“When Matthew Burkett returned to his home state of Colorado in 1996, after spending two years as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., he encountered a job market that seemed to have no place for someone with his work experience and degrees in creative writing and English.
So he created a job for himself, maintaining yards and small apartment and condo buildings around Denver. Within a year and a half, Burkett’s property-services company was working on roughly 40 buildings and 1,000 yards, many of which were located in Denver’s Five Points and Whittier neighborhoods.
Burkett was especially drawn to Five Points, where he still lives today. The neighborhood, located in Northeast Denver, has long been the center of Black culture in the city, the result of segregationist policies that limited housing options in other parts of Denver. Its reputation for hosting big-name jazz acts in its heyday earned it the nickname “Harlem of the West.””
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Rodriguez, James. Denver Business Journal 30 April 2021.