The Patty Jewett Neighborhood Association is one of those groups that looks for ways to build the morale and strengthen the unity among neighbors. 

PJNA board members care about the image of the neighborhood. They want to improve the neighborhood by building playgrounds and painting telephone poles, spreading wildflower seeds and installing public art. 

PJNA board chairwoman Amy Triandiflou said her group is proud of the neighborhood. She and the others want people passing through to get a strong sense of the values of Patty Jewett residents: “activity, art, greenspace and community.” 

They also value the neighborhood’s place in the history of Colorado Springs. Besides its proximity to the historic Patty Jewett Golf Course, the neighborhood was along the route of the old Santa Fe Railway as it sliced northwest to Denver from his 1917 depot on Pikes Peak Avenue. 

The tracks were abandoned in 1971 after the last passenger train rolled through and gradually were replaced by the Shooks Run Trail. Here’s a look at the trail in Patty Jewett neighborhood. 

After months of collaboration between the Patty Jewett Neighborhood Association, the Club of Arts and the Concrete Couch project from Manitou Springs, a locomotive bench was unveiled and installed along the Shooks Run Trail along Corona Street, just south of Columbia Street

To draw attention to the neighborhood among trail-users, the PJNA decided to dress up the area. 

The liked the idea of public art. And they wanted to draw attention to the history of the trail. 

So they collaborated with the neighborhood non-profit Club of Arts to come up with a concept. 

The club was created in 2005 by Bella Eisenstein to give folks with developmental disabilities a place to learn social skills and gain independence in an artistic environment. 

The Club of Art, 505 E. Columbia St., suite 103, serves about 200 students with developmental disabilities.

This "concrete couch" was built in 2009 by the Club of Arts to honor a client, whose picture is in the center, who had died.

The club occupies a storefront near the intersection of Corona and Columbia streets. A year earlier, the club had built a “concrete couch” to honor a client who had died. The Concrete Couch  is a public art, community-building project started by Steve Wood of Manitou Springs.  

The history of the Shooks Run Trail is etched on a sign near the new locomotive bench. On the other side is a map of the trails in the area.

Here’s a view of the small park along Corona Street, just south of Columbia.  

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