Art Along Alameda From Sante Fe West To Kipling

Alameda Ave is an east/west traffic corridor that connects Lakewood, Colorado with Denver, Colorado. It runs from the foot of the hogback that separates the town of Morrison from Lakewood, all the way out to Buckley AFB in East Aurora, where it inexplicably becomes South Tower Road.

When the road was originally built it was one of the primary roads west out of Denver, and was the border between Denver and South Denver in the 1870's. When it was first built through to Red Rocks Amphitheater, the planning board stipulated that no businesses or residences would be allowed to be built along the road, as it was intended to be a true highway.

That plan went to hell in a hand-basket somewhere over the the past 75 or so years. Envelopes stuffed with cash no doubt traded hands, esp. after the city of Lakewood was incorporated and the now-defunct Villa Italia mall was built at the intersection of Alameda and Wadsworth.

These days homes and businesses line Alameda much like any other major avenue, though there are areas in Lakewood that still have the homes and businesses set back and along a frontage road, most notably between Wadsworth and Kipling, to the north.

Today I drove west on Alameda from Santa Fe, which is in Denver, up to Kipling Ave., which is in Lakewood (Lakewood and Denver are divided east to west at Sheridan). I stopped anywhere I saw what could be constituted as art and took a picture. As the area is about a mile south and west of where all the money is being spent by Denver's 1% for art committee (not that they would only spend money for art in areas that they have deemed worthy...no, they wouldn't be that elitist would they?), there really isn't much to see, except some pretty damn good graffiti.

                                   This odd slab sculpture was propped up outside a pot shop

   Hanging sculpture/installation along Alameda near Federal in front of a half empty shopping center

     Someone, somewhere, got paid for this. Sculptures of geese in a city that gets overrun by geese...

     This mural on a retaining wall was done by Jose Mares - his Facebook page is Refried-Rockabilly

           This mural done on the same retaining wall a few blocks further west has no attribution

   Couldn't find attribution for this 1% for Art installation at the intersection of Sheridan and Alameda

           No attribution for this desk lamp descending a staircase statue near Alameda and Pierce                                           

               Colorful two-dimensional sculptures on the median near Lakewood Commons.

So that's it, that's all the art along the six-mile stretch of Alameda between Santa Fe and Kipling. What's a community got to do to get some of that 1% for Art money? Where's our ordinary-object-enlarged-and-painted-blue (or orange)?

Thankfully, there are a number of talented graffiti artists who pitch in to spruce the parkway up, otherwise the drive would be be all billboards and shop signs.