In this episode, you will learn the following:
- How Dana Crawford revitalized Larimer Square
- The story behind the Denver Union Station renovation
- Why preservation matters for community identity
- Importance of collaboration in large projects
- Challenges Dana faced as a woman in a male-dominated field
- How poverty can aid historic preservation
- Value of Denver’s architectural heritage
- Dana’s advice for overcoming resistance to change
Learn more about Dana Crawford & Denver Community:
Website: https://www.urbanneighborhoods.com/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dana-crawford-63216713
Learn more about Christy Belz Social Communications:
Website: https://christybelz.com/influencer/oh-god-of-second-chances-here-i-am-again/
Course: https://christybelz.com/uproot/
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 Christy: Hi, and welcome to Second Chances with Christy Belz podcast. I’m your host, Christy Belz. Enjoy our array of talented, openhearted guests and their thoughtfully curated stories of Second Chances, life-changing choices and new perspectives. We are here to empower you on Second Chances in your life.
00:00:37 Christy: Okay, welcome. Wow. Wow. Wow. Miss Dana Crawford is joining us today on this podcast, Second Chances with Christy Belz. And I have talked about and you’ve met through the series of this podcast, many remarkable women, you know, from state legislators to my first therapist, to my college professors. Miss Dana Crawford is a legend. She’s a legend in the world of preservation. And when we say preservation, we’re talking about some of the most significant work in the city of Denver that has been done and was done at an age and time when you wouldn’t have thought a woman might be doing that type of stuff.
00:01:21 Christy: So Dana has lots and lots of accolades, including Denver Union Station, the Oxford Hotel, and most significantly is the Larimer Square, which she redeveloped in the 1960s. I met Dana throughout the years because of her work in preservation. My husband’s a real estate developer, so we knew Dana through that. But we also knew her through the development and the hotel work that she had done, both at the Oxford and most recently, 10 years ago, when the redevelopment of Denver Union Station happened. And we have become partners with Dana and just have had a really blessed journey with her.
00:02:06 Christy: So I am so delighted to have Dana Crawford as my guest today. Dana, I would love for you just to share as you’re able. Like, I mean, I have tons of questions. I’ve read your bio, I’ve read the books that we have at Denver Union Station. I mean, first and foremost, your Kansas girl, which I love. I grew up in Overland Park, you grew up in Salina. And we both went to KU, which I love, Rock Chalk, Jayhawks, right? But most importantly, what made you think that you wanted to go into historic preservation in the 1960s and specifically Larimer Square?
00:02:42 Dana: Well, you know, that’s a really good question that you asked. I had been traveling around and seeing some of the good work that was going on around the country, mostly along the East Coast. And when I became involved with Denver, it looked like I was going to be living here on more or less, from the basis I realized that Denver considered itself to be so new that it really wasn’t working on a preservation plan.
00:03:11 Dana: And so I began to think, well, you know, it looks like we have a lot of really final buildings and we have a lot of stories that need to be saved and told and maybe I should stop talking about it and start doing something about it. So that’s really what led me into it. And getting involved with the historical society and the Denver Art Museum and many of the nonprofit organizations that were looking at the values of historic buildings and particularly those that had been created by well-known architects. So that’s what led me to it.
00:03:58 Dana: And then I found that there was a whole group of people that were working in certain phases of the work and that we realized that if, follow us and work together, that we’d be more effective. And so we started doing that.
00:04:18 Christy: Mm-hmm. I love that collaboration. Like you realized that because you didn’t come from an architectural background. What I read and what I know from your story is that you were at Harvard, right? And you fell in love with the buildings in Boston, was that right?
00:04:35 Dana: Well, that’s true. Although I had been really involved with my family’s, the Dana family had settled in Ohio across the river from [Parkersburg], West Virginia. And I’ve been very involved with a lot of the art and architecture at that time. And, you know, it’s just an area that I sort of was naturally drawn to. So that’s how it happened. And, you know, some of the, I find that anyway, some of the best people in the world are really trying to preserve something of our past and to tell those stories over and over. So that we have a [inaudible] so we’ve been.
00:05:29 Christy: I read that the revitalization of Larimer Square, it was the original Main Street that you restored. I didn’t know that was the original Main Street.
00:05:38 Dana: Well, you know, long, long ago when Denver was just getting started, like it was just a little dusty street and then little frame buildings and then from the frame buildings, I mean, they went to a little bit more sophisticated building and ultimately the brick buildings that you see today. And people, it was obvious that people had stories to tell about their own beginnings in Colorado. And they came together in Larimer Square and they really appreciated it. Several times already they’ve had to protect it.
