Each Monday night as I pass through the doors of the Samaritan House homeless shelter to lead my Writers’ Circle, I walk by a plaque with seven names on it. They were the seven homeless men who were murdered in the fall of 1999, all within a 1-mile radius. Back then, it was a major series of stories in the media — and a major concern in the homeless community.
Two of the homeless men, discovered that November in a field behind Union Station, had been beheaded. I knew one of those men. His name was Joe Mendoza.
And here’s an interesting item: If you dressed Joe Mendoza in a business suit and tie and seated him in a tony restaurant, you certainly wouldn’t see him as homeless. You’d think he was a successful businessman visiting from Mexico. In a way, perhaps, he was.
I remember something “mysterious” he said to me when we were both staying at the old Blake Street shelter, back in 1994, something about how I could “make lots of money.” He asked if I had a driver’s license. I fudged with, “It’s not current.”
Was his question related to why, five years later, he was so brutally beheaded?
That year, Joe and many others were part of the “We Will Remember” candlelight vigil that the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless conducts around the winter solstice each year. They read aloud the names of homeless and formerly homeless who have died in the past year. This year, it’s on Thursday, from 5:30 to 6:15 p.m., on the steps on the City and County Building.
For many, this is all the recognition their lives will have garnered — a name spoken into a microphone, then those holding candles against the dark say, softly, “We will remember.”
That’s quite a difference from someone like, say, former Mayor Wellington Webb III. He’s still alive, of course, and therefore needn’t wait to see his legacy etched in stone. In America, your good name — whether in, on or around a building, park or street — is usually the reward for a lifetime of service and leadership, or for philanthropy. In Mayor Webb’s case, his living legacy is currently commemorated in at least four Denver sites:
• First is his photo, among Denver’s previous mayors, on the third floor of the City and County Building.
• The biggest tribute is the ship- shaped Wellington E. Webb Municipal Building, whose huge prow points toward Civic Center Park.
• Then there’s the Wellington E. Webb Primary Care Facility on the Denver Health campus.
• Finally, there’s Webb’s mayoral office, replicated on the third floor of the Blair-Caldwell African-American Research Library in Five Points.
If all that sounds like a lot of laudation for a living man, well, it is what it is. As poet Walt Whitman wrote (and as is etched inside the Webb Municipal Building), “A great city is that which has the greatest men and women.” Having your name on something is the ultimate acknowledgement of excellence, of stating that you and/or your life deserve permanent recognition.
That’s why the “Remembering Jennifer Moulton, FAIA, City Builder” tribute inside the Webb Building is so impressive. There’s even a large metal plaque with her life story (she died prematurely at age 53 of cancer). What’s more, the Denver Art Museum is planning a garden in her honor, complete with a 32-foot-tall Joel Shapiro sculpture. The garden is to be located between the DAM’s Hamilton wing and the not-yet-begun Clyfford Still Museum on Bannock Street.
There’s a relatively new (though old) public commemorative space, specified as the west face of the Colonnade of Civic Benefactors, on the eastern border of the Greek Amphitheatre. It’s now reserved for the names of 21st century leaders. So far, there’s one name: Barbara Sudler Hornby. She was very active in preserving historic Denver.
There’s one more big “naming” opportunity coming up soon: the Denver Justice Center. Mayor Hickenlooper recently held a contest to name the new justice and detention facility. You needed 100 signatures to have your proposed name considered.
But I don’t think the Denver Justice Center should be named after a person. It should honor, and remember, those for whom justice is most intended. I therefore propose that, in a prominent place, in letters large and born of civic gravitas, are the words:
“Dedicated to the victims and their families.”
Stephen Terence Gould is a member of the Denver Commission to End Homelessness. He was a Colorado Voices panelist in 2006.
