Alamo Placita

Alamo Placita is an unofficial name for the northeast corner of Speer, the part above Speer Boulevard, borrowed from the park and the historic district there. The district runs from Downing Street west to Pennsylvania Street, and from Speer Boulevard north to 6th Avenue, with the line stepping up to 7th Avenue east of Clarkson Street.

An amusement park and a mayor's subdivision

The Arlington Park Addition, platted in 1889, was the district's first and largest subdivision. Robert W. Speer's real estate company began taking deposits on lots in January 1890, and Speer, later Denver's mayor, lived at 505 Clarkson until 1906.

An amusement ground, Arlington Park, opened on July 4, 1892, with a staging of "The Last Days of Pompeii" in front of a 54-foot Mount Vesuvius. The 1893 crash stalled it, it reopened in 1898 as Chutes Park, where boats rode a waterfall into a lake, and fires in 1901 and 1902 closed it for good.

Foursquares, bungalows and the apartments between them

The first houses were Victorians, and then the crash left much of the district empty for a time. When building resumed, Arts and Crafts won. Foursquares and bungalows fill most blocks, with bigger Classical Revival houses mixed in and a smaller number of Tudors and Spanish Mission designs. About 90 percent of the buildings were up by 1930.

After World War II, some early houses came down for apartment buildings, so houses and apartments share a lot of streets. Across Speer, newer development has replaced older bungalows with denser housing, and vacant lots have become condos and apartments. If you're shopping here, you'll likely be weighing an original Foursquare or bungalow against a condo in a postwar building or newer infill.

Historic district review

City Council made Alamo Placita a Denver historic district on June 12, 2000. Landmark Preservation design review comes first for any exterior project that requires a building or zoning permit: additions, garages, ADUs, roofing, solar panels, fences, egress windows, new windows and doors, and infill. If a pop-top or a new garage is part of your plan, start with the city before you hire anyone.

Alamo Placita Park and its sunken garden

The park sits on the north side of Speer between Ogden and Emerson Streets, cut in two by 3rd Avenue. It started as the Arlington Park grounds, the city acquired the land in the early 1910s, S.R. DeBoer designed the current park in 1927, and by 1930 it carried the name Alamo Placita, Spanish for "little place of cottonwoods."

The half facing Speer is a sunken Italianate flower garden, down sandstone steps, with symmetrical beds around a mass of juniper. North of 3rd it loosens up into basketball courts, a playground, a paved plaza with a sundial and a cottonwood grove, and an open lawn. The garden looks across Speer to Hungarian Freedom Park, another DeBoer design. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

The Esquire corner and 6th Avenue

The Esquire Theatre at 590 Downing opened in 1927 as the Hiawatha and took the Esquire name in 1942. Landmark Theatres ran it as an art-house cinema from 1980 until July 18, 2024, and the plans call for restaurant and retail space that keeps the marquee signs. If you're looking near 6th and Downing, ask where that project stands.

Farther west, Pablo's Coffee is at 6th and Washington, an independent roaster that Westword named Denver's best coffee shop without Wi-Fi in 2017. Angelo's Taverna has served pizza and char-grilled oysters at 620 East 6th since 1974, and Odyssey, at 603 East 6th, has cooked classic Italian in a Victorian house since 2012. Westword put both on its red-sauce Italian list.

Getting around

Speer Boulevard, a 1906 parkway that follows Cherry Creek, forms the south edge. The Cherry Creek bike path runs alongside it and connects to the city's trail system. The Route 6 bus, run by RTD, travels 6th Avenue between the Auraria campus and Aurora, with stops at Pennsylvania and Washington.