An effort is underway by an ad hoc committee to save an abandoned structure in Denver which by sheer chance has been discovered to be a residence in which Golda Meir lived as a teen-ager and where she met Morris Myerson, later to become her husband.
The Intermountain Jewish News reported that on Aug. 4, the Denver City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling for the preservation of the abandoned duplex on Julian Street on Denver’s West Side. The Jewish weekly reported that while the vote does not guarantee preservation of the structure, it will help greatly, adding that actual permission to allow the building to be placed on city property “should be debated soon.”
Meanwhile, a resolution urging that the home be designated a historical landmark was adopted by the Denver Landmark Preservation Commission. The commission said that the home was likely to qualify as a landmark.
When Golda Mabovitz was 15, she lived in the Denver duplex, then the home of her sister and brother-in-law, Shana and Sam Korngold. During the year she lived there, she attended North High School and made pocket money by working in her brother-in-law’s dry cleaning business.
According to the weekly, the duplex has been empty for more than a year and its owners, the Boys Club, Inc. of Denver, who had no idea that Israel’s Premier-to-be had lived in it, planned to raze the structure for a new athletic field.
The Intermountain Jews News reported the structure was saved at the last moment by two fortuious events. One was the photographic activities of a
a volunteer, Jean May, seeking pictures of historic buildings in Denver for a fund-raising cookbook for a local citizens group. Though non-Jewish, Ms. May has long been an admirer of Golda.
She told the weekly that she knew Golda had lived in the area but she did not know where. She checked material at the Denver public library, and Colorado tax records and North High School files to confirm the location. Ms. May photographed the duplex and called the Boys Club and learned of the plans to destroy the building.
The other fortuitous event was that the demolition contractor had been delayed. After Ms. May notified newspapers and historic preservation committees, protesting telephone calls poured into the office of the Boys Club which agreed to postpone any demolition action while the ad hoc group develops a plan and raises money to save the house.
Irving Feldman, chairman of the ad hoc committee, said moving the house to a nearby city park was the most realistic option. Belle Marcus of the Rocky Mountain Historical Society, has suggested conversion of the building into a Denver Jewish Museum.
Feldman said that moving the house, preparing an excavation at a new site for it, and funds for restoration would total between $30,000 and $40,000. He said the ad hoc committee planned to raise the funds from both the Jewish and general community.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
