Stapleton

As I you know, I am am intrigued with the invisible, with thoughts and concepts that shape our lives but are so fundamental that they are completely invisible.

This page week, I have been attending board meetings for the Computer Society in an "Executive Conference Center" outside of Denver. The center was a decent but not great hotel located in a land of strip malls and low industrial buildings. Many of the attendees complained that they were far from downtown and had none of the amenities that accompany such trips: a quaint shopping area, intriguing stores, good restaurants a famous golf course. Across the street was a massive strip mall, but a WalMart is not yet an intriguing store nor is a Long John SIlver's a decent seafood place.

No one stopped to ask the obvious question. "Why is this hotel in the middle of a strip mall?" It was too tempting to complain. The strange pattern of the roadway. The large patch of flat ground behind the mall. The collection of fuel tanks a block or two away. The tall tower easily seen from the rooms with southern exposure. We were at Stapleton Airport. Denver's old airport which was closed 15 years ago.

The terminal had been torn down. The runways converted to strip malls and subdivisions. The airport hotels, which are rarely institutions of the highest quality, had been converted into Executive Conference Centers. The price was good because the the original investment had been recouped when the building was an airport hotel. The place was not that nice for the same reason. It had once been an airport hotel. It took a careful eye to see the pattern. Apparently most eyes did not.

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DAG