00:06:20 Christy: Yeah, over the years. I read also that today is the prototype of the revitalization of other Main Street or forgotten architectural landmarks, that you set that precedent for not just Denver, but for nationwide, right?
00:06:36 Dana: Well, I think that a lot of people have come to Denver to see what we’ve been doing. You know, it leads to conversations and amazingly, it’s although preservation of various communities and especially along the East Coast have been underway for a long, long time. It’s just beginning to be formalized in many ways, that we can get assistance from states and cities and federal government to help this important thing and determine that it is important not to just, you know, when you build a building, just expect to tear it down [20] years.
00:07:21 Christy: Which we’ve done so much of over the years, haven’t we? Right. They build some really amazing historic sites. And before we had preservation and et cetera, those buildings were just knocked down to create something new. So, yeah.
00:07:34 Dana: That was the problem.
00:07:35 Christy: That was the problem. Indeed. Let’s see. So another thing I’m really struck by is and I can’t remember where I saw this, but there’s a picture of you walking down Larimer Square, and in the 60s and you’re young and I think, didn’t you always wear a hat? Was that kind of a signature thing that you had a hat that you wore or hats?
00:07:58 Dana: Well, I like hats. I think I know, I think I was walking with Tom Craig and I knew that Tom was the mayor of Denver and to just show people what things were like in Denver, he was our mayor and he was a really good mayor. But he quit shortly thereafter because he was only paid $14,000 a year. And he had a job offer with Continental Airlines that was considerably better. And so he had to do that in order to be able to provide for his family.
00:08:33 Christy: Yeah. But Larimer Square, when you thought about preserving it, was really a skid row. Wasn’t it filled with homeless, and I mean, I remember the stories of you going into those buildings as a really young, beautiful, vibrant, young woman, right? With this vision in your head to revitalize it. And yet it was going from Skid Row to the vision that you had in your head. What was that like?
00:09:00 Dana: Well, you know, I guess in a way it was kind of like a habit because I’ve been looking at old buildings really all my life and knowing a lot about, you know, how it all started in the United States and our country and its philosophies and its beliefs and its songs and its poetry and its literature all came to pass. So I didn’t stop at the time to think about how I felt. I just, I think I felt pretty comfortable and very challenged to try to figure out how you go about raising the money and finding the right people to do a big job.
00:09:49 Christy: Who were your early collaborators? Did you have all white men or were there other women involved with you?
00:09:56 Dana: Well, everybody was pretty involved. I mean, after all, we’re all just people and have families and lots of stories to tell and come from all over the world. In Colorado at this particular point in time, it’s a sharing of backgrounds and many of them are so interesting and obviously very involved in building a community. Denver, in terms of the overall United States, is a fairly new town. It didn’t get started [inaudible] 1868. It’s got deep roots, but they haven’t been here very long. And so people have to kind of stop and think about it because some people weren’t even born when something important happened that became a big part of Denver.
00:11:04 Christy: Yeah, gosh, the history is fascinating, isn’t it?
00:11:08 Dana: Well, it is. That’s another thing I really love about it is it brings people together. You know, people, you don’t ask people, well, where did you come from? Where did you start out? But, you know, once you do, ask them why, then they know that you’re really interested in finding out, you know, who is this, who is this person? What does this have to do with the future? So, you know, it’s like you and for Belz, I mean, [George] has done so much in the community and he’s very familiar with a lot of people and he’s just one of those important leaders.
00:11:56 Christy: Well, he’s very much of the same value set as you and I and that’s around collaboration, right? And bringing people together and after being married to him for 25 years and doing some of the big real estate deals alongside of him that he’s done, some with you, I think that value is so significant. And I think that’s what makes a leader and a visionary like you so successful that, you know, it’s not about a single person. It’s about the collaboration. It’s about bringing people together. It’s about understanding people.
00:12:26 Dana: And you know, Christy, it’s not about gender either. I mean, yeah, I’ll have an editor call up and want to do a story. They’ll want to do a story because you’re a woman in a man’s world. I don’t want to do that. I mean, you know, that’s not the story. The story is that another person with some kind of a background and some kind of an education is working in preservation really hard and making a difference so that other people can appreciate it and [fall into the future].
00:13:09 Christy: Yeah, I appreciate that really. Yeah, thank you for pointing that out because I think we, you know, I just was on another podcast with another civic leader and, you know, unfortunately in the time of the sixties there just was so much inequality. So I think that’s where that question came from is whether or not you faced that or if that was part of, you know, your growth edge and becoming and doing all that you’ve done in the city.
