The three red octahedrons at the corner of Colorado Boulevard and Leetsdale Drive look as if they have stood there since 1968. They haven't. Roger Kotoske built the original out of plywood, and over the decades it was patched with fiberglass. In 2023 a fabricator called Junoworks rebuilt it from scratch in stainless steel, using Kotoske's measurements and scans of the original, according to Denver Public Art.
That rebuild was the first visible step of a slow project that is still going at D.C. Burns Park, the grassy triangle where Colorado, Alameda and Leetsdale meet on Hilltop's southwest corner. The sculptures there came from an exhibition that was supposed to end. One by one, the city is turning what survived into objects built to stay.
A Show Built for One Season
In 1968, Kotoske brought a group of artists to Denver to make and install outdoor sculptures in Burns Park for the Denver National Sculpture Symposium. Denver Public Art lists them as Robert Morris, Angelo di Benedetto, Richard Van Buren, Peter Forakis, Tony Magar, Dean Fleming, Robert Mangold and Wilbert Verhelst. The Hilltop Neighborhood Association says the exhibition, "Sculpture in Environment," included 50 works and was meant to be temporary.
That explains the materials. Plywood, wood and fiberglass make sense for a show that would close. They make much less sense for public art that sits through almost six decades of Colorado hail, sun and freeze-thaw cycles. The park itself is older than the art. The City of Denver named the land for Daniel C. Burns in 1940, according to the city's 2015 Burns Park Master Plan.
Out of 50 temporary works, Denver Public Art's Burns Park tour now lists five pieces. Four date to 1968. One arrived three decades later.
| Work | Artist | Year | Material listed by Denver Public Art |
|---|---|---|---|
| Untitled (red diamonds) | Roger Kotoske | 1968 | Stainless steel, paint |
| Untitled (vertical black and red) | Wilbert Verhelst | 1968 | Wood, fiberglass |
| Untitled (yellow bench) | Anthony Magar | 1968 | Steel alloy, paint |
| Untitled (black abstract line, dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr.) | Anthony Magar | 1968 | Stainless steel, paint |
| Jazz | Barbara Baer | 1999 | Steel alloy, paint |
The material column tells the story. One 1968 piece is still catalogued in wood and fiberglass. Its original neighbor in the same column, Kotoske's diamonds, now reads stainless steel. That swap is the template for the rest of the park.
The Diamonds Set the Pattern
Junoworks' 2023 rebuild was a full reconstruction of a plywood original that had been patched with fiberglass for years. The new version is stainless steel, which Denver Public Art says will better withstand the elements.
For anyone who has walked past the corner for years, that is a small shift in what the park is. The diamonds on the gravel pad today are a faithful 2023 build of Kotoske's 1968 design, and they are made to outlast the plywood they replaced.
The Mowers Turned Out to Be the Everyday Threat
Weather is one problem. The lawn is another. In its Council District 5 Q4 2025 update, Denver Public Art reported adding "new rock and mow bands" around several Burns Park sculptures, which it said "help protect them from damage from the large riding mowers."
The photos in that update show what the bands look like on the ground. Jazz, Kotoske's diamonds and Magar's yellow bench each sit on a gravel pad set into the grass. The fix is modest, and it shows that keeping the collection standing comes down to routine park maintenance as much as big restoration projects. A rebuilt sculpture that keeps getting clipped by a mower deck goes right back to needing repairs.
Some of the pieces had also been away for a while. Councilmember Amanda Sawyer's July 2025 District 5 newsletter said Jazz and the Yellow Bench "will be put back in place at Burns Park this week," and it invited residents to "come take a stroll and enjoy the renewed charm these vibrant works add to the park."
The Black and Red Piece Is Next
Wilbert Verhelst's tall black-and-red sculpture is the work still catalogued in wood and fiberglass, the same kind of construction the diamonds lost in 2023. It is also the piece the city has been rebuilding most recently.
The Q4 2025 update said Denver Public Art was "continuing progress on creating a new version of the Verhelst sculpture, which will be installed in 2026." The agency's April 2026 highlights went further. It said the existing piece would be taken down and replaced with "a fully rebuilt version restored to its original colors," and it showed the new sculpture on a fabrication floor with the caption "nearly ready for installation at Burns Park."
"Restored to its original colors" means the version going in is meant to match the 1968 work as Verhelst painted it. Like the diamonds, it is a new build, and the April update doesn't say what it is made of. Whichever version stands on the gravel pad when you walk by this November, the plan on record is a remade Verhelst replacing the original.
Two More on the List
The work doesn't stop with Verhelst. In a June District 5 newsletter, Sawyer's office listed "Burns Park Statue Renovations (MLK Abstract Line Statue & Untitled Yellow Circle Statue)" among the requests her office had made to support restoration.
The black abstract line has one of the most notable dedications in the collection. Denver Public Art records it as Anthony Magar's 1968 untitled work dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr., built of stainless steel and paint. Magar made two of the four surviving 1968 pieces, which makes the city's attention to his work central to how the park will look over the next few years.
Put those requests next to the 2023 diamonds, the 2025 mow bands and the 2026 Verhelst rebuild, and they add up to a steady program that has run for several years. Most of the surviving 1968 group has now been rebuilt, protected, returned or put on a restoration list.
Walking the Triangle This Fall
The park works best on foot, and the five pieces make a short loop inside the triangle:
- Untitled (red diamonds) by Roger Kotoske, the stainless-steel rebuild from 2023.
- Untitled (vertical black and red) by Wilbert Verhelst, the piece scheduled to be replaced with a rebuilt version in its original colors.
- Untitled (yellow bench) by Anthony Magar, a yellow steel frame around a bench, set on a gravel pad.
- Untitled (black abstract line, dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr.) by Anthony Magar.
- Jazz by Barbara Baer, the 1999 addition with a tan circular loop between two red curved panels.
Fall is a good season for the walk. Denver Public Art's Q4 2025 photos show Jazz, the diamonds and the yellow bench against autumn trees under a partly cloudy sky.
The corner also has a reason to linger that it didn't have last year. Giorgios Pizza came back at 5701 Leetsdale Dr. two years after it closed, and Westword listed it among Denver's August 2026 openings. A loop through the triangle and a slice down Leetsdale makes an easy early-evening outing before the days get shorter.
To see the rest of what Denver has done since the symposium, Denver Public Art's Burns Park tour page links each work to its catalog record. The Hilltop Neighborhood Association also tracks the neighborhood's parks, including Cranmer Park, Robinson Park and the Sixth Avenue Parkway, on its parks page. For more on the streets around the triangle, our Hilltop neighborhood guide covers the neighborhood block by block.
Corners like this one, where a 1968 art show is still being quietly remade, are part of what Molly Weiss knows about Denver after four generations here. If you live near Burns Park and want to talk about the neighborhood, what's changing on its edges or what your own Hilltop home means in that context, Molly would be glad to hear from you. Let's Connect.
