DENVER — Denver has had its ups and downs when it comes to historic preservation.
Entire blocks of downtown buildings were leveled in the 1960s and ’70s in the name of urban renewal. In many cases, that meant scraping away the structures and laying down asphalt for parking lots.
That period also birthed efforts to save some of the city’s most significant spaces, a movement that has remained strong since Larimer Square became the city’s first historic district in the early 1970s. Today there are 59 legally protected historic districts in Denver and more than 350 individual landmarks.
