Boulderspace

I did a little digging into the general history of the Ideal Broadway Shops and the Community Plaza on Alpine and Broadway, mostly just because I think those plazas look cool and I wanted to know when they were built. Originally named the North Boulder Shopping Center, the Ideal plaza was built in 1958 when the original Drive-In Ideal Market (named as such for the novelty of having a parking lot in front of the store) moved from down the street (where Spicy Pickle currently is). The initial bevy of stores included Gene Lang’s Pharmacy (where the current Pharmaca is) and Ruble’s Barber Shop (also where the current barber is housed), as well as the Model Cleaners, Beauty Centre, Broadway Fabrics, Manual’s Sweet Shop, Tasty Bake Shop, Johansen Hardware and, of course, Ideal Market.

The Community Plaza was built in 1960 and included the Plaza Cleaners, Plaza Drug Mart, and Miller’s Supermarket. The 1958 Polk’s Boulder City Directory lists almost a dozen other stores located in the block that presumably moved or somehow disappeared between the ’58 listing and the creation of the Community Plaza (such as Bruce’s Radio & Television Service, Waite Pharmacy, Ja-Mar Coffee Shop, and Model Inc. Cleaners). Knudsen’s Greenhouse, which primarily raised irises, was leveled in 1959 to make way for the Chevron station, which is now Vectra Bank on the corner of Alpine and Broadway.

Before the North Boulder Shopping Center was built it was the fruit farm of Joseph and Eliza Wolff, further north there was a seed company, a ranch, and an orchard, as well as other smaller farms and gardens. Of these, Long’s Gardens just south of Iris (founded in 1905) remains, but all the rest (as far as I know) are now something else.

I like that both these plazas have retained their original style. I love the sine/cosine-like curve of the Community Plaza and the excessive use of neon on both plazas. Despite the fact that both have horrendous traffic-flow/parking lot issues, and perhaps because of this fact, they are, in my mind, emblematic of Boulder. And that there are corporate stores snuggled next to independents. Weird and quirky next to streamlined and homogeneous. Hopefully this snuggling will remain harmonious when the time for change inevitably arrives.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with all of this, but I was shocked to see photos of Boulder from 50 years ago and how much it has changed and it’s a little scary/exciting to think about what Boulder will be 50 years from now.

Tags: 166, 242, 303, 304, 308