Even as Colorado boomed in 2015, gaining jobs and developments and over 100,000 new residents, there were losses. Big losses. History became an endangered species this year, as institutions ranging from restaurants like Le Central and Andre’s Confiserie Suisse to stores like the original Wizard’s Chest closed their doors. And…
Will wonders never cease? Back in 1926, when Charles Gregory built his Wonder View Tower on a hill rising 5,751 feet above the small plains town of Genoa, Colorado, he swore that you could see six different states from the deck at the top. That claim was backed up by…
The Colorado caucus system might be the least understood political process in the state — and that’s saying something. “Precinct caucuses are meetings of registered electors within a precinct who are members of a particular major political party,” explains the Colorado Secretary of State’s web page. “The purpose of precinct…
Denver was socked by its first big snowstorm of the season a week ago, when irate travelers were tweeting their irritation at snow removal. But seven days later, streets all over the city are still icy, rutted disasters. So while some readers were complaining about the transplants who don’t know…
Kerri Peek woke up in her Aurora motel room at 7:30 a.m. Monday and had soon managed to spill Cocoa Puffs and milk down her bra, break her favorite coffee mug, spill chicken soup in her Crocs — and collect some “crazy hate” that accused her of being a fake…
The former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant was officially declared cleaned up – or as close to clean as it was going to get – ten years ago. That was fifteen years after the FBI led a pre-dawn raid on the facility that produced plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs, a…
Fans have been lining up at theaters across the country since Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiered. But Zach Putnam was not among them. He’s been waiting for this movie, but is willing to wait still longer for the reviews. Because in the interim, he had time to create this…
What’s in a name? Plenty, if you’re Pete Turner, owner of Illegal Pete’s. Not so much, if you’re Jim Nixon. Nixon is the owner of Illegal Burger, a two-location (so far) chain that he founded in 2013 in Evergreen. That’s where he already had a Mexican restaurant, a Senor Sol…
Last Friday, on the sixth night of Hanukkah, the Front Range Jewish Voice for Peace chapter gathered a group of Jews, Muslims and Christians to protest the “fear and paranoia” of Syrian refugees and Muslims they claimed was being spread by the Cell: the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab, the world’s only museum dedicated…
Since we told the story of the Coca-Cola ghost sign — a remnant of the past uncovered during recent renovations of 2801 Welton Street — we’re seeing ghosts everywhere, several involving Coca-Cola, a company that covered the costs for many of these decade-old signs. In June, a demolition project in…
This fence just appeared in front of City, O’ City. It marks the start of a weekend full of events hosted by LINK (Letting in New Knowledge) Denver, which will bring together artists and activists “dedicated to showing the world that Art and Creativity are invaluable to freedom and the…
The First Avenue Hotel has seen a lot over the past century, but the wildest chapter started three years ago, in July 2012, when the city slapped a notice to vacate on the circa 1906 building that developer Jesse Morreale had purchased in 2008 and renovated, arguing that the structure was unsafe…
Pete Turner ran his homegrown chain of burrito joints for for nineteen years without hearing so much as a peep about its name, Illegal Pete’s. But then last year Turner opened a location in Fort Collins — and activists there complained that the name was a slap at the undocumented. “I didn’t…
The deadline came and went without anyone objecting to the application for a “certificate of non-historic status” at 119 South Broadway, a building that started life as the Webber Show and was most recently home to Kitty’s South, a porn palace. So while staffers with the city’s Landmark Preservation Commission…
A ghost sign that had been buried for decades under beige stucco just reappeared on the side of a two-story Victorian storefront at 2801 Welton Street. And it’s not going to disappear again anytime soon. Star Mesa Properties, which is redeveloping the 5,000-square-foot, circa 1895 building in the Five Points Historic…
You can trust in quality, advises the sign that was suddenly revealed as decades of add-ons were stripped off the turn-of-the-last century building at 2801 Welton Street. But can we trust in the developer renovating what was most recently home to BJ’s Port to recognize the inherent coolness of this…
The past is always with us. Since I first started writing about the Sand Creek Massacre — and, specifically, the extraordinary difficulties some Colorado organizations have had dealing appropriately with this very black chapter in Colorado history, when Colonel John Chivington and his volunteers slaughtered 200 Arapaho and Cheyenne, most…
The Open Media Foundation is dedicated to putting power in the hands of the people, and on Friday, December 4, it will honor a person who’s leading the way in that fight — so the Open Media Foundation’s twelfth anniversary celebration promises to be a real party for the people. This…
His quest has hit some rough patches, but it looks like all of James Bertini’s efforts are finally bearing fruit. Earlier this month, in a pre-trial ruling, a federal court in California canceled the trademark for “urban homesteading” that its owner — the Dervaes Institute of Pasadena, California, a self-described…
Colorado Inside Out, Colorado Public Television’s weekly public affairs show that airs on Friday nights, usually tackles current events. But every Fourth of July, the producers consider it their patriotic duty to create a Time Machine segment that travels back in time to a significant era in this state’s history…
Is the fried taco native to Denver? That’s what Gustavo Arellano believes. After trying the tacos fried with cheese inside at Mexico City Restaurant & Lounge, he declared them another Den-Mex original, like the Mexican hamburger and the eggroll-style chile relleno. But a lot of readers couldn’t swallow this revelation, and…
At 11 a.m. on Sunday, November 29, Governor John Hickenlooper will be on the steps of the State Capitol, greeting the participants in the seventeenth annual Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run. Last year, on the 150th anniversary of the raid that Colonel John Chivington led on a peaceful camp…