00:13:32 Christy: So all right, let’s talk about some other projects. One of them I love, the Oxford Hotel, actually had my wedding reception there. And it’s just a beautiful boutique hotel in downtown Denver that you also preserved and brought back to its beautiful even now standing glory. I remember [me and] Martini with you in the cruise room, just saying. True, true.
00:13:59 Dana: Cruise room is my famous place. There are many fabulous conversations, have been inspired in that room and the hotel itself is really Denver’s oldest, still really going strong and it was designed by Frank Edbrooke who also designed the Brown Palace which opened a year later that from the [Arch of the Tower].
00:14:32 Dana: It’s been just a joy to be involved with that property and to see people coming back to it, you know, who had a lot of history there and remember, you know, how long it’s been, it’s, you know, it’s kind of like some individual person, an important building like the one where the Oxford is, it’s sort of like an old friend that’s dependable and is right there and that you can rely on, you know, aside [inaudible].
00:15:12 Christy: Yeah, a member of the family. Yeah. Yeah, people who know the cruise room and know the Oxford. Yeah, it does have that feel. It’s pretty amazing in what you did with that. And your partnership with Sage, obviously, and Walter Eisenberg, and all that they do in the community as well. So let’s talk about the crown jewel of Denver and your vision. I remember I was in a class called Leadership Denver. It was with the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce thing, a year long program for upcoming leaders. And it was ‘08.
00:15:43 Christy: And I remember that part of, one of the days on my leadership journey with them was a tour of Union Station. Before it was renovated, it was dilapidated. It was full of homeless people. It stunk. It was awful. And that was ‘08. Right. And today we just celebrated a 10 year anniversary of the opening of Denver Union Station with a multi-million dollar renovation. And so many things I love about the project, but it was your vision, right? That, that should be returned to what you called what, Denver’s living room. Do I remember that right?
00:16:17 Dana: You remember that correctly. And certainly for many years, I think it has been presented as Denver’s living room now. And since it’s been there 10 years, I think that they are trying to take another marketing approach. But in redoing it and rebuilding it and making it comfortable, a lot of people that use, on a daily basis, for purposes other than railroading, the new look is a very inviting, comfortable one. It’s been designed so that a lot of people can come together and dine or talk or have a business meeting or the acoustics are fabulous.
00:17:08 Christy: Amazing.
00:17:10 Dana: Yeah, and the thing that was different about it was that, you know, I suggest that we use it on a, as [inaudible] because–
00:17:20 Christy: A different what? Dana, I didn’t hear it. A different what?
00:17:23 Dana: Well, you know, we did a hotel there.
00:17:26 Christy: Oh, yeah, named after you.
00:17:29 Dana: Well, and that’s a long story, but–
00:17:31 Christy: No, it is named after you. The Crawford Hotel for a reason.
00:17:37 Dana: So as a hotel, why then, it has an income stream that have their bar and a daily part of lower downtown, which is kind of becoming it’s more individualized and own those community all by itself in a way that, you know, the loss of impact buildings and the efforts that people are making to be sure that those buildings, those brick buildings stay if it’s at all possible to save them and unfortunately most of them are really good buildings and were well built [inaudible]. So, you know, it’s very encouraging that an area like that can stay and in a way, it tells the story of the [past].
00:18:37 Christy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you all have done a very good job of, you know, using the pictures and the things that are found on the station as, you know, the photos that are used and the stories that can be shared. And I know like walking the stairs, there used to be photos of the army service people that had come through the train station years ago. And yeah, amazing. And the books that we have in Union Station are pretty phenomenal too, telling the history and sharing that as well. So yeah, I love this.
00:19:07 Christy: It says the newly re-imagined Denver Union Station, open to the public in 2014. 100 years after the historic building’s original opening, a testament to the vision, determination, and civic pride of Dana Crawford. That’s pretty cool. We have to take a break. We’re gonna take a break here for just a minute. Dana, I’m gonna come right back to you. We’re gonna chat some more.
00:19:32 Christy: This is your host, Christy Belz. Many of the people you meet on my podcast have participated in my online curriculum called Uproot. This 15 week course takes you through my transformational process of understanding our roots, reviewing our path and collecting the tools for life success. I would love to help you on your journey. Learn more about the Uproot course, take my quiz and explore my transformational retreats at ChristyBelz.com\Uproot.
00:20:10 Christy: All right. Well, welcome back with the really remarkable, amazing Dana Crawford. So Dana, you not only do historic preservation and major big projects and stuff in the Denver area, but I also know of your work in other areas of the state of Colorado. I’m just curious if you want to talk a little bit about your thoughts and ideas you’re supporting around Trinidad or anything else that you want to share with the listeners.
