Daddy Bruce's BBQ on Bruce Randolph

So I found something interesting today. Finally growing tired of looking at all the gang tagging adorning what I've been told was "The Bruce Randolph House" at 1629 East Bruce Randolph, I hopped online to request the city come remove the graffiti. I did a google search for the address, and came across a photo gallery from the Denver Public Library showing the home in better days, circa 1980:

Looks not unlike many of the independently-owned places over on Welton, and definitely a place I would have tried for some good local eats.

This guy must have been something more than a purveyor of smoke meats, however, to have a street named after him. So I did a little more digging and found this site that describes the importance of Bruce Randolph in our neighborhood. Turns out he was quite the philanthroper, regularly providing free Thanksgiving and Christmas meals to needy families, often serving up to 200 people. Here is a shot of "Daddy Bruce" himself, again courtesy of the Denver Public Library:

That's when I got even more sad about the old Bruce Randolph house, and of Bruce Randolph Avenue in general. What a shame that his home ironically has become the biggest eyesore in our neighborhood, and the stalking ground of black and Hispanic gangbangers attempting to stake claim to the block. And that the street named after such a wonderful person is a corridor historically filled with violence, drugs, prostitutes, and more.

I have no doubt that the future of Daddy Bruce's street will be very bright. It's not a question of if the prime commercial real estate and apartment buildings on the corner of Bruce and Franklin will be flipped, it is a question of when.

But the future of Daddy Bruce's house looks more bleak. The house is likely in the state where anyone with their right mind would scrape it and do new construction. That would be sad, but an improvement over the eyesore the current building has become.

In fact, the sooner this property is sold and either fixed up or demolished, the better. The house right now looks like a page out of a book on Broken Windows. But more importantly it is a disgrace to who Bruce Randolph really was. Thanks for reading.