I take up a station near Romance and Mystery in the Denver Public Library, Central Branch. It is only eight feet from a water fountain and a stone’s throw from the elevators. I sit at a round table scored with the pocketknife blades of the ages, thinking about Weldon Kees,…
When Jeff North first arrived at the Denver law offices of Baker & Hostetler in July 1992, he must have seemed like quite a catch. Barely 43, North had been wooed away from the upper echelons of the Resolution Trust Corporation, the federal agency charged with cleaning up the nation’s…
Even as you read this, a very librarian process is going on. Under the leadership of the Denver Public Library’s director of marketing, Pat Hodapp, a corps of assistants is transcribing the entries to the “Words for All Time” contest. “Each will be the same,” explains Hodapp. “Typed, so that…
The wrecking crew: Coors Field continues to go up, but a 108-year-old building a stone’s throw from the new ballpark apparently is about to go down–to make room for a parking garage. The North Denver Transfer and Storage Building at 2125 Market Street, the first building in the ballpark neighborhood…
If the beach volleyball season gets wiped out, you won’t hear a peep out of me. If the monster-truck drivers decide to walk, so be it. Even if ice dancing melts down tomorrow morning, the pro bowlers pack up ball, bag and shoes at noon, and they cancel the rest…
Secret Ceremonies Thank you, Patricia Calhoun, for reporting the hush-hush national antigay conference hosted by Colorado for Family Values this past May in Colorado Springs (“This Means War,” July 6). Shame on the major daily papers for not covering this important meeting. Regardless of one’s sexual orientation or religion, we…
Ticketmaster has been under fire of late–from two members of the rock group Pearl Jam, who charged at congressional hearings in late June that the ticket service gouged performers and concert fans with high service charges; from the Justice Department, which claims to be “looking into the possibility of anti-competitive…
It was only three years ago in the sprawling San Luis Valley that whites and Hispanics–two groups long plagued by tensions–came together to fight a common enemy. They united to battle a water development company whose attempts to buy up water rights for distant cities threatened the way of life…
It has been just over a year since Colorado legislators gave the go-ahead for amateur reformers to dabble in public education. The Charter Schools Act, which was signed into law last June, for the first time permitted parents and other community members to conceive, develop and operate their own publicly…
The bloodletting is delayed until after a short ceremony honoring members of Wheat Ridge High School’s state champion lacrosse team. The people in the audience at the Wheat Ridge City Council chambers listen patiently as the town’s young Farmers are honored with a proclamation. Then they get ready to rumble…
part 1 of 2 Every generation or so–most recently in 1976–the Bijou Creek, which runs north through the eastern plains from Colorado Springs, pours into the South Platte River in such volume that it causes the river to run backward. Its waters swell and cascade over the railroad embankments and…
part 2 of 2 In small towns, the collective memory is a living, breathing thing, almost separate from the people it grows from. A single bit of off-center behavior can embed itself in the recall of the community and define a person’s personality for the rest of his life. For…
When verse comes to worse: The beat went on…and on…and on last week, as the Rocky Mountain News–which just happened to sponsor the event–devoted endless amounts of ink to “Beats and Other Rebel Angels,” the Naropa Institute’s tribute to Allen Ginsberg, poet and poster child of the North American Man-Boy…
When Brazil booted the U.S. soccer team out of the World Cup on the Fourth of July, you could feel the blow to our national psyche for almost five minutes. “Nice try,” America murmured in one voice, then got right back to flipping burgers on the grill, choosing up sides…
Disc jockeys Rick Lewis and Michael Floorwax have become radio stars in part because of their apparent willingness to say practically anything about practically anyone. But two Aurora women aren’t laughing. They’ve sued the DJs and their home station, classic-rock outlet KRFX-FM/103.5 (aka the Fox), charging the pair with intentionally…
Properly preserving historical artifacts is a time-consuming task. And if there’s one thing prison inmates have, it’s time. Now they’ve got the artifacts, too–in what could be the only such project in the country, state prison officials and the Colorado Historical Society have launched an inmate-staffed conservation center to salvage…
A Side of O.J. Like pretty much everybody I know, I’m obsessed with O.J. Simpson. I’ve watched every minute of TV coverage I could and have read every story I could find. But at the same time I was “thirsting” for more O.J., I still thought my obsession was something…
Three years ago, University of Colorado archivist David Hays set out to create a not-so-stereotypical historical exhibit. But his in-your-face history lesson has been thrown back at him. Hays is the researcher behind a traveling exhibit entitled Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes: Fear and Fascination. It’s a collection of advertisements, drawings…
part 1 of 2 Maria Mondragon-Valdez paces back and forth before her kitchen window, cursing the helicopter outside. The copter glides over the humps of sagebrush behind her house, up the flanks of the thickly forested mountains above, then back to the town of San Luis, oblivious to the damnation…
part 2 of 2 Sitting in his law office 36 floors above downtown Denver, Ken Salazar uncorks a speech he’s aired frequently in the past few months. The Taylor Ranch, he says, is “a monument to the history of the Southwest and the coming together of two cultures.” There is…
Paul Steward Collection/Black American West Museum From the outside, the old Rossonian Hotel building looks like Denver’s latest economic-development success story. The former jazz mecca, an historic and architectural landmark in the city’s Five Points neighborhood, is nearing completion after a publicly funded makeover that has cost more than $2…
Out at home: Although they never actually pitched for opposing teams, Neil Macey, developer and one-time city irritant, and Tom Gleason, former spokesman for mayor Federico Pena and current deputy director of the baseball stadium district, weren’t exactly sitting in the same dugout. Macey, working with Denver Zephyrs owner John…
