Boulder then and now: The changing face of Broadway in the 1960s and ’70s

Much has been written about changes in downtown Boulder, especially on Pearl Street. Some of those changes may show up in upcoming stories. Today’s story, though, takes us back to the late 1960s and early 1970s on Broadway between Canyon Boulevard and Pearl Street — a part of Boulder that has gotten little attention from historians.

In 1965, the Public Service Company of Colorado (now a subsidiary of Xcel Energy) built a then-contemporary office building on the northwest corner of Broadway and Canyon. Between the Public Service building (out of view in the above photo) and Walnut Street was a colorfully painted string of small frame buildings that, by 1973, included Octopus Waterbeds, Raven Book Store, The Letterhead (specializing in silk-screened T-shirts), Folk Arts Music and Leather Supply (providing banjo lessons), Carl’s Hobby Shop, Carnival Café, the Orangutang (selling handcrafted children’s toys) and a tailor shop on the former site of Eads News.

“Life is a Carnival,” proclaimed a banner in the Carnival Café. A group of friends had opened the vegetarian co-op in 1972, and it quickly became the center of Boulder’s alternative community. A newspaper reporter at the time noted that the owners shared expenses and kept their prices low. Meals included generous amounts of grains and vegetables, with fresh-squeezed carrot juice. No one was out to make a profit, and all dinners were under $2.

A frequent turnover of tenants moved in and out of the aging buildings that likely dated from 1913, after similar buildings were destroyed in a major fire. Included, before the fire, were grocery, shoe and piano stores, as well as the Boulder Electric and Power Company, where the fire was thought to have started.

The 1913 buildings remained essentially unchanged until 1976, when the small buildings were demolished and replaced by the Randolph Center (a commercial/office complex that includes a parking garage). Not everyone liked it.

“Whose stroke of genius was it to put the beautiful parking structure on the corner of Broadway and Walnut?” wrote a disgruntled Boulder resident in a letter to the editor of the Daily Camera in 1977. “Carl’s Hobby Shop and the Carnival Café were definite improvements over this progressive piece of junk. Since this concrete puzzle has been under construction, the whole town’s face has changed.”

The Public Service building also received its fair share of criticism. In 1991, it was purchased by a partnership led by the W.W. Reynolds Companies. The new owners replaced the 1960s-era building with modern residential condos and commercial office space.

Continuing north from Walnut Street on Broadway’s west side was the Firestone Tire store. At the time, four tires sold for $85. Farther north was the Boulder Sporting Goods store, as well as Portraits by Hans (a photography studio), the Home Savings and Loan Association, and Valentine’s Hardware (in the Boettcher Building that faces Pearl Street).

The most familiar-looking building on the block is the Broadway Building, on the southeast corner of Broadway and Pearl Street. Built in 1921 as the First National Bank building (facing Pearl), it has retail space on the first floor with offices above. As shown in the 1966 photo, Worth Mart (the new name, at the time, for F.W. Woolworth Co. stores) occupied the first floor.

F.W. Woolworth (formerly next door at 1206 Pearl Street) had expanded into the bank building in 1957, when the First National Bank moved to its new building on the northeast corner of Broadway and Canyon.

History is a continuum and is constantly evolving. Next time you’re stuck in traffic, look around and reflect on the past. It may just change again.