Much has been written about changes in downtown Boulder, especially on Pearl Street. Some of those changes may show up in upcoming stories. Today’s story, though, takes us back to the late 1960s and early 1970s on Broadway between Canyon Boulevard and Pearl Street — a part of Boulder that has gotten little attention from historians.
In 1965, the Public Service Company of Colorado (now a subsidiary of Xcel Energy) built a then-contemporary office building on the northwest corner of Broadway and Canyon. Between the Public Service building (out of view in the above photo) and Walnut Street was a colorfully painted string of small frame buildings that, by 1973, included Octopus Waterbeds, Raven Book Store, The Letterhead (specializing in silk-screened T-shirts), Folk Arts Music and Leather Supply (providing banjo lessons), Carl’s Hobby Shop, Carnival Café, the Orangutang (selling handcrafted children’s toys) and a tailor shop on the former site of Eads News.
“Life is a Carnival,” proclaimed a banner in the Carnival Café. A group of friends had opened the vegetarian co-op in 1972, and it quickly became the center of Boulder’s alternative community. A newspaper reporter at the time noted that the owners shared expenses and kept their prices low. Meals included generous amounts of grains and vegetables, with fresh-squeezed carrot juice. No one was out to make a profit, and all dinners were under $2…