Best Photo Blog 2011 | UnseenDenver | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
Navigation
Support Us
Search

Best Photo Blog

UnseenDenver

"Everybody's a photographer" goes the lament often voiced by grizzled newspaper shooters regarding the wave of iPhone shutterbugs jostling for elbow room at concerts, conferences or even traffic accidents. And while quantity may not always correlate with quality, the digital age means that you can find a picture of almost anything out there. Enter UnseenDenver.com, a blog that relies on its users to submit pics of graffiti, street art and creativity in unusual spaces around the city. While there are few beautifully composed images, the subjects of these pictures are often overlooked. It's worth a daily visit, if only to see what might have already been painted over and forgotten.

Best Place to Be a Foursquare Mayor

Lala's Wine Bar & Pizzeria

Some Foursquare mayorships bring coolness, while others bring sweet satisfaction. Only a few offer the mayor any benefits, however, or at least anything good. Which is why Lala's Wine Bar & Pizzeria stands tails and tie above the rest. If you can oust the current mayor of this spot, you'll be treated to a free glass of wine (under $10) on every visit. You'll have to pay for the second, third and fourth glasses, but that's the price of politics.

Best Place to Harvest Hops

Central City

The craft beers made in Colorado are fantastic, but if you want to make a beer with Colorado, you'll need to either grow your own hops or pick wild hops that grow like weeds on the hillsides around Central City. Legend has it that the vines were originally planted in the late 1800s by residents of this old mining town, who would then harvest the flowers and sell them to local brewery owners like Jacob Mack. And while the Mack Brewery now lies in ruins on the outskirts of town, the hops have kept that history alive. Need help finding them? Ask for advice from the folks at Central City's only active brewery, Dostal Alley, which makes one of its own beers from the wild hops.

Best Place to People-Watch

16th Street Mall

Downtown boosters recently conducted a major study of the 16th Street Mall, which turns thirty next year, trying to determine what directional changes it needed to truly be a pedestrian paradise. Their conclusion? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. So beyond getting some basic repair work and a general sprucing up, the 16th Street Mall will carry on as it has for almost three decades, a mile-plus artery stretching through downtown that's an ideal place to stroll, window-shop for bad Colorado souvenirs made in China, and watch all kinds of people — from punks to businesspeople to buskers to tourists amazed by the bustle, some good, some bad, all lively. That's what you get at the heart of a vibrant city.

Best Political Blog/Website

The Spot

Junkies still miss the Stump, which supplied Rocky Mountain News readers with a regular fix of political tidbits. But its spirit lives on in the Spot for Politics & Policy, the Denver Post blog devoted not just to political news reported by the paper's own writers, but a roundup of other worthy stories in the fast-changing media world. At the center of the Spot is former Rocky reporter Lynn Bartels, who continues to be Denver's best, most tireless political beat reporter, covering — and uncovering — the scene with the verve of a sportscaster offering a play-by-play account of the biggest game in town.

Best Political Staff

Michael Johnston

Before he was elected to the Colorado Senate, Michael Johnston had achieved national renown as an innovative educator — and he didn't stop pushing the envelope when he became a legislator. While most lawmakers have a staff that consists of a part-time aide and a part-time intern, this session Johnston recruited a team of over twenty law students and experts to serve as his unpaid (except for credit) policy directors and analysts, with a goal of not just saving money, but increasing the public's access to information about the bills before the Colorado General Assembly. This committed crew puts in a total of more than 200 hours a week, researching proposals and writing non-partisan assessments that are available on Johnston's website. Want to educate yourself on what Johnston and his staff are doing for Colorado? Go to http://mikejohnston.org/in-the-legislature, and if you plan to attend a staff meeting, be sure to bring a lot of bagels and coffee.

Best Radio DJ

Hal Moore

Yes, doctor! There is nothing quite as exhilarating as waking up to the jubilant voice of Hal "Baby" Moore on Cruisin' Oldies 950. A seasoned radio vet with a half-century's worth of experience behind the mike, Moore is a living local legend. From his time at KHOW until now, at KRWZ, he's been the trusted on-air companion of several generations of Denverites. He's always a joy to listen to, whether he's sharing his memorable anecdotes from the past or offering insightful details of the songs he's playing. From the excitement in his voice as he pages through the annals of rock, you'd never know that these are tunes he's played a million times over. Hal reminds us of radio the way the way it was meant to be. There's a reason the Broadcast Professionals of Colorado have chosen Hal to enter their Hall of Fame.

Best Radio Personalities

Slacker and Steve

When you're relegated to a windowless office or stuck behind the wheel in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Slacker and Steve, the hysterical duo who run the airwaves of KALC during the 3-to-7-p.m. time slot, make life much more bearable with their on-air theatrics and dramatics. From the Great Mate Debate, wherein couples argue over credit card debt, football, beer and ex-BFFs to the White Trash News Flash segment, five minutes of backwoods bumpkin accents articulating the world's weirdest news — the woman who carried a monkey in her bra and made it through the metal detector, for example — it's a laugh-out-loud romp of banter and conversation that never gets stale.

Best Radio Talk-Show Host

Mike Rosen

Mike Rosen's loss — big loss, since much of his nest egg was invested with Bernie Madoff — is Denver's gain. Rather than retire, Rosen's still on the air, and his experience shows: He's extremely fluid in his delivery, well-reasoned and well-read, incredibly versatile in subject matter. Rosen doesn't just bang an anti-Obama drum, although he does talk about politics (and features Governor John Hickenlooper once a month); he also devotes time to baseball, entertainment and, yes, grammar. Rosen is a talk-show pro who's only gotten better (read: more patient) with age — which may not translate to high ratings in this rant-rewarding climate, but pays off for listeners who actually want to hear intelligent discussion.

Best Reuse of a Historic Building

7-Eleven

With its radial corners, crisp white walls and integral clock, the sleek streamlined moderne character of the onetime gas station at East Colfax Avenue and Race Street still showed through despite the grime it had accumulated during its decline over the last few decades. Nonetheless, it seemed that the 1930s building would surely meet an ignoble fate at the business end of a wrecking ball, as have so many other historic modernist buildings in Denver. But that changed this year when 7-Eleven remodeled and moved in. With that move, the famous chain won the preservation lottery — which, by the way, they don't sell tickets for — and shared the winnings with the rest of us.

Best Of Denver®

Best Of

Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our terms of use, our cookies policy, and our privacy policy Westword may earn a portion of sales from products & services purchased through links on our site from our affiliate partners. ©2024 Denver Westword, LLC. All rights reserved.
Do Not Sell or Share My Information
Powered By Foundation