Lincoln Park Denver

Lincoln Park is a neighborhood and public park in downtown Denver, Colorado, close to the Art District on Santa Fe. Located just to the south of the area where Denver was first settled in the 1850s, this neighborhood is one of Denver’s oldest. The neighborhood is bounded by 6th Avenue at the south end, West Colfax Avenue at the northern end, Cherry Creek on the east side, and the South Platte River on the west side. North-south Interstate 25 runs through the western part of the neighborhood.

There are many single-family detached homes in the neighborhood, including two-story brick Victorians, row houses, duplexes, brick bungalows, and one-story stucco houses. Housing developments include the Parkway Center apartment and condominium complex at 12th and Galapago Street, and the Denver Tower Complex (with condos, a grocery store, and offices) on Speer Boulevard from 14th to 12th Street.

Some of the neighborhood’s prominent institutions include Museo de las Americas on Santa Fe Drive, the region’s first museum dedicated to Latino culture; Center for Visual Art, the metropolitan state university of Denver’s contemporary art gallery and learning lab; Denver Health hospital complex; Denver West High School; the Asian and Hispanic Chambers of Commerce; and the Buckhorn Exchange, Colorado’s first liquor store, on Speer Boulevard. At the corner of Speer Boulevard and Colfax Avenue, a former courthouse and district attorney’s office has been remodeled into a Latino cultural and business center. A pioneering Boulder, Colorado community radio station, KGNU, opened a studio at 7th and Kalamath in 2006, just a year before they developed their Denver affiliate, 1390 AM, in cooperation with its non-commercial partner, Open Media Foundation.

One of Denver’s first silent movie theaters, the Denver Civic Theater on Santa Fe Drive was built in 1921. Later, the building was used for various purposes (even as a meatpacking plant), before it was renovated and converted into a neighborhood arts center with two theaters (one with 332 seats, another with 134) and an art gallery in 1993. There are more than 40 galleries, restaurants, and shops in Denver’s Art District, located between 6th and 12th Avenues.

Within the neighborhood is Lincoln Park itself, located at Mariposa St. and West 11th Avenue. Among the park’s amenities are a basketball court, an outdoor pool, a recreation center, a softball field, a grass infield, a lighted softball field, a tennis court, and a sand volleyball court. Since 1960, the Denver Inner City Parish has provided community services such as a food pantry, basic necessities, seniors’ programming, and La Academia, a school for at-risk youth, to area residents.

There is a light rail station at 10th Avenue and Osage Street on the RTD’s north-south light rail line that runs through the neighborhood.