I swear that back in the day when I used to walk by the
old International House of Pancakes at 2001 East Colfax Avenue at night, the parking lot next door would glow in
the dark, giving off an eerie, phosphorescent light. I could write it off as the
results of a Colfax Crawl, but when I came back years later, very much
sober, it was still lit up like Christmas. I decided to do a little
research on the site, and I wasn't hallucinating after all!
International House of Pancakes (IHOP) and Larry’s East Side Amusement Center/Trading Post were two businesses located on the site of the old Schlesinger
Radium Company, which operated a radium reduction plant, and also
operated a laboratory at the East Colfax location. Research, high
fractionation, and radium measurements were conducted at the laboratory. The
building that housed the laboratory was demolished prior to 1950. Another part
of the unit was occupied by an apartment complex from 1924 to 1939 and a car
sales lot from 1939 to 1962. The IHOP restaurant was built in 1965. The other
building on this unit houses Larry’s East
Side Amusement Center and Trading Post. This building
existed at the time that Schlesinger operated its laboratory by apparently was
not used for radium processing as no contamination was found inside the
building.
Radium is over one million times as radioactive as the same
mass if uranium. Its decay occurs in at least seven stages; the successive main
products have been studied and were called radium emanation or exradio (now
identified as radon), radium A (polonium), radium B (lead), radium C (bismuth),
etc. Radon is a heavy gas, and the later products are solids. These products
are themselves radioactive elements, each with an atomic weight a little lower
than its predecessor.
Remedial activities at the site began in March 1990 and
concluded in March 1991. The International House of Pancakes Restaurant located
on the property was closed for a period of six weeks to allow for cleanup
activities. Approximately 89 tons of contamination was removed from the
interior of the IHOP and 670 tons of contamination was removed from the parking
lot located directly east of the IHOP. Excavation of contaminated material was
performed by hand and conveyor belt in interior areas and back-hoe and front-end
loader in exterior areas. Removal was directed by field personnel who measured
radiation in the excavated areas with hand-held detectors. Excavations were
also guided by soil sample analyses. After the removal of the material was
completed based on the readings of the field instruments, verification was
performed by collecting and analyzing soil samples.
Now the site has been purged of its former illumination, and I haven't seen the asphault Aurora Borealis since. Chalk this one up to just another night on Colfax...
It's been twenty-one years since the cleanup and in the place of the Evil I-Hop now sits Mama's Cafe, serving a variety of foods ranging from Mexican to the best fried chicken you’ve ever had! They serve breakfast 24 hours a day and also offer a senior menu that is served until 10pm. And for the vegetarians, they offer a selection of vegetarian dishes. They have a wide variety of homemade pies and cobblers baked daily, also available in sugar free and for pre-orders. Come on in and try them out!
It's been twenty-one years since the cleanup and in the place of the Evil I-Hop now sits Mama's Cafe, serving a variety of foods ranging from Mexican to the best fried chicken you’ve ever had! They serve breakfast 24 hours a day and also offer a senior menu that is served until 10pm. And for the vegetarians, they offer a selection of vegetarian dishes. They have a wide variety of homemade pies and cobblers baked daily, also available in sugar free and for pre-orders. Come on in and try them out!
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