But troubleshooter Tom Martino's recommendations are a real eye-opener: Catch Fire, a seven-step motivational program by local-business-guy-gone-bankrupt-and-now-on-the-way-back-up Peter McLaughlin, Bill Moyers's Genesis, and the "personal gift edition" of the Bible, King James version. Save all your problems for...God?
How can you tell when a hundred friends of the Denver Foundation for Architecture are in the ballpark neighborhood? By the cop on the corner. But the crowd that gathered last Wednesday at the Burlington Hotel, 22nd and Larimer streets, was a lot better behaved than former habitues of the building, once known as "The Slaughterhouse" because it held the city's record for the most murders in one location. They were there to hear UCD professor Tom Noel discuss "Buildings of Colorado" (he just happens to have written a book of the same name), including the structure hosting the talk, which Frank E. Edbrooke designed in 1890. Now, after decades as a flophouse, two recent fires and, finally, designation as a local landmark in 1993, the Burlington is slated to reopen this June with a coffeeshop and two galleries on the ground floor, offices and residences above.
Herb's Hideout, just a block away at 2057 Larimer, once had a reputation as a pretty tough place, too. But that was before Larry Wright turned it into a swank piano bar and a bunch of crazy kids remade it into the Kit Kat Klub once a week. Although Wright's since sold the place to Mark Waldbaum, formerly of Bentley's and the BBC jazz clubs, the Kit Kat Klub still purrs at Herb's every Thursday. Otherwise, professional singers provide the warbling Tuesdays through Saturdays.
The piano-bar action has moved across the street to the Crystal Room at the Key Club, 2048 Larimer, where amateur crooners continue to do it their way. With "Feelings."
Another block or two away, out of the ballpark neighborhood and officially in LoDo, change comes even faster. In a piece dubbed "Mining a Rich Vein," the current ARTnews assesses Denver's art scene. Author Carol Dickinson takes note of the impending move of the 1/1 Gallery from 1715 Wazee Street to the Golden Triangle (Bill Havu's last LoDo show closes February 28), but she also places Rule Modern and Contemporary in the heart of LoDo--even though Robin Rule moved her gallery from Wazee to 111 Broadway over two years ago.
It's not like Dickinson lives too far away to keep up with LoDo's evolving lineup: When she's not writing about the art field, she's influencing it as executive director of the Foothills Art Center.
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