Opinion & Commentary

Past, present and future all meet in Civic Center, the park at the heart of the city. To get a real feel for the park now, head to Civic Center Eats, the weekly marketplace that runs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Tuesday in the summer. But stick around,…

Kenny and Kristin Johnson have lived in their northeast Denver neighborhood for six years, raising a young family (Rayah, three, and Dominick, fourteen weeks). One day on a walk around the area, they passed a vacant storefront beside a thrift store that was only open once a month, and Kristin…

I’m at Northwestern for a writing conference that the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies hosts at the Medill J-school, which is also home to the Academy for Alternative Journalism, a summer program for budding journalists that AAN sponsors. Jared Jacang Maher, a Westword staff writer, is a veteran of this program,…

The Denver Public Library has about 4,000 collections donated by corporations, organizations and individuals, but even so, archivist/librarian Roger Dudley recognized that there was something unique about the collection he was sorting through: sealed court records, many of them involving Colorado special grand jury 89-2, which U.S. District Court Judge…

Life is lonely in the Beauvallon, where every restaurant and eatery has closed up shop — except for Aviano Coffee at 955 Lincoln Street. Nine75 is gone, Mr. Coco’s is gone, Aqua is gone. (Brandon’s, which closed at the end of June, has a sign up advertising its reopening on…

On Friday, Kelly Brough, Mayor John Hickenlooper’s chief of staff, was named the next head of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce — the winner in a horse race with Tom Clark, the chamber’s eco-devo head. On Saturday, I ran into Brough at a concert in Civic Center and asked…

Politicians were out in force at the Arapahoe County Republicans fundraising roast of former congressman Tom Tancredo on Saturday. John Suthers, the only GOP member currently elected to a statewide office. Mike Coffman, who moved from a statewide office to fill Tancredo’s seat in the Sixth Congressional district. U.S. Senate…

Do you think the old Carnegie Library, now known as the McNichols Building (144 West Colfax Avenue), would make a great restaurant? If so; you’re not alone; that’s one of the concepts that’s come up frequently for the circa 1909 building, which now houses city offices, as assorted committees and…

You don’t need to work too hard to roast Tom Tancredo: The man roasts himself. Google the name of the former Sixth District congressman and your computer starts smoking, then spits out story after story, quote after quote, that prove truth is indeed stranger than fiction. A few of Tancredo’s…

I am listening to Tom Tancredo filling in for Peter Boyles on KHOW radio, marveling at how the former congressman is maintaining a one-man monologue that, in the past five minutes, has touched on illegal immigration, healthcare, how Republicans need a speaker as slick as Barack Obama, illegal imigration, Harleys,…

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from the Republication National Convention host committee, asking me to fill out a survey that would help ensure “that future visitors to Minneapolis Saint Paul have the best possible experience in our cities. A key component to continuing our efforts to become a destination of…

We need a resource, we need an advocate,” pleaded one man. “I don’t need another white lady taking down my info,” pleaded one woman. At two Denver forums hosted by the Colorado Division of Civil Rights last week, the sad stories and angry accusations spilled well beyond the allotted time…

“You all wasted our time,” proclaimed community activist Alvertis Simmons at a public forum held July 27 by the Colorado Division of Civil Rights. “This was not a waste of your time,” replied Rico Munn, the cool-headed director of the Department of Regulatory Affairs, which includes the Division of Civil…

For twenty years, Women’s Bean Project has been helping women get back on their feet — and the good work it’s done over that time amounts to much more than a hill of beans. The Project got its start back in 1989, when Jossy Eyre was volunteering at a Denver…

Every year, a friend and I make jalapeno jelly that we give to other friends (what they do with it, we have no idea), and we thought we’d perfected our formula. But this recipe for Rocky Mountain Jalapeno Jelly, created by Jason Morse, chef at Valley Country Club in Aurora…

Tennyson Street north of 38th Avenue is one of the city’s five Denver Neighborhood Marketplace Initiative corridors, part of a Denver Office of Economic Development pilot program pushing business in these areas. And from 5 to 7:30 p.m. tonight, the OED will hold a reception at House, 4363 Tennyson Street,…

On Friday night, staffers from over a dozen street newspapers — papers created by and for not just the poor and homeless, but the public that should care about the poor and homeless — gathered for the North American Street Newspaper Association Awards ceremony. The event was downtown at Marlowe’s,…

The sky’s the limit this week. Or is it? From a discussion of the view at Coors Field to consideration of a proposed DIA expansion to conventions including the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the fortieth annual international UFO Symposium, things are looking up — way up –…

Great balls of fire! Angela’s Meatballs, the winning entry in an all-firefighter meatball contest cooked up by North Metro Fire Rescue District’s Lieutenant Don Wiercinksi and Matthew Gintzler, will be added to added to the menu at both Denver Maggiano’s restaurants as of today. And anytime a customer orders the…

It’s been a bad year for newspapers, with cities acorss the country losing important institutions like the Rocky Mountain News. But it’s been a very good year for homeless newspapers, judging from the entries in the first annual North American Street Newspaper Association Newspaper Awards. I was lucky enough to…