The Ninth Historic Park in Denver on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. The Ninth Street Historic Park, a block on the Auraria Campus featuring some of the neighborhood’s original homes, is all that remains of the working class, Latino neighborhood whose residents were displaced in the 1970s. Frances Torres, a displaced Aurarian, speaks during an Auraria Campus Board of Directors meeting at the Tivoli Student Center in Denver on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024.
In a resolution adopted Wednesday alongside the masterplan, the Board of Directors established the Auraria Historic Corridor on the 150-acre campus, an area that includes the Ninth Street Historic Park and St. Cajetan’s Church. The designation acts as a boundary around what remains of Denver’s former Westside neighborhood.
“Nowhere else in the country has a community ever been displaced and then been given back this kind of genuine involvement,” said Chavez, who is studying displaced communities as part of his Ph.D. work at CU Denver. “Thank you from my displaced Aurarian heart,” Torres said during Wednesday’s board meeting inside the campus’s Tivoli Student Union. “If my parents were here, Phillip J. and Petra Torres, they would be so proud of everything that we’ve done. When we were growing up, we weren’t even supposed to play in this building, the Tivoli. I’m standing here now thinking how happy they would be that we can say that we have a part in this campus.
Colleen Walker, CEO of the Auraria Higher Education Center, said Wednesday’s board meeting was emotional. The resolution said the board “recognizes the history and trauma associated with the displacement of this community.”