The stunning avalanche of action set in motion by the U.S. Supreme Court’s inaction on same-sex marriage last week shows just how quickly this country can change. So why, nearly fifty years after Colorado became the first state in the union to legalize abortion, have we not put this equally…
The Denver Center for the Performing Arts transformed this city’s cultural scene. But the DCPA, and arts in general, sustained two major blows last week: Randy Weeks, DCPA president, who would have been responsible for much of the future direction of the organization, passed away in London at the age…
References to the Sand Creek Massacre are everywhere these days, including page 55 of the new AP United States History course, one of the most controversial — if unread — documents in Colorado and the focus of the proposed curriculum review committee that a few members of the Jefferson County…
When the Jeffco Public Schools Board of Education meets on Thursday, October 2, it will pick up the hot-potato topic — the Curriculum Review Committee — that has inspired student walk-outs across the district, creating an unofficial crash course in civil disobedience in the process. But when new boardmember Julie…
The deadline is fast approaching for My Favorite Place in Denver, a program created by the Denver Department of Community Planning and Development that’s currently soliciting nominations for favorite places in town from residents and visitors alike. We’ve already weighed in on our least favorite places and my personal favorite:…
On Wednesday, September 24, members of the Sand Creek Massacre Commemoration Commission will head northeast from Eads along Chief White Antelope Way to the banks of Sand Creek, where 150 members of the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes were killed by volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington on November 29, 1864…
Joseph Hutchison didn’t set out to write a poem about Silas Soule. But he’d been thinking for a while about the Sand Creek Massacre — a dark chapter in Colorado’s past that he’d never learned about when he was a student at Skinner Junior High, writing his first poem. He’d…
A hundred miles east of Denver is a rise that, at around 5,900 feet, is the highest point between Denver and Kansas City — or between Denver and Chicago, or between Denver and New York, depending on who’s doing the measuring and who’s doing the bragging. This rise marks what…
The dog days of summer are behind us — but every dog can still have its day on a local patio. That’s because on July 1, new regulations took effect in Denver for restaurants that want to turn over at least part of their patios to pooches, and Racines, which…
Sean Azzariti spent six years in the Marines and was deployed to Iraq twice. Today he’s fighting for the right to use medical marijuana. “When I first got out of the military, in October 2006, I was diagnosed with severe PTSD,” he recalls. The doctors prescribed heavy prescription drugs, but…
Long before there was a renovated Union Station with its fancy Terminal Bar, even long before Lower Downtown was nicknamed LoDo, the area had a Terminal Bar. It was a down-and-dirty workingman’s joint, named for both the nearby Union Station and the long-gone Terminal Annex Post Office; three happy hours…
UPDATE: The steep price of putting in new airport train messages hasn’t stopped Denver from recording two new greetings to kick off 2015. The latest voices of the DIA people mover are new Denver Bronco DeMarcus Ware and pro skier Lindsay Vonn. For more than a decade, the trains ran…
What’s your favorite place in Denver? This morning the Denver Department of Community Planning and Development — whose office is definitely not the favorite place of people applying for building permits and zoning variances — launched the Favorite Place in Denver campaign, part of an attempt to “launch a citywide…
The newly renovated Union Station isn’t hosting its official grand reopening until July 26, but it’s already seeing plenty of looky-loos – and there’s plenty for them to look at, including more than 600 pieces of art. For our money, though the real masterpiece is the historic sign that just…
“In honor of your service at Rocky Flats,” proclaimed the message on the outside of an envelope from Cold War Patriots. And inside, a personalized letter announced that “a commemorative coin has been designed to honor you as a former Rocky Flats worker and celebrate the 25th anniversary of the…
Update below: Since the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its ruling on June 25 invalidating Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage, Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall has been issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples — seventy at last count. But Colorado Attorney General John Suthers questions…
He’s back! It’s seemed so quiet since Steve Horner, the anti-ladies’-night crusader, left town. A half-dozen years ago, he kept bars and restaurants around town hopping as he filed complaints with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, charging that their ladies’-night deals were discriminatory, since men cannot enjoy the same deals…
This week I told the remarkable story of PeaceJam, the Colorado-based non-profit that a down-and-out Denver artist was inspired to start after the Summer of Violence. From those unlikely beginnings, PeaceJam has grown to a powerhouse that includes thirteen Nobel Peace Prize laureates on its board and hosts activities around…
Their story is more fantastic than anything that screened during the Monte Carlo Film Festival last week, a more unlikely saga than even the fairy-tale life of Grace Kelly, who started the festival in Monaco more than five decades ago, after the Hollywood star had married Prince Rainier, the ruler…
“Rocky Flats Then and Now: 25 Years After the Raid,” a three-day panel at the Arvada Center this past weekend that coincided with the 25th anniversary of the FBI’s raid on the former nuclear weapons plant, raised more questions than it answered. One of the stumpers: What’s the status of…
Behind these rolling grasslands dotted with wildflowers stand the foothills and still-snowcapped peaks; far off in front is the skyline of downtown Denver, sixteen miles to the southeast. Sixteen miles downwind. This expanse of open space is a lovely surprise amid encroaching suburbia. But the real surprise is the ugly…
Last Tuesday was a lovely morning for a softball game — sunny, with no clouds on the horizon. Not in the sky, and not involving the status of Sonny Lawson Field, where the Homeless Diamond was about to begin its fourth season. It was a much more auspicious start to…
