Looking up and down the seemingly peaceful 1200 block of Milwaukee Street, longtime resident Darby McNeal observes that there’s “inhibition all over the block.” That may be an understatement. After film crews from the miniseries version of The Shining descended on the block for a single day of shooting last…
Jim Goble is obsessed with drive-ins, with what he calls “the atmosphere of the huge screen looming up out of the ground, looking at a wall of cars parked out there, even the gravel crunching under your feet.” So obsessed, in fact, that at the age of 47, he was…
On the practice fields at Westminster City Park, as Denver’s newest pro sports team–the Colorado Rapids–runs through a few hours of drills quietly and with great discipline, one is struck by something amazing. These guys seem like ordinary people. There’s no doubt the players on the field are superb athletes,…
A few weeks ago, about three hundred Denverites lined up to attend the world premiere of a new movie at the refurbished Oriental Theatre in northwest Denver. It was a gala event for the 650-seat theater: Limousines pulled up and unloaded gents in tuxedos and ladies in gowns. “I’ve been…
Paramedic Rick Stolte liked practical jokes. So did his co-workers at the Platte Valley Medical Center in Brighton. During almost six years of working there, Stolte saw or participated in everything from snowball fights to cars stuffed with shredded paper to colleagues fooling around in the hospital’s computer system. Neither…
Tom Kreutz fixes cars for a living, and he was just the sort of ordinary fellow the Denver Art Museum was looking for in its ad campaign to promote the museum’s working-class appeal. The kind of guy, the award-winning ad said, who’d feel equally happy “collecting rocks, bushwhacking in Mexico,…
What began as a mind exercise for Jerald Lepinski ten years ago has become a crusade to challenge the music notation system that’s dominated Europe and America for hundreds of years. Lepinski, a Denver music teacher and choir conductor for more than thirty years, is not the first to suggest…
Except for his protruding gut, Wild Bill Hardney appears to be in great shape as he steps into the boxing ring at the 20th Street Gym. For a 54-year-old chain-smoker, he looks pretty good dancing around, dodging blows, firing off tightly controlled punches from shoulder height, crouching in low on…
The run-down Evans School towers over the so-called Golden Triangle, surrounded by a sea of asphalt parking lots and empty, weed-strewn fields on the south edge of downtown Denver. The century-old school at 1115 Acoma has sat untouched and vacant for 22 years. But now that the Golden Triangle is…
In winning a $350,000 settlement against his former employers at the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Carlos Renteria got his job back at the Labor Standards Unit (LSU), received a promotion and raise–and nearly caused the unit to shut down. Some of Renteria’s critics are practically choking on the…
Pathologist Robert Greer has spent more than twenty years researching the mysteries of cancer at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. But it was during trips to his favorite restaurant, Dozens, to escape the hustle and bustle of the hospital, that he stumbled onto a mystery of a different…
Nathan Dunlap’s brother-in-law had a plan. After accusing the Aurora police of harassing him and his wife, Darius Ashlock claimed he had a tape of a supposedly incriminating phone conversation with Deputy Chief Mike Stiers. During a subsequent private meeting with Police Chief Verne St. Vincent, however, Ashlock refused to…
Concerned about their future and tired of what they say are inadequate resources, paramedics at Denver Health and Hospitals have been trying for months to switch city agencies and join the Denver Fire Department, where they would stand to enjoy greater clout and earn more money. Unfortunately for them, DHH…
Carrying the fear of gangs to new heights in Colorado, the Greeley Mall kicked out a 44-year-old Denver woman earlier this month for wearing a blue bandanna on her head. At the time of her ouster, during a busy Sunday shopping excursion, Theresa Seamster, a supply technician at Denver’s VA…
There’s a big problem with the recent selection of Jim Monaghan, Wellington Webb’s campaign consultant, to lead a study on why Denver’s seven municipal golf courses are operating at a $429,000 deficit this year: Monaghan & Associates knows nothing about golf. Then again, the current flap surrounding the courses isn’t…
