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…
First, let us dispense with the obligatory political correctitudes. 1. Beating a woman, not to mention killing her, is wrong. Always was, always will be. Feminist agenda-setters and law enforcement types are not exactly thrilled about the flap out in La La Land, but they’ve taken the opportunity to put…
Look for the Union Label Regarding Eric Dexheimer’s “Prints Charming” in the June 22 issue: Oh, boy, this is a real shocker: Denver’s “alternative” newspaper covers a labor story and somehow the “labor” story gets lost in a sea of biographical crap about the boss. Eighty–count ’em–eighty-plus paragraphs detailing Barry…
Some guys from Denver own the biggest record company in Poland. It sounds like a bad joke in search of a punchline, but it’s not. Last month, A.B. Goldberg, the man in charge of mergers and acquisitions for Denver-based First Entertainment, Inc., finalized an agreement that gives his company an…
Leslie Whited didn’t think that it was too much to ask that her daughter be allowed to attend elementary school only a few blocks away from home instead of taking a forty-minute bus ride to another school. After all, Whited had a medical excuse–her own serious head injury–for wanting her…
March 10 was a good day. Bad days had been the rule for Will Eddings almost since Thanksgiving, when he’d started a program of chemotherapy to combat Kaposi’s sarcoma. “Yeah, I thought I was going to be one of those miracle people,” he recalls. “I thought the chemo wouldn’t make…
part 2 of 2 Best Local Radio Talk-Show Host Scott HastingsKTLK-AM 760 You don’t have to be a jock to appreciate Scott Hastings, whose sports-talk show with Dave Logan provides some of the most lively conversation on the airwaves. The former Denver Nugget handles callers smoothly, knows his stuff and,…
part 1 of 2 Best Guess for When Denver International Airport Will Open November 23, 1994 It’s easy–just take the number of Wellington Webb’s buddies who got fat airport contracts, divide by the number of cracks in the runways, multiply by Federico Pena’s shoe size, add Dan Caplis’s legal bill…
part 3 of 4 Best Musical Minimalists Arkestra Pirata Arkestra Pirata’s members are performance artists, combining poetry, dance, singing and acting with acoustic and electronic instrumentation. The group, which draws heavily from the pool of local post-avant-garde experimenters, puts its own spin on everything from John Cage, Sun Ra and…
part 2 of 4 Best Outdoor Shmoozing The Market Larimer Square In a town where pedestrians are the exception rather than the rule, it follows that there aren’t many places offering casual sidewalk seating. The break in tradition continues to be the Market, in Larimer Square, which offers the urbane…
part 1 of 4 Best Star Trek Paraphernalia Starland 8770 Wadsworth Blvd., Arvada 8400 E. Iliff Ave., Aurora Beam me up, Scotty! Business is out of this world for Stephen and KathE Walker, who’ve turned their obsession with Star Trek–all generations–into two local stores and a booming mail-order trade. Customers…
part 2 of 4 Best Place to Buy a Creche Galeria Mexicana 3615 W. 32nd Ave. Galeria Mexicana carries imported handmade pottery, needlework and wood carvings all year long, but it’s especially fun shopping there at Christmastime, when owners Rod Wagner and Kim Newberry stock up on nativity scenes of…
part 4 of 4 Best Place to Get Free Fertilizer Echter’s Greenhouse and Gardens 5150 Garrison St., Arvada Echter’s has acres of trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials, plus a knowledgeable, helpful staff. Now there’s another reason to go–free fertilizer for your houseplants. Next time you stop in, bring along an…
part 1 of3 Best Rockie Andres Galarraga No one expected the Big Cat to reproduce his spectacular 1993, in which he won the National League batting title with a .370 average. So he hasn’t. Instead, the Venezuelan slugger hit 18 home runs by June 1 this year (he had 22…
part 2 of 3 Best Late-Spring Ski Trip Quandary Peak West side of Hoosier Pass For those who didn’t get enough skiing in during the season and have the energy to climb a 14,000-foot-plus peak for one more run, Quandary Peak is the place. The mountain is between Hoosier Pass…
part 3 of 4 Best Cheap Burgers Nick’s Cafe 777 1/2 Simms St., Lakewood For $2.50, the modest Nick’s will cook you up a fabulously greasy half-pounder, stash it on a fresh bun with all the trimmings and throw in a huge batch of fat fries. Eat it there or…
part 1 of 4 Best Asian Deli Mekong Market 1076 S. Federal Blvd. Most of Mekong is your standard Asian market, with cheap produce and lots of canned and packaged specialties you don’t know what to do with. The real attraction here, though, is the deli, with its huge selection…
part 2 of 4 Best Reason Not to Complain About the Moody Blues Coming Back to Town This Summer Charitable Donations by Fey Concerts The Summer of Stars concert lineup by Fey Concerts may not be chockablock with fresh new talent; many of the performers scheduled to visit Red Rocks…
part 4 of 4 Best Dessert Fondue La Bonne Soupe Writer Square The word fondue is French for melted, which doesn’t even begin to describe what La Bonne Soupe does to good-quality Swiss chocolate once it starts adding the Cognac and honey. The rich, sweet brew arrives in a big…
