Denver Community Planning and Development announces that City Council held a public hearing and voted tonight, Monday, June 26, to designate La Raza Park as Denver’s newest historic cultural district. La Raza Park is Denver’s 59th historic district and the third historic cultural district. In 2022, Denver Landmark Preservation, which is part of Community Planning and Development, published a historic context study of Denver’s Latino, Chicano, and Mexican American communities. Entitled Nuestras Historias, this historic context study compiled several sites identified by these communities as being historically and culturally significant, which included La Raza Park. In 2022, District 1 Councilwoman Amanda P. Sandoval approached Denver Parks and Recreation, who manage La Raza Park, and Denver Landmark Preservation about designating it as a local landmark.
La Raza Park has a direct association with historical events and the historical development of Denver’s Northside, from its earliest days as a playground for Denver’s thriving Italian community, to its time as the heart of the growing Chicano movement in Denver, to its current role as a place of celebration and ceremony for the diverse Latino/Chicano communities that lives in Denver and the surrounding area.
The park, occupying a full city block between Osage and Navajo Street, and West 38th and 39th Avenue, is an established and familiar feature of the Sunnyside and Highland neighborhoods. It is the second largest park in the Sunnyside neighborhood, and the prominent Kiosko is visible from 38th Avenue – a major thoroughfare of North Denver. Muralist David Ocelotl Garcia designed and painted El Viaje within the Kiosko in 2016. This is the only Kiosko in the City of Denver, and its unique physical characteristics and cultural importance make it an established and familiar feature of the neighborhood and the city.
La Raza’s continued role as a space for cultural events, such as the yearly summer solstice festival, La Raza Park Day, and Dia de Los Muertos, allows the Chicano/Latino communities to connect to their culture and invites the wider Denver community to understand Chicano/Latino cultural practices. The renaming of the park from Columbus Park to La Raza Park in 2020 serves as a point of pride for the Chicano/Latino communities, as it had been colloquially known as La Raza Park for 50+ years before its official renaming.
Lean more about the landmark designation process at www.denvergov.org/landmark.
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