metrospective

Capitol Hill's haunts

Local historian delves into the scary side of the city on guided tour

By Joe Nguyen
nguyejos@mscd.edu

There are spooky secrets haunting many of the buildings around Capitol Hill.

Former Metro history professor Phil Goodstein led a group of 30 people around Capitol Hill as part of his "Ghost Walk" Friday, Oct. 14. On the tour, he brought a unique and fun perspective about the history of the area.

Goodstein started giving tours in July 1986 when he went for a walk along Colfax after no one showed up for a class he was teaching at the Colorado Free University.

"Here I was, simply walking down Colfax backwards, wildly waving my arms about, talking to myself and people started following me around," he said. "I figured I might as well give walking tours of the city."

During the nearly two-hour tour, Goodstein hardly took the time to catch his breath. It seemed as if he had a tale to tell about almost every building the tour group passed.

At the Newhouse Hotel at 1470 Grant St., he said there is a woman named Debra, who men would never want to encounter. She's a young, attractive Hispanic woman, who wears very little, even on the coldest of nights. She's always very friendly to the men who come by, some of whom are invited to come up to her room. These men wake up in the alley or the parking lot the next morning, missing their wallets. When they go to complain to the management, they are told no one's heard of her.

At the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception at 1530 Logan, he talked about the competition between the Catholics and Episcopalians, each trying to be the first to complete their respective cathedral. In 1909, both were on the verge of finishing when one of the pillars of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John's in the Wilderness cracked. Catholic Bishop Nicholas Matz told Episcopal Dean Henry Martyn Hart, "I see one of your towers has sunk. I always suspected there was something wrong with the foundations of your church."

Three years later, just before the dedication of the Immaculate Conception, lightning struck its western spire and 25 feet of the spire fell down onto Colfax. When Hart heard about this, he told Matz, "Our trouble is from below. Yours is from above."

At the old El Jebel Shrine Temple on 18th and Sherman, Goodstein explained that it was once home to the Shriners, "the playboys of the Masonic world," as he called them. Shortly after a fire in 1924, they moved out. The group they sold it to eventually would move out in the 1990s, in wake of multiple reports of ghosts. They had a high turnover rate of janitors and security, who complained of someone being in the building with them. In the auditorium, the PA system would act strangely. The audience would hear something completely different from what the speaker was saying. The music coming from the speakers would be different from what was actually playing. Goodstein told a tale about how he experienced this personally during a speaking engagement.

"When I got up on stage, I obviously am not connecting with the audience," he said. "I'm getting strange looks, (I hear) bizarre echoes (from the speakers)."

In the 1960s, the Warwick Hotel, located at 1776 Grant St. (at that time called the Hyatt House Hotel), was working in conjunction with Playboy magazine. The hotel's penthouse was known as The Playboy Club of Denver.

"Rather than being the glittering, sexy world of Hugh Hefner," he said, "it (was) an environment of exploitation."

After a drug deal didn't go as planned, a Playboy bunny was found murdered. By 1977, when the Playboy lease expired, no one wanted to renew the lease. In the next 25 years, new management would come and go. Stories circulated of the ghost of the Playboy bunny. When visitors entered the penthouse, they felt water dripping on their skin and a mysterious force pushing them to and fro.

The Grosvenor Arms apartment building at 16th Avenue and Logan Street has a history rife with spooks. Built to emulate the posh and elegant apartments in England, this building was considered the height of fashionable living in the 1950s. There are stories of a flapper phantom who roams the halls and leaves the smell of smoked cigarettes in her wake. Also, the caged elevator seems to possess a life of its own, showing up only for its preferred tenants. The rest have to wait.

During the 1920s, members of the general assembly stayed at the Acacia Apartments at 429 14th St. In 1925, the Ku Klux Klan held a majority in the state legislature. One of its members often denounced sexual immorality and "the disgusting things unmarried boys and girls do with one another." One night, his wife paid a surprise visit to the Acacia and discovered him with a mistress. She demanded that he choose between her and the mistress. He chose his wife and left the Acacia with a tarnished reputation and a ruined career. Distraught, the mistress went back to Room 111, filled the bathtub with hot water and slit her wrists.

"Late at night, people in unit 111 will suddenly start hearing water gurgling in the bathtub and coming up the downspout," Goodstein said, "leaving behind rust-stained water that, when it dries, looks just like blood stains."

Other features of the Acacia are keys that spin around in locks, televisions that change channels on their own and lights that flash randomly in the hallways. The management of the Acadia replaced the wiring and plumbing, but to no avail. The haunting persists.

Goodstein's "Ghost Walk" is one of the many haunted and historic tours he leads during the month of October. Aside from ghosts, these tours include stories of sleaze and sex scandals throughout Denver's history.

Goodstein has written several books about Denver, including "The Ghosts of Denver: Capitol Hill," "The Seamy Side of Denver," and "DIA and Other Scams."

Eccentric and knowledgeable, Goodstein presents an interesting point of view that is certain to capture his audience's attention. For anyone seeking an educational and entertaining treat for Halloween, Goodstein's tour will uncover the spooky side of Denver.