Skywatch Friday

The castle-like Union Printers Home looks fantastic in summertime. Though it's technically not a tourist attraction, the Printers Home is an important part of Colorado Springs history, architecturally interesting, and open to the public. If you live around here you should go and check it out sometime.

For more Skywatch Friday pictures from bloggers everywhere, click HERE. Have a great weekend!

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Bas relief script and fanciful scroll work on the façade of the Union Printers Home, captured on August 5th of last year.

The Union Printers Home

If you live here, you've probably driven past this enormous, castle-like building and its gracious grounds more than once and wondered what it was all about. Situated on the southeast corner of Union Boulevard and Pikes Peak Avenue, the Union Printers Home is, as you've probably assumed, historically significant. Built in 1891 at a cost of around $71,000 (!!!) and opened in 1892, it served for generations as the convalescent/retirement home for members of the International Typographical Union -- that is, the guys who printed newspapers, magazines, periodicals and books. It must have been a dangerous job. Just think about all the heavy machinery and toxic chemicals they were exposed to constantly, as well as the noise! The union was officially formed in 1852, and in the ensuing years made great progress in securing better working conditions for its members, including an eight hour work day, something we all take for granted now. Even so, workers in the printing trade were prone to tuberculosis (and who knows how many other ailments and injuries), which is why the Union Printers Home was built here. Colorado Springs and tuberculosis go hand in hand! [Read THIS post if you're curious to know about our city's tuberculosis-treating history.]

Just to the south of the original 1891 edifice you'll find a couple of cool Mid-Century Modern office buildings. They were built to house the union's headquarters, which relocated from Indianapolis to Colorado Springs in 1961. At the end of 1986 the ITU merged with the Communication Workers of America, and since then the 1960s-era buildings have been home to various medical offices, county services and other uses.

The beautiful old Printers Home is still an assisted living healthcare facility to this day, and it's open to the public. In fact, one of my friends works there. I called their offices yesterday in researching this blog post, and though no one there was able to help me, I did learn that they have a museum! I live only a couple of blocks away and I cannot resist a museum, so of course I will be checking that out as soon as I am able. I took these photos on August 5th. As you can see, the Union Printers Home is just as beautiful as it has always been. If you're interested in knowing more, visit their website HERE.

This cupola may look a little familiar to you because it's very similar to the El Paso Club's cupola, downtown. The ornate weather vane reads "1891," the year the Union Printers Home was built.

Hold that thought... for about a week

I hate to do this, especially since I have been so good about posting literally every day for the last couple of years, but I have to put my little blog on hiatus for about a week! This tired photographer has been burning the candle at both ends all summer (if you're new to reading this blog, let me explain here that I'm a wedding photographer and this is an extremely busy time of year for me). Usually I try to stay on top of things by writing posts ahead of time and scheduling them to go "live" each day, but I have not been able to gain a toehold at all this summer. Just too busy! It's a good problem to have. But it means that I need a little break from the blog. I'll be back the week of the 15th. Until then, enjoy this lovely water lily that I photographed yesterday afternoon at the Union Printers Home (more on that when I come back, promise).

See you again in a few days! Ciao!

Prospect Lake

Prospect Lake, 1932

Prospect Lake, September 12, 2010

Prospect Lake is the centerpiece of Memorial Park, a few blocks west of our house. Pat and I like to walk around the lake in the late afternoon. It's a popular place -- lots of people enjoying the footpath, kids using the playground, and during the summer there are always plenty of water lovers jetskiing or boating on the lake. I found this picture of Prospect Lake taken in 1932, more than 25 years before our house was even built. I decided to try and duplicate the image in the modern day. I did my best! Upon review it does look like the original picture was taken from a farther away perspective, using a longer lens, but my shot is a fairly close approximation. In both images you can see the spires of the Union Printers Home just beyond the trees at top right, and the bluffs of Palmer Park to the left.

About four years ago the City decided to drain Prospect Lake to repair a leak. It took months to drain, repair and refill it. As the water level slowly went lower and lower, they began to find all sorts of things on the lake bed -- including an entire Volkswagen Beetle! Who knows how long it had been there. The best guess on how it got there was that someone must have driven it out onto the frozen lake during the winter, and as the ice gave way the driver "abandoned ship" and left the car to sink.

Of course, just before I managed to snap this photo, the lone jetskier on the lake at the time decided to take a break, so my picture's not as exciting as the one taken in 1932. But there were plenty of people at the lake today, enjoying this beautiful end-of-summer day.

ETA, 10/06/2010: Tragically, on September 20th, just a few days after this blog post, two high schoolers drowned in Prospect Lake mere yards from the spot where I stood to take this picture. Please, teach your children to swim. It's an important life skill. It could save their life one day.

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I was just digging through my archives and found this pretty, snowy picture that I took on January 4th of last year on the grounds of the Union Printers Home. Enjoy!

Snowy January day

Just another typical January day in Colorado Springs! As I type this it's four degrees outside, but when I took this picture (yesterday at 3:42pm) it was a balmy 14. I drove around quite a while looking for a worthy subject. I thought the snow was pretty, but unfortunately the roads were correspondingly bad so my search for the perfect blog subject was limited to the streets that weren't too slippery!

After all that driving and searching I ended up making a complete circle and ended up at the Union Printers Home (just a few blocks from my house), a Colorado Springs landmark that originally functioned as a nursing home for retired members of the Printers Union. Now a State of Colorado Historical Site, the Printers Home was built in 1892 and these days it's really just a nursing home in general. Summer or winter, I've always loved the building in its treed setting so I took advantage of the stillness of the day and the falling snow to capture this pretty image of its snowy grounds.

Another day I'll capture the facade of the Union Printers Home -- it's still beautiful even though it's been modernized a little. I'll wait for the grass to grow before I venture back though.