Back in 2007, Luke Turf wrote a cover story on Life Skills, the last-chance high school in the Golden Triangle. The piece started out with why nineteen-year-old Justin Martinez had missed school again: He had to go to Pueblo to see his father. In the morgue. Justin went on to…
On Saturday night, Westword introduced the eighth class of MasterMinds — artistic entrepreneurs who are changing the cultural landscape. Since we started the program, we have given more than $130,000 in grants to artists and arts organizations. The latest winners (click on the link for profiles): Minor Disturbance; Andrew Orvedahl;…
The edge of Highland — now dubbed LoHi — is the hottest restaurant neighborhood in town, and it’s about to get hotter, with the addition of Central Bistro and Bar, which will open in late spring with Lance Barto in the kitchen. Don’t confuse it with Le Central, the “affordable…
If it’s Presidents Day, the First Lady must be in Colorado, skiing. Last year, Michelle Obama took the two First Daughters to Vail over the same weekend — and our first clue that she had returned to the slopes was a flurry of hits on that piece. This time, Michelle…
Beverly Lewis could be Colorado’s most successful author. Her specialty? Bonnet-busters, as Amish romance novels are called — even though she’s not Amish. Since 1965, Lewis has lived in Colorado Springs, producing novel after novel set in the Pennsylvania’s Amish country…
It’s Presidents Day weekend, one of the busiest times on Colorado slopes — snow or no snow — and so also one of the busiest times on I-70, where anticipated traffic put the brakes on the Colorado Department of Transportation’s pace car concept. The jam inspired this addition to our…
The action continues on South Pearl Street, where Sexy Pizza will be opening a second store in March — although Kayvan Khalatbari, who opened the original Sexy Pizza in Capitol Hill four years ago, just signed the deal yesterday. “So we’re a little busy at the moment,” he told Laura…
The Justice Department could be in federal court today, filing a motion to lift the roadblock that Superior (joined by Golden) put in the path of the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife’s plan to transfer a 300-foot right-of-way on the east side of Rocky Flats to the Jefferson Parkway…
A true legend passed away last weekend: Illustrator John Powers Severin, whose sixty-year career in the comics world stretched from the dawning of MAD magazine to the Silver Age at Marvel to a gay revival of the Rawhide Kid and beyond. “Truly the art world has suffered a great loss…
After two months of renovations, Club 404 will officially reopen today as the Denver Wheel Club 404. The watering hole that Jerry Feld bought back in 1951 is now in the hands of Craig and Andrew Caldwell, and Brad Evans, the designer who also keeps the Denver Cruisers rolling, has…
Some filmmakers aren’t waiting for Colorado lawmakers to pass a movie incentive package, a proposal Melanie Asmar detailed in last week’s cover story, “The Reel West.” Local director Pete Schuermann plans to use crowd-funding to finish CREEP! , a movie within a documentary about the worst horror film ever. And…
Stingray, a Sunnyside watering hole that featured pizza when it opened last year, closed this month for a quick concept remodel. And now it’s reopened as Coop de Ville at Stingray — a neighborhood joint with a focus on comfort food, particularly chicken. And to make sure that everything stays…
From my window on the edge of Highland, I can see the headlights of all the cars racing by on I-25, the psychedelic Ferris wheel at Elitch’s, the glowing signs of Xcel, the Sheraton, Century Link and even a church stretching across downtown and the Platte Valley. But Sports Authority…
Eight years ago, Westword added a very special component to Artopia: the MasterMind awards. Recognizing that the local arts scene needed a little fertilizer to really get going, and growing, we created a program that every year honors five cultural visionaries — artists and organizations alike — working to change…
Sabin Aell first came to Colorado in 2006, when the Austrian-born artist, who’d been living in Frankfurt for eight years, was chosen for a show in Fort Collins by photographer Mark Sink. “I was really blown away when I first came here,” she remembers. “I was always thinking more about…
Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale, which began as a reading at the Denver Center’s New Play Summit in 2011, and was given a world premiere by the company this year — to glowing reviews (here’s mine) — has been selected by Playwrights Horizons in New York, a theater dedicated to…
It’s official: Yesterday, Trader Joe’s confirmed that it will open its first Colorado location at the Twenty Ninth Street Mall in Boulder: a 14,000-square-foot store that is slated to open in 2013 at 1906 28th Street, where an Applebee’s is currently located. Although the future Boulder store isn’t yet listed…
Early on May 18, 2008, a car full of Crips drove into Park Hill. They were were young gangbangers who’d just beefed with some Bloods in LoDo, and they were still spoiling for a fight: Michael Asberry, co-founder of the Denver Crips, had been shot and killed in Aurora just…
Today legislators will consider a measure that would provide an economic incentive for filmmakers to work in Colorado — a rarity these days, as detailed in “The Reel West.” But a century ago, there was a booming film business in this state, which got its start with an 1897 flick…
What’s Denver’s most lovely spot for a Valentine’s Day dinner? Just in time for February 14 (2013, perhaps, since these places book up early), Lori Midson tied a bow around her list of the top ten most romantic restaurants in Denver. But for one reader, that list holds more sour…
The Colorado Legislature has a date with cupid a day after Valentine’s Day. At 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 15, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider the Colorado Civil Union Act in the old Supreme Court Chambers. The bill would provide same-sex couples the same legal protections and benefits now…
The news that Trader Joe’s had filed papers with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office to start doing business in Colorado — specifically, at Boulder’s Twenty-Ninth Street project — has fans of the California-based, German-owned store salivating, extolling such Joe’s specialities as Jalapeno Blue Cornbread Mix and Old Fashioned Cinnamon…
