1963: Crossroads Mall opens at 30th and Arapahoe streets in Boulder; JC Penney and Montgomery Ward stores promptly move there from downtown, which soon falls into decline. Rents become depressed; many downtown stores are boarded up; streets are deserted in the evening. By the early Seventies, “Tumbleweeds could go down…
Like most attractive public spaces, the Pearl Street Mall has been the site of an ongoing battle between merchants and transients. Sometimes it seems that unusually belligerent or obstreperous street people have made themselves at home on the mall. But Boulder also has more than its fair share of merchants…
Since its opening, entertainers have been a crucial part of the mall. Policy regarding what they may do, where they may do it and what, if anything, they should pay the city for the privilege has varied over the years. One longstanding controversy involved Evan Ravitz, a slack-rope walker who…
We’re on the record on October 19, 1999, at 9:30 a.m. I’m Kelli Chan,” the tape begins. “I’m a member of the Enforcement Division of the Central Regional Office of the Securities and Exchange Commission. I am an officer of the Commission for purposes of this proceeding. This is an…
Stunt doubleRemember the movie Dumb and Dumber, with Jeff Daniels? How about 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, with Hulk Hogan, or Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, the Andy Garcia flick that was just about DOA when it hit movie theaters? Those are just a few…
Max Levin died on August 25, 1892, one month before Rose Hill Cemetery began keeping records. Although the details of what killed Max have faded from memory, it’s easy to imagine what happened immediately after he died. The chevra kaddisha, the sacred society of Jewish men who consider preparation of…
Bill Johnson had a hard act to follow. A former staffer with Southern California’s Orange County Register, Johnson was hired as a columnist for the Rocky Mountain News in August 1996, mere months after his predecessor, the widely revered Greg Lopez, was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Since then, by…
Juan Toribio could see signs of trouble the first day he walked into the cafeteria in Pueblo. They were gang signs, flashed from table to table among the baby-faced convicts of Colorado’s Youthful Offender System as they tucked into their meatloaf and cheese mac. In 1997, Toribio was convicted of…
Within the boundaries of Denver City Council District 8, high-rises loom above downtown. City Park spreads out around the zoo and the natural history museum. Nightspots draw nouveau-cool crowds to 17th Avenue. Neighborhood kids walk to East and Manual high schools, while vagrants wander near the Ballpark Neighborhood — Denver’s…
On November 2, 1999, all was sweetness and light at the headquarters of the Regional Transportation District. After years of crushing defeats and internecine warfare among the agency’s elected board of directors, RTD finally managed to win strong voter approval for its plan to borrow $457 million to build a…
OverdueNext week, families of those who were murdered at Columbine High School last April will announce a $3 million fundraising drive to turn the site of the infamous school library into an atrium and build a new library on the school grounds. More than forty family members have been meeting…
It’s an inside joke, this thing about food, but in a way, it really did start with their guts. The Navy. Pearl Harbor. The USO. The billboard. Wal-Mart. For Dick and Doc Nash, poster boys from The Big One, it all came down to a full belly. “Hell, yeah,” says…
On October 15, Penny Parker, a former business writer for the Denver Post, took over as the gossip columnist for the Rocky Mountain News — and her bow was a rocky one indeed. Examples? A Parker-penned item about the Wynkoop Brewing Company’s annual “Running of the Pigs” had the event…
Frank Whitworth went down to the local gay bar. It was the usual Hide & Seek drinking crowd, and Whitworth knew everyone. A couple of men, still in suits and ties from their work day, teased the bartender boisterously. One guy, his name stitched on the patch of his blue…
These days, more and more people are getting their news from television — or at least they think they are. But while local TV newscasts cover the events of the day (a handful of them, anyway), they’re also sophisticated selling machines. And their target, dear friends, is you. That’s just…
KWGN-TV/Channel 2: Channel 2 is often overlooked in the late-news Olympics because its broadcast, which airs from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., doesn’t directly compete with those produced by other local stations. But the newscast got a credibility boost when Ernie Bjorkman, who’d left Channel 2 years earlier in favor…
A newscast is made up of a lot of bits and pieces that go by so quickly, many viewers don’t even notice them. So we’ve slowed down a sample program — the November 8 broadcast on Channel 2 — to help you catch what you’ve been missing: the good, the…
Frank Whitworth went down to the local gay bar. It was the usual Hide & Seek drinking crowd, and Whitworth knew everyone. A couple of men, still in suits and ties from their work day, teased the bartender boisterously. One guy, his name stitched on the patch of his blue…
Inside Gary Haney’s office, in the basement of a building just off Broadway and 6th Avenue, there’s a knee-high stack of hardcore porn videos that don’t get much of a workout anymore. The covers are plastered with wide-open mouths, bare breasts and stuffed orifices, and frankly, Haney couldn’t care less…
At last! A true public service announcement from WestwordAfter you’ve packed away pounds of turkey, and stuffing, and gravy, and yams, and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie and then settled your expanded self into a chair to watch a Thanksgiving football game and look through some long-neglected mail, do NOT…
Most award-winning radio programs have something in common: respectability. So imagine the surprise of local media pros when the Best Evening Show prize doled out at the 1999 A.I.R. (Achievements In Radio) Awards ceremony held November 16 at the Gothic Theatre went to RoverRadio, arguably one of the least respectable…
Perhaps the most wonderful thing, Cheryl Bailey thinks, is that phones are ringing all over the hotel, but none of the calls are for her. In the three resort kitchens, dishes are piling up, but they’re not her mess. She’s so far from that workaday life — the one in…
