Best Bus for People-Watching 2008 | RTD's #15 | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Bus for People-Watching

RTD's #15

No matter how much the city cleans up East Colfax Avenue, RTD's #15 bus will always be the true gauge of this neighborhood. Hop on between Colorado and Broadway, and listen to East High School students talking with the homeless. Or as happy hour turns to night, watch as drunken blue-collars heading home from the strip's rougher bars rub shoulders with twenty-something hipsters on their way to hear live music. Conversation is the sole soundtrack to this route, because music is allowed with headphones only — and you'd better have exact change, because RTD doesn't dish any out. Other than that, though, no rules apply and all bets are off. Whether you're chatting with an immigrant about the world he left behind or hoping that the drug dealer to your left will leave you alone, the #15 delivers the bold, hard facts on the real Colfax.

Best Denver Celebrity to Almost Inherit an English Castle

Isaac Slade

Isaac Slade, frontman for the Fray, Denver's first double-platinum band, has been living the dream in more ways than one. Last year he met up with Sir Benjamin Slade, an English aristocrat in search of an heir to inherit his thirteenth mansion. The estate, valued at $15 million, includes three lakes, a ballroom (perfect for private rock shows), hundreds of cattle — and plenty of expensive upkeep projects. Sir Benjamin had been looking for an heir for eighteen months before he decided that Isaac might be just the Slade he was looking for; at last report, Isaac still hadn't decided if English manor life was for him.

Best Denver Street-Fashion Blogger

Renee Mudd, The-Intersection

Be flattered, not fearful, if a young redhead approaches you on the street and asks to photograph your torso. Then...try to look cool. Because Renee Mudd's fashion blog, The-Intersection, sure does. "A young gal out and about in Denver in search of the city's most inspiring and expressive fashions and street style" is how the University of Colorado Denver student describes her year-old project, which stays simple by presenting single photos of on-the-spot models with minimalist commentary. The offerings range from understated to outlandish and allow the rest of us to examine the threads of these day-to-day fashionistas without having to stare at them in real life.

Best Dressed Politician

John Hickenlooper

Although he's known more for his scooter and his goofy grin, Mayor John Hickenlooper has stepped firmly into the spotlight as the state's fashion leader. In September, Hizzoner looked dashing in Esquire magazine's fall fashion special wearing a $1,275 Armani suit, a $575 Dolce & Gabbana shirt and a $160 Prada tie. But in the new year, Hickenlooper proved that casual is also cool when he was photographed in his jammies and fuzzy lion slippers at the annual PJ Day homeless fundraiser, and then at another event in an unbelievably loud red, yellow and blue cowboy shirt depicting the Denver flag. Keep your eye on the catwalk as the mayor moves Denver fashion-forward.

Best Environment for the Enviro-Friendly

Alliance Center

This five-story LoDo treasure, just behind the Tattered Cover, is more than a nicely updated historic building. It's also one of the greenest retrofits in town, registered for two LEED certifications — and home to a couple dozen leading nonprofits, from the Sierra Club and the Center for Native Ecosystems to Colorado Common Cause and ProgressNow. With its krypton-gas-infused windows, sensors that detect natural light and adjust light fixtures accordingly, dual-flush toilets and other features, the Alliance Center is a place for groups committed to sustainability to walk the talk.

Best Facelift of an Ugly Building

Pura Vida

The Tattered Cover bookstore in Cherry Creek was a beloved gathering place, but the building that housed it was an ugly lump. It wasn't always that way, however. Originally, the structure at 100 Fillmore Street was a swank, modernist landmark housing a branch of the now-defunct Neustseter's department store; in the 1970s, when mid-century modern was out of style, the chic curtain walls were stripped off and replaced by aggregate. But now, in its reincarnation as Pura Vida, a glitzy gym and spa, the building has recaptured its lost glory, clad in a neo-modernist vocabulary of details, including huge wraparound windows on the upper floors. The spa is owned by a partnership including J. Madden, son of big-time developer John Madden. But it was the work of developer the Sturm Realty Group and the good folks at Gensler notably Blake Mourer and Semple Brown Design that turned this sow's ear into the best silk purse in Cherry Creek.

Best Fight to Save a Light

Morrison Holiday Bar

When David Killingsworth purchased the Morrison Holiday Bar (known as the "local cure" by Morrisonites), he made a few changes. The bar now boasts a window to the next-door deli, for example, so that bar patrons can order food. But one thing Killingsworth didn't mess with was the blinking neon arrow above the front door. The fifty-year-old sign was an unofficial Morrison landmark, so when Killingsworth was told that the light didn't comply with the town's sign code, he appealed his case all the way to the Morrison Board of Trustees, which in February decided that the sign could stay. For saving a beloved institution from pointless bureaucracy, someone should buy that man a drink.

Best Freshman in the Colorado Legislature

Joe Rice

We first encountered Joe Rice, who now represents House District 38 in the Colorado Legislature, when he was the baby-faced mayor of Glendale, trying to save the town from turning into Titty City. Since then, the longtime military man has faced even bigger battles, including three tours in Iraq. But he's been fighting the good fight at home, too. Elected to the Statehouse in 2006 from a largely conservative district in the south suburbs, the freshman Democrat passed eighteen bills his first year, including one that established a statewide cold-case unit for unsolved homicides. This session, he's been seriously pushing for business and veterans — but he's not afraid to have some fun, too. To push his proposal that parent-teacher organizations be allowed to avoid sales tax on school fundraisers, Rice recently posed with a big blue Tax Monster. "Right now, these small, volunteer organizations spend way too much time and money on paperwork," he noted. "The government should just get out of the way so they can do what they do best: raise critical funds for their schools." We're with you, colonel.

Best Hair on a TV Personality — Female

Bazi Kanani
Channel 9

Far too many TV-news personalities boast hairstyles that seem to have been coated in lacquer and shaped using a hammer and chisel. So it's a relief to rest our eyes on Bazi Kanani, whose hair is cut in a style that's light and casually elegant, deftly complementing her delicate features instead of looking like a plasticized shell that she can remove and set on a shelf at the end of the day. Pulling off such a fashionable but unfussy 'do is undoubtedly more difficult for busy Bazi than it appears, but the result is definitely worth it.

Best Hair on a TV Personality — Male

Leland VittertChannel 31

How do the managers at Denver's Fox affiliate keep finding so many on-air dudes with great 'dos? Could they have a deal with the devil — or maybe Paul Mitchell? Whatever the case, Leland Vittert displays hair heroics in the glorious tradition of such predecessors as Phil Keating and Jeremy Hubbard, sporting a pillowy coiffure that floats over his cranium like the sort of brown cloud not even the Environmental Protection Agency would dare oppose. And while his hair looks soft and pliable, it stays put no matter the climactic condition — as if the gods themselves wouldn't dare mess with such perfection. Hmm, maybe Fox does have a deal with the devil.

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