Urban explorers are everywhere these days. They’re breaking into abandoned buildings like the Gates Rubber Company, where a teenage girl fell through the roof this past weekend and wound up badly injured. In steam and transportation tunnels under the city. At old missile silos. And definitely at what’s left of…
Denver is full of aesthetic entrepreneurs, artists and organizations that are changing the landscape of this city. Some of their efforts are so underground, though, that they’d have miles to go just to reach the grassroots…
The old Gates Rubber plant was supposed to be a new urbanism showplace — but development has been stalled by the economy. Still, the abandoned buildings have been doing a booming business in urban exploring, and last night, another band of adventurers made it into the old factory at 900…
After flying into DIA last night and hopping on the train, I was greeted by former mayor John Hickenlooper delivering a hearty “Welcome to Denver.” But soon, current mayor Bill Vidal will have his say. But after the wild will-he/won’t-he events of the past week, you can’t help wondering who…
The Colorado Republican Party didn’t just lose the governor’s race in November — it also lost over a hundred bonus members of the State Central Committee, which will vote for the new party chair next month. Incumbent chair Dick Wadhams was going for that slot again — until his Monday…
Yesterday morning, I was talking to Dick Wadhams, the chair of the Colorado Republican Party, about the upcoming State Central Committee meeting, where he would be going for a third term. Yesterday evening, I was talking with Wadhams about his sudden announcement that he would not run again…
By eking out 11 percent of the vote, Dan Maes managed to save the Colorado Republican Party from the ultimate ignominy of losing its major-party status. But the state’s top GOPs lost plenty of other things in the debacle of the November gubernatorial election: the governor’s office, which had looked…
Well, at least when Roseanne sang “The National Anthem” and then grabbed her crotch, she got the words right — unlike Christina Aguilera at the Super Bowl yesterday. Still, Roseanne’s misguided homage to baseball-playing behavior back in 1990 earned her a spot on Time’s list of the Top Ten Worst…
Governor John Hickenlooper is revving up his eco-devo engine. Last month, he toured Colorado for four days, holding confabs in eight towns; Denver gets its turn today, at a Bottom-Up Economic Development Meeting at the Cable Center at the University of Denver. And have we got some ideas for him!…
A fourteenth hopeful has entered the Denver mayor’s race, and we’re disappointed we had to read about Gerald Styron’s candidacy somewhere else first. As Facethestate.comreports, when Styron was a write-in candidate for then-incumbent Rick Garcia’s District 1 City Council slot in 2007, he asked a Westword editor if he had…
The town’s biggest business trend last year — the fleet of gourmet food trucks rolling into Denver — also gave rise to some of the biggest rumors: The city was trying to keep trucks out of downtown and cut off our cupcake supply, some whispered, and even worse, the city…
In the fall of 2009, Denver City Council rep Charlie Brown realized that the city had to get a handle on the booming medical marijuana dispensary industry — and even as the Colorado Legislature was just starting to discuss MMJ, Denver was signing off on its ordinance. But now the…
We were a little disappointed not to see John Hickenlooper in his ’80s-era red ski outfit when he welcomed the Snowsports Industries America show to town with cowbells yesterday. “What do you think of my new duds?” he asked, showing off his jacket. Frankly, it seemed a little sedate for…
Gourmet food trucks were the surprise hit of 2010 — by December, over 150 mobile food vendors had been licensed in Denver, which almost put the movement on par with the medical-marijuana dispensary business. And like dispensaries, the food trucks have been causing some headaches for the city — and…
The president was not the only Obama to make a speech yesterday. Michelle Obama was at the Library of Congress celebrating the tenth anniversary of National Mentoring Month. My father didn’t know it was Thank Your Mentor Day when he took his mentee, Byron, to his suburban Chicago Rotary meeting;…
On January 15, in the middle of National Mentoring Month, my 85-year-old father was looking for his mentee – a hunt that took him into the heart of Cook County, Illinois, and a jail system that makes Denver’s look like Club Med. Byron had been raised by a single mom…
Colorado has incredible beauty, a colorful governor, and smart residents (and readers) who would prefer that tourists (especially Texans) stay home and wonder “Why do you need to spend money to advertise something that is timeless?” And although it doesn’t have an ocean, it will soon have an IKEA, down…
Welcome to Colorful Colorado! On today, Colorado Tourism Day, let’s revisit some of the greatest hits — and far greater misses — of the state’s tourism efforts. Currently, the marketing theme at www.colorado.com promises that “A world of scenic wonder awaits, in a Land Called Colorado.”…
City Hall will be going to the dogs today, with pit bull protesters converging on the building at 14th and Bannock streets at 11 a.m. today — if the protesters can get around all that Big Air scaffolding. But there’s already plenty of hot air in the dog-eat-dog world of…
Illegal immigrants took over the State Capitol yesterday — figuratively speaking, at least — when Senate Bill 54 was introduced by Senator Kent Lambert. It’s essentially a copycat of Arizona’s controversial (and constitutionally challenged) law, and a major waste of time. Until Arizona passed its measure, Colorado had the toughest…
Hank Brown could have had a big office under the gold dome: Back in the anyone-but-Dan Maes days, the former U.S. senator was urged to make a last-second run for governor. But while Brown was one of the first old-guard Republicans to drop his endorsement of Maes, he didn’t jump…
Where there’s smoke, there’s ire. Parker’s Jacob Christenson has been charged with second-degree arson that caused upwards of $195,000 in damages; he’ll go on trial in Arapahoe County in February. But it will be tough to find a jury of his peers: Jacob is ten…
