Christmas is coming, and Meggie Sobel is holding court in the food court at FlatIron Crossing, a chattering alley where weary consumers, strung out from the hunt, commiserate over plates of fluorescent food. Sipping an Orange Julius at a table near the customer-service desk, Sobel talks to a crimson-haired woman…
In the middle of the night, phones suddenly started ringing in homes across Denver. “This is the Denver Police Department,” a voice said when anyone picked up. “Are you sober?” If people answered affirmatively, the cop informed them that someone they knew — a housemate, lover, husband, wife and/or drinking…
Who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver and waited in vain, who watched over Denver and brooded and loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, and now Denver is lonesome for her heroes. When Allen Ginsberg penned those words…
Tom Clark, the executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, has worked in the economic-development field for three decades — long enough to realize that many of the assumptions he once made about how best to publicize a city were flat wrong. “For years, the idea was…
Wonderful game, baseball. Nothing quite like the sights and sounds of the good old national pastime. The happy crack of hickory on horsehide. The dazzle of white flannel against a freshly mowed acre of emerald-green outfield. The irrepressible excitement of kids high up in the stands, faces aglow beneath their…
Girls Behaving Badly Delta dawn: Regarding David Holthouse’s “Girl Trouble,” in the December 16 issue: None of the actions of these young women can ever be described as harmless fun or “a teenage prank.” What they did was terribly disappointing and disgraceful. This is something that all involved will remember…
It was one in the morning on November 8. Whitney Lynch, a University of Colorado freshman from San Antonio, was chatting with her roommate in their dorm room on the third floor of Smith Hall when they heard what Lynch calls “a clatter of giggles.” She went to the door…
Peter Miles Regenold Bergman calls it a drive-by art show. Jim “Handsome” Hanson thinks of it more as vigilante code enforcement. The three kids riding their bikes down the alley have no idea what to think of Bergman’s experiment. They skid to a stop in the gravel and look up…
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus — unless you attend Westerly Creek, Stapleton’s elementary school. As of December 8, all reindeer (Rudolph or otherwise), Santa Clauses, candy canes and Christmas trees had been removed from the walls of the Denver school. Where jolly old Saint Nick once hung in…
You know what police officers are really good at? Shooting minorities. It’s uncanny. And nobody does it better than the Denver Police Department. Sure, the cops in New York City shot at Amadou Diallo 41 times when he reached for what turned out to be his wallet, killing the poor…
Since 1995, Adrian Dater, the Denver Post’s hockey writer, has covered the Colorado Avalanche — but thanks to a lockout imposed by National Hockey League owners in September, the only Avs face-offs he’s written about lately have been virtual. “I go in every Friday,” he notes, “to watch two kids…
The most disconcerting moment of playing Special Forces, a video game developed by the U.S. Army, comes after one of the terrorists hits you with gunfire or grenade shrapnel. You immediately crumple to the ground — but apparently you don’t die right away. Your view suddenly skewed sideways, you watch…
Keep the Home Fires Burning The light stuff: Regarding Amy Haimerl’s “Religious Rite,” in the December 9 issue: The neon horseshoe spits in the faces of those low-income families who have only the utilities on their sides begging the rest of us for help heating their homes. Lotsa luck! Why…
She told police that four black men overpowered her. She said hands came from all directions, pulling her clothes off, touching her breasts, putting fingers inside her. Then each man took a turn raping her. Doctors noted signs of trauma to her twelve-year-old body and found traces of semen. Police…
“It’s a neon horseshoe,” sputtered my friend as we stood gazing at the Denver City and County Building last year. “Your city building is lit up like a neon horseshoe. And with a baby Jesus! I didn’t think these things were still possible.” She and her husband were in town…
Off Limits hasn’t had to bust out the gloves for a while, but after reading David Harsanyi’s Denver Post columns about Colfax Avenue last week, we had to borrow a pair from our friend over at the Beatdown. Harsanyi’s descriptions of the city’s most-beloved strip — after all, Colfax is…
Like the climactic scene in a teen movie where the homely girl’s glasses are removed, her hair primped and her lips liberally beglossed, the new, improved Colorado Convention Center will reveal itself on Thursday, in all her geometric glory. “Celebrate Denver!,” the free open house celebrating the massive expansion –…
On November 18, George Gatchis, a Denver County Sheriff’s Department deputy, happened upon an Aurora home-daycare center that was engulfed in flame. He’d just completed his shift, but that didn’t stop him from risking his own life in an ultimately futile attempt to save Reginald Donovan King, a three-month-old trapped…
My favorite news item of recent weeks is the one about the family in New York that’s suing a restaurant chain for $10 million because one of those showy Japanese hibachi chefs flipped a grilled shrimp at a customer. Whether the guy was trying to catch the hot morsel in…
Class Dismissed Identity crisis: Regarding Helen Thorpe’s “Head of the Class,” in the December 2 issue: Thank you for highlighting the plight of undocumented students like Pablo. In my opinion, this issue must remain on one of the front burners, especially with the new makeup of the legislature, and this…
Four high school students in military uniforms were horsing around in a cinderblock corridor deep inside Coors Field. It was fifteen minutes before the Rockies would take on the Phillies, and two decades into the latest surge of immigration into the United States. One of the students was named Pablo…
Eyes burning, scared and angry, nineteen-year-old Quincy Shannon punched 911 on his cell phone at 1:48 a.m. on Saturday, August 7, surrounded by the bedlam of LoDo at Let Out. “Denver 911,” said the operator. “Hi, how are you doing?” Shannon replied. “I would like to report officers spraying stuff…
