See You Later, Mestizo-Curtis Park Murals

In the heat of summer, there's nothing like a cool dip in the neighborhood pool.

And this scorcher of a summer, in Denver's first park in its oldest neighborhood? There's literally nothing like a pool. Not anymore, at least not for now. It's being demolished — at some point — along with the many murals that bring some color to the 1950s-era building and pool deck.

This marks the second summer that the Mestizo-Curtis Park public swimming pool has been closed, and even optimistic projections by the city say that it won't open until Summer 2027. Given the city's track record at meeting construction deadlines, that target date is anything but a promise.

What is a promise is that there will come new murals — or at least one, to replace the primary piece of public art being left in the history books and the construction dust: Emanuel Martinez's "Eyes on the Park." That art has been a visible and prominent part of the park's environment for decades, creatively adopting the louvred windows into sunglasses on a diverse group of neighborhood pool-goers. "Eyes on the Park" was a spot-on representation of an area such as Curtis Park, which, as part of historic Five Points, has always hosted a multicultural residency.

Martinez's "Eyes on the Park" [which was officially titled "Shades"] was commissioned back in 1983, when it replaced another existing mural that was original to construction in 1971. The way he got the original gig was a little unusual by today's standards. "While living in the Lincoln Park housing projects across from La Alma Park in 1970, I asked the parks and recreation director if I could paint a mural on a wall adjacent to the bathhouse swimming pool there. He said I would have to be a city employee, so I got a lifeguard position making ninety cents an hour," recalls Martinez. "After painting the mural with volunteer youth, it made page one of the Denver Post in color. Soon after, other parks in Denver were asking me to paint murals on their bathhouses, including Curtis/Mestizo park."

That mural was decommissioned in 1983 to make room for the new, as part of an overall park renovation project that also marked the addition of "Mestizo" to the original Curtis Park name. So it only stands to reason that Martinez takes in stride the city's decision to decommission the mural from '83. "Most of my murals in Denver have been destroyed or painted over, so it is not surprising to know that the Curtis/Mestizo park mural will be gone next year. Thanks to the efforts of my daughter, Lucha Martinez de Luna, who started the Chicano Murals of Colorado Project, a non-profit organization to preserve the murals of the state, many murals have been saved. Art never gets old or retires, especially when the theme is universal and timeless. I intend to make the new in mural in the same spirit as the last one; all-inclusive."

In an overall project that's been riddled with questions from the public — including but certainly not limited to why the pool was shut down over a year before anything was actually going to be demolished — the mural being retired and replaced is one of many. But the complaints about the mural aren't about the art, but the cost.

Keith Pryor is one of the residents who has been actively monitoring and questioning the process of the overall pool project. Pryor is not only an accomplished contractor himself, but also a driving force in the thoughtful preservation of the area as a historic district. And he has a personal stake in it, as well as a professional perspective: he lives and works just blocks down Champa from the park and pool itself, and says the process has been mishandled by the city from the beginning. "It's a complete mess," he says.

Perhaps Pryor's most pressing issue with the renovation project is how the money available for replacing the public art is being spent. "There's $120K available as the 1 percent of the pool project budget," he says. "Plus an extra $15K from a sidewalk improvement project to add art to the park overall." That comes to an art budget of $135K. "They're wanting to take that money—with no public process—to pay for a single mural on the pool house. Because the original artist [Martinez] is still alive, he's a legacy artist and automatically gets the new commission."

Pryor asserts that giving Martinez the commission isn't the problem at all. "That's great, actually," he says. "All for it. But we're paying the whole $135K for one mural?"
It's easy to see what Pryor is protesting; if you take a look at the still-standing pool house, still fenced off and awaiting the bulldozers. It's not just Martinez's "Eyes on the Park." It's a lot of other murals, most smaller, by other artists at different times, each one representing a different period and perspective on the city's shared space.

As evidence of the funding questions, Pryor researched the cost of similarly-sized murals in Denver and claims that the city is overpaying for the single mural, and insists that the existing funds should be spread out over several different artistic elements in the new pool and the surrounding park. According to Pryor, the base range for a typical Denver mural would range from $22K to $31K; even given marquee names involved in the process, that number might top out at around $75K, at most. Still quite a bit, but even given the top of that range, there should still be $65K left to offer to other artists and more public art.

"So we were like, 'What's up?'" says Pryor. "Why is this single mural costing taxpayers $135K, when we could use that money to really significantly make an impact on what the park might offer in terms of artistic draw?" Pryor restates that he's in full support of Martinez doing a new piece. "But paying $135K is unprecedented for that size of a mural," he says.
The answers to those questions are still pending. Denver Parks & Recreation had a community meeting on July 22. Despite poor attendance (Pryor laments that "not a lot of people saw the invite"), one idea was generated by community members who were there: that perhaps Martinez could do a bronze sculpture instead of another mural. A bronze piece of significant size would be more in line with the $135,000 price tag, and Martinez is an experienced and respected sculptor as well as muralist. Community advocates of this concept say that a bronze piece would also be a more permanent fixture of the park, so Martinez's work would be able to stand as a long-lasting legacy in Mestizo-Curtis Park, rather than needing to experience the "Deaccession Ceremony" for "Eyes on the Park" that's planned for fall.

And so the process plods along, with the pool still fenced off and closed, and neighbors surrounding it running out of patience. "We got shafted," says Curtis Park resident Sue Glassmacher, who calls Denver Parks & Rec's approach to the project as a whole "arrogant." It's a facility used primarily by "kids of color, mostly low-income," she asserts. "But more than 50 percent of the survey results were from white women of the age most likely to have children. [Parks & Rec] used the survey results when the answers justified their plans. The city says they are for equity, but there is none here."

So yes, tempers are flaring. Things near Mestizo-Curtis Park are getting heated. Too bad there's not a pool or something to cool everyone off.