00:20:39 Dana: Well, certainly, you know, I think that especially if you follow I-25 down through the southern part of the community and you go, for example, to Colorado Springs and you go to Pueblo and a number of small towns in between, why you get an idea of how the state is growing and succeeding. And you definitely know, you know, what the story is, the whole story in Colorado is not just Denver, but it involves a lot of other communities. And one of the little communities that I’ve become fascinated with is Trinidad, which is about 190 miles from Denver. And it’s also, it’s halfway to, if you’re driving, it’s halfway to Santa Fe.
00:21:34 Dana: And so it’s extremely strategic in its location and it had a family architects that lived there in the late 1800s and early 2000 years and they were excellent architects and they did beautiful work and it changed with the fashion of the day. And so a town that at one time got to be as large as 30,000 people in population and is now down to 10,000, went through the mining days and had some boom times and some bad times. But mostly, it’s still there because poverty can sometimes be preservation’s best friend. They can’t afford to tear the buildings down.
00:22:30 Christy: Interesting. Did not know that. Probably [you must be] preservation’s best friend because they can’t afford to tear the buildings down. Wow. Interesting. And that’s what’s happened in Trinidad, is that they’ve been able to preserve a lot of their historic buildings?
00:22:48 Dana: They have indeed. And they have a lot of brick streets. They have the brick street. Every brick has the name of the town, Trinidad, embossed in the brick. And so that’s something that’s… always captures people’s imagination and as they can see in a way how with thousands and thousands and thousands of bricks, why the town was built to take care of the money and days and then you know, a small theater came along that is very important. And I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to get people to see how beautiful the theater is now in the new economy of a small town in southeastern Nevada. Have you been down there?
00:23:45 Christy: Yeah, I have. I actually went down. I was on my way to Santa Fe to teach a retreat last year and I ran through Trinidad. I haven’t been there to stay. Our dear friend, collective friend Jill Farquhar is always trying to get me to go down, but I will get there. I promise I will get there.
00:24:02 Dana: Well, as you know.
00:24:04 Christy: I will. I’d love to meet you there or take you down with me. Get a tour.
00:24:08 Dana: Well, that’d be great.
00:24:11 Christy: So what else, what else do you have in your purview that I haven’t brought to the attention of our listeners? Any other projects?
00:24:20 Dana: I’ve been working in… close by in Idaho Springs,
00:24:26 Christy: Idaho Springs.
00:24:27 Dana: On the Argo mines there. You know, for many years when you drive up the mountains, like, you see the great big red buildings over on the right hand side of the road, and you wonder, well, what really went on there? And well, it was really very important. Mining went on there and it was important to that area specifically, but also to Denver because a lot of that ore came down, that was brought down the mountain in railroad cars and processed and utilized for gold and silver and copper and all kinds of different metals that they were pulling out of these extremely generous mountains that we have. So it’s a little town, but it has some very important parts and one of those is the Argo Mine and Mill and also we’ve been working on the side of the mountain to put in a cable car.
00:25:38 Christy: Oh really?
00:25:38 Dana: So that people can come and take the cable car away up into the foothills in the mountains and then they have fabulous views of just layers and layers and layers of the Rocky Mountains. But I mean you can’t see Denver or anything like that because you’re so deeply entrenched in the mountains. It’s an unforgettable experience. So we’ve been working on that and working on getting the mill back in shape and opening up the mines. And the little town of Idaho Springs is pretty well preserved actually.
00:26:23 Christy: It is. I just had lunch there last weekend.
00:26:26 Dana: Yeah, and they have a school building there. It’s kind of built in the time when the Bauhaus school of architecture was so strong in Germany. And it’s got some spaces in it that really almost in part they never were used very much because in fact, the school was built and then in the very few years, like people decided that they wanted to build another school or Clear Creek County but down in the Evergreen area. And so this Bauhaus style school has a little theater in it. It has a kitchen in it. It has all kinds of parts of it that are in excellent condition.
00:27:21 Dana: And so we’re trying to, you know, save the building and save the philosophy of the teaching that was going on there because it was very progressive. It was teaching kids how to think, how to figure out how to think because it’s not just, you know, reading, writing, and arithmetic. It’s how do you solve a problem? And pretty exciting when you get some of those classes together and they start talking about what they learned in school. They had a wonderful time. Yeah, so that would kind of kick you forward.
00:28:08 Christy: I’d forgotten you were working in Idaho Springs. That’s awesome. So we’re going to talk about at the end of the show about how people can support your efforts, Dana, whether that’s making contributions or how you want support, but I want to, I always end my podcast with my guests and particularly this series is called Sage wisdom. And I hope you don’t mind, do you mind if I share your age. Well, let me ask you, how old are you Dana?
