Memory Lane: 'This used to be...' Part Two

June 3, 6:56 AMDenver Dining ExaminerStan Dyer

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This was all parking lot and that was the front door of King's

It is difficult to put these pictures in a flowing order with some kind of pattern or theme.  Just when I think I come up with something, another thought, idea or memory comes to mind.  One thing is for certain, the place has changed a lot, but no one is surprised by that.  What is surprising is how so much parking lot became so much grass. 

This, too, was parking lot, and the movie theatre is now a library.

In 1972, there was a movie theatre at 74th and Irving.  Many of us would show up on Friday night about 6:00 p.m., pay $2.00 and go inside.  Two dollars bought a lot back then, but it cost the theatre even more.  We would hang out all night, watch both movies twice, and pretty much make the theatre our own personal playground.  If you can believe it, there were people drinking and even smoking inside the theatre.  I remember going to the King Soopers across the parking lot, buying cigarettes from a machine for forty eight cents a pack, and picking up the pennies left by other customers.  We were lucky there was never a fire in the theatre. 

This was the front door of Safeway and Red Barn was next door.

Even though it wasn’t enough to save the theatre, our Friday evening activities and our hang outs soon moved across the parking lot.  In high school, all the kids from Westy hung out at the Red Barn, and our crosstown rivals, Ranum, hung out across the street at the McDonald’s.  Back in those days, the Westminster Plaza had both a King Soopers and a Safeway, but they were on opposite sides of the center.  Now, only Safeway remains.
 

It looks like a swamp, but it used to be Red Barn.

The King Soopers was where the Safeway is now, except that it was situated differently.  Over where the Safeway used to be was the Red Barn, right next door.  I wrote an article a while back about the Red Barn and you can check it out in my archives, but every hint of the former restaurant is completely gone.  In fact, I was a bit surprised to discover that architects turned the parking lot into something that resembled a marsh as if it were always like that and the shopping center was somehow reclaimed from formerly useless land

The former site of Mander's Pizzeria in the LaConte Center.

As soon as the Sun comes out again, I plan to continue my photographic journey and I will visit all the other places that were important like the Scotchman, the Drive-In Movies, and Federal Boulevard.  Until then, take a look at the next set of pictures, read my previous article about the Red Barn, and visit the Scotchman reunion site.  Yeah, there are still a lot of people who remember the Mr. Horrible Burger and cruising back and forth between the Scotchman and 16th Street downtown.