800 block of Fairfax Street from her perspective. (For details about the impending development, called Park Hill Commons, see the coverage by newspaper Editor Cara DeGette in the November issue. You can read it online at greaterparkhill.org.)
Last month Goldsby and I spoke primarily about the history of this block, which is also where GPHC’s office is located. After we spoke, I continued to research our block, drawing information from author and historian Phil Goldstein’s Park Hill Promise and a short history compiled based on a 20-part series of reflections from the late Art Branscombe, which was published in 1994 and 1995.
Goldbsy has served on the board of directors of GPHC for 28 years, serving as the safety chair for at least 25 of those years. In her role, she’s become a permanent fixture not just at GPHC community meetings, but out on the streets of Greater Park Hill, where she is well known as the woman in charge despite her diminutive stature.
Goldsby made sure I understood the vast array of businesses she’d seen, citing 2895 Fairfax St. as an example. The building, located on the northwest corner of Fairfax and 29th, is where Chris Cunningham and his wife and partners plan to soon open a brewery. But long before the building’s destiny included kegs and pints, Goldsby witnessed it as a grocery store, a restaurant, a casket shop, and most recently Eis Gelato and Café. There was even a period when an illicit business was run out of the back of the shop where the official business served as a “front,” but Goldsby refrains from telling me exactly which business and what type of illicit dealings were going on.
She recounts this history with a laugh, shaking her head. “Can you imagine?” she asked me. I can’t.
The 1960s: Everyone was friendly
Goldsby and her husband moved to the neighborhood in 1963 and she spoke of that time fondly. There are some businesses that have been in operation in the same location for almost that long, including Jimmy Johnson Tax Services. In the 1960s the liquor store on the southwest corner of Fairfax and 28th Street was a pharmacy, owned and operated by first Alfred C. Andersen and then J. Conklin LaNier II in 1966, according to Goldstein. Goldsby described the owner as a benevolent grandfather figured. “We hated to see him go,” she said.
There was a time Goldsby would shop at Park Hill Hardware and Appliances store, which was at the current site of the GPHC offices, 2823 Fairfax St. The hardware store remained until 1967 when GPHC’s prior incarnation, Park Hill Action Committee, convinced the city to purchase the building with federal War on Poverty funds and leased it to PHAC for a nominal cost. Today, the Registered Neighborhood Organization owns the building outright.
A few doors down, a restaurant that Goldsby can no longer name, but loved, used to stand. The owners would ask Goldsby and her husband if there was anything special they would like to eat and then the owner would make them a special pie, just the way they liked it, the following day. Also on the block: three filling stations, a grocer, and a 7-11 “Everyone was so friendly,” Goldsby said.
Not everything was perfect about that time, during the 1960s. A business owner tried several times over 15 years to get a liquor license for a cabaret and dance club. Goldsby was openly opposed to this business due to the noise level. “It was summer and this was before [air conditioning] and neighbors couldn’t sleep at night.”
The 1990s: Putting up with a lot
The 1970s and 80s were filled with new storefronts, businesses changing from grocery stores to restaurants to churches and so on, but at the start of the 1990s a massive shift occurred. “We’ve put up with a lot going on, on that corner,” Goldsby said, about the southwest corner of Fairfax and 28th. At one point, she said, a gang member was shot there and the fear of violent retaliation reached a fever pitch.
She recalls the ongoing gang violence (longtime residents will recall the summer of violence in 1993 in Denver) and just how terrible things got. “It was very bad over here,” said Goldsby. Where many might have retreated, Goldsby became brave. She was fed up with the gang activity, so she started working with the police to address these issues directly. Goldsby smiles as she relates this last fact. It is clear that her work on the streets was invaluable and helped change the tide for the better.
Today and beyond
While she has seen improvements on the block since the 1990s, Goldsby worries about the present and future of the block. She shares what she considers to be the heart of the problem: “People who don’t live in the neighborhood [who own businesses on the 2800 block] put anything they want in the neighborhood.”
Toward the end of our conversation, Goldsby turned to speaking of the future. She named a number of businesses she enjoys having on the street and hopes will thrive, as well as hoping to see “a nice little restaurant where people can go” and a grocery store “that would cater to neighbors.”
You may have noticed a great deal of coverage about the Fairfax Street Shopping Strip in the past few issues of GPHN. Last month, GPHC, Inc. Zoning Chair Bernadette Kelly detailed the history of the long-ago owner of the house at 2858 Fairfax St., Ensign Thomas McClelland, who died in the 1943 attack on Pearl Harbor.
The block has been a mainstay in this community since the 1930s when stores opened on our street. Big changes are coming, as previous reporting has indicated. The developer, Ben Maxwell of HM Capital has said demolition will begin on the east side of the street this summer.