00:28:32 Dana: I’m 93.
00:28:33 Christy: 93. Yes. It’s remarkable. So every single woman on this podcast was at least in this series is 80 or older. And so, and I love that because I’ve been surrounded by women who are at least 20 years older than me in most of my adult life. And I called them my sage moms. And it’s just been so fun to take the wisdom of women who have lived in a different time than me, who have had different experiences than me in my generation.
00:29:04 Christy: And so I always ask my guests to share two or three words of wisdom. If you wanted to share what you’ve learned in your lifetime, what do you know to be true? What would you offer women who are even up and coming in preservation, like totally up to you, just from your heart, Dana. What are some things you’d like to share about your life experience?
00:29:25 Dana: Well, unfortunately, you know, in order to accomplish change, change is not easy for people to accept. But once they get the idea of what it’s going to mean in the future, then it works. But I guess that the lesson would be that if you get an idea, it might be kind of unusual, and you decide you really want to work hard to achieve the realization of the idea. The amount of persistence and hard work and patience, lots of patience that’s required is amazing.
00:30:13 Dana: But if you rely on, I mean, and some people just make it simple, call it nagging. But if you just never let go of the idea and as many things as you possibly can do to fortify the realization of the idea, you’d just be amazed at how many different subjects can be addressed and changed. So I think people need to learn how to think and how to bring about change.
00:30:50 Christy: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And just to reiterate, change is difficult and people resist change. Like as a therapist, since I made this done coaching for many years, resisting change is one of the number one issues that we face. But I also love that you are sharing, if you have an idea, go with it. Trust it. I call those divine ideas in my language because I trust that if something drops in for me, I’m like, well, that must be for me to do. That must be. And I trust that.
00:31:22 Christy: So I tend to hang on and want to make things happen. But I also love what you said. And sometimes it takes time and perseverance. It doesn’t always happen in the timeline that we want it to or that we think it should. Sometimes we have to allow the time and perseverance to let that unfold?
00:31:43 Dana: Absolutely, perfectly said. So I think that–
00:31:47 Christy: I just [inaudible] of what you said.
00:31:49 Dana: You know, it’s just, and a small group of people can be very, very effective, just as well as a large group. But it becomes, well, you used the word collaboration, and I think it’s a very terrific word, collaboration, because it’s so essential for our communities to have groups of people that are willing and eager to collaborate with one another to bring about, resist change or to bring about change in our communities so that when others come to visit us, why they will remember something special.
00:32:31 Christy: Yeah. Indeed. Well, you are absolutely remarkable, Dana. You know how much I just love and appreciate and value our friendship and what we’ve been able to collaborate and do together over the years at Union Station. And yeah, you are an inspiration to me and so many. So I really appreciate you taking the time and being with me and sharing a little bit of your story and your wisdom with my audience. Yeah, you’re something, something, something.
00:33:00 Dana: Christy, thank you so much for inviting me. And we’ll just have to keep collaborating.
00:33:08 Christy: That’s right. Keep collaborating. Speaking of… Dana, is there anywhere that we can direct the listeners to go to to help support, maybe, your efforts in Idaho Springs? Or is there anything that we offer the audience that they maybe can make a contribution back to you in some way?
00:33:25 Dana: Well, if they get interested in preservation history, Colorado is a big and mature organization in the state. And it’s down, its headquarters are close to the Capitol building. And they can go there and the newspapers generally cover what we’re up to. Or really, they can just pick up the phone and call me. A lot of people do.
00:34:00 Christy: Oh, they do. You are well sought after woman. And I just want to give you a little shout out to Dana. You’re being honored at the Girl Scouts this year for the Girl Scout Gold Award, which is the largest or the highest honor that we offer community individuals. And so just congratulations on being recognized in that. I’m on that board and I just couldn’t be more excited. I wish I could be there in person to celebrate with you, but well deserved honor. Congratulations.
00:34:31 Dana: Well, thank you very, very much.
00:34:34 Christy: Well, again, I cannot be more excited and happy and delighted that I was joined today by the amazing Dana Crawford. Dana, thank you. Blessings. I will see you around town. Take care.
00:34:47 Dana: Thank you. See you.
00:34:49 Christy: Bye.
00:34:55 Christy: It is the joy of my life to showcase the voices of people and the messy details of life’s journey. As you have experienced, my guests are thriving with purpose and style, but that does not mean that their life is easy and without challenges. I’ve dedicated my life to you and your journey. Thank you for listening to Second Chances with Christy Belz. Please subscribe and learn more at ChristyBelz.com\SecondChances.