Crowds of adults, children and dogs filtered into a partially closed Lawrence Street for the 52nd Denver Cherry Blossom Festival at Denver’s Sakura Square on Saturday, June 27.
Temperatures climbed to 94 degrees, but thousands of attendees stayed cool (or tried to) with kakigōri (shaved ice), cold ramune and rare bits of shade.
A celebration of Japanese culture put on every year by the Tri-State Denver Buddhist Temple and the Sakura Foundation, the festival brings in an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 people over a weekend each June at Sakura Square, a commercial development and a cultural hub for Denver’s Japanese-American community, which began moving into this part of downtown after World War II.
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