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Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Unlike the articles he read in the Denver media, Rubinstein didn’t want to shine undue light on the city’s power brokers, and instead spent most of his time reporting on what he calls “invisible Denver” the neighborhood communities, activist circles and even gangs that are so often ignored by the mainstream press.
“What I wanted to do and it turned out to be even more important than I first realized was to tell this story mostly from the perspective of the people who were not represented over the years in those types of stories,” he says. “It was so hard to really find material about this kind of neighborhood that wasn’t from law enforcement sources.
The HOLLY: Five Bullets, One Gun, and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood
, which was released May 11. This excerpt from The HOLLY picks up as Rubinstein is looking for the answer to a question that echoes through the book: Why did activist Terrance Roberts shoot Hasan Jones? As a steady rise in Denver’s gang violence continued, the city’s federal anti-gang effort was conspicuously absent from public reporting. I couldn’t find any mention of it since the prestigious grant had been announced in 2010. One night, I went to a public meeting of the Holly Area Redevelopment Project (HARP), held in the old Safeway building at the top of Holly Square. District 2 commander Mike Calo was there, in uniform. He had a broad chest and a high forehead. His black-and-gray hair was combed to one side. Afterward, he told me he’d be happy to discuss his work. “What we’re doing here is a model for the nation,” he said, and gave me his card.