Everything We Know About Denver

Thanks, Leslie.

The DDP is running a program called “Get Downtown Unconventionally” during the month of August (DNC timeframe) encouraging people to leave their cars at home and join in the mass transit, walking, biking and carpooling crowd.  You get a $100 VISA gift card if you complete the program and log your transits, and you must currently drive solo (not with others) to work 4 days a week and be a downtown employee within the 80202 zip code. Apply now to see if you make it into the program!

Similarly, a great program I’ve participated in in the past is Drive Less Denver. It doesn’t look like they ran it in 08 (probably this program is in place of that one) - but check on the DDP site for similar opportunities to get free schwag and go green.

16th Street Mall Downtown has just launched a recycling program. About time people - I was sort of surprised to find out that we didn’t have the program running before. Either way, look for bright yellow containers for your glass, plastic and newspaper between Larimar and Cleveland. (side thought: why doesn’t Union station to Market get recycle containers?)

Other Downtown Green accomplishments:

90 new trees have been planted throughout Downtown.
100 flower planters have been placed along Downtown streets.
Coordination with RTD helped to plant 23 new trees on the 16th St. Mall in early summer 2007.
Purchase of energy-efficient LED holiday lights.

More Greater Denver Green Initiative info at Greenprint Denver. My favorite: the one million trees initiative (aka mile high millions). Register your tree online or help plant trees!

Denver is one of the friendliest towns in the US, according to the Today Show.  Some “did you know” fun facts from the story:

Downtown in the Mile High City is one big, car-free “pedestrian mall” lined with shops, bars and restaurants where locals and tourists alike hang out. There’s even a free shuttle bus that runs along the main street.

Denver is one of only two cities in America with eight professional sports teams.

The first permanent structure in Denver was a saloon. Talk about hospitality.

A cultural melting pot, Denver hosts the country’s largest Cinco de Mayo festival, the Longs Peak Scottish Festival, the National Gay Rodeo Finals, PrideFest, and it has the Black American West Museum in the historically rich African-American Five Points neighborhood. Its population is 40 percent Hispanic and 10 percent African-American.

The city also boasts comprehensive accessibility services like wheelchair-friendly trails and accommodations and transportation services for the physically impaired.

Denver will host the Democratic National Convention this August. For the convention, Bikes Belong will supply the city with 1,000 bicycles to be used in a system similar to that in Paris (credit card access; rates are lowest for short jaunts around the city). Seventy will be left behind as a legacy that Denver plans to grow into a city-wide public
transportation system of several hundred bikes.

The median single-family home sales price is $223,500.

Other cities that made the cut: San Antonio, TX, Nashville, TN, Madison, WI and Davis, CA.

Earlier this month the Rocky Mountain News announced that Ed Stein would be ending an era as the six-day-a-week editorial cartoon family of “Denver Square” packed up their house and said “The End” to Denver.

The strip provided great insight over the past years of the inner workings of Denver and all that happened in Colorado. We watched as the three main characters experienced the same fears, joys and highlights that all Denver families faced.

We wish Ed Stein, Sam, Liz and Nate the best.

Image from: Rocky Mountain News, May 21, 2008 Ed Stein

Check out Cities by Foot - Denver from Crocs. The site features different cities explored by people wearing crocs (supposedly, although you never see them) - and in each city the site has a video showing different restaurants, entertainment and shopping spots.

The site says: Welcome to Cities By Foot, the one-stop travel site that gives you the lowdown on some of the world’s best cities. Here you can discover truly unique places to eat, shop and play. And of course, the easiest way to explore each city is by foot.

I’m not sure what exactly the site has to do with Crocs except that you apparently wouldn’t want to walk too far in them (most of the Denver spots are in Larimer Square and not much further) - but it’s worth a look.

I just discovered this funny weekly post from the Westword’s The Latest Word: Shmuck of the Week. Quite entertaining, I recommend checking it out - weekly!

If you are like me and park on a street in Denver, rather than a garage, chances are you have to move your car one random day a month for street sweepers. If this is you, check out this great site by MotorMaid - it lets you enter your email or phone and will email or text you reminders to move your car on the applicable day/time. I think that beats a street sweeping ticket.

Motormaid says of their site:

MyMotorMaid is brought to you by a small consortium of concerned citizens whom share an especially acute dislike of gratuitous and unneccessary vehicle parking regulation enforcement.
Our goal is simple and modest: Reduce the number of street sweeping/snow removal tickets given in the cities we serve by 15%. If you like this site, and it is helpful, please let us know!

Just to make sure everyone is “in the know” by now… Colorado’s Blue Law (no booze on Sunday except 3.2 beer) is getting canned. Effective July 1st you can buy booze on Sundays. No more late night Saturday liquor store runs to grab champagne for Sunday Mimosa’s for me!

However the debate is now who will sell it - liquor stores only or grocery stores, too.

On a totally unrelated note - I sort of dig the new 107.1 (which actually isn’t that new) - but a lot of people don’t seem to know about it yet. So check it out and see what you think. Site here.

Yay! West Elm is open in Denver. It is across from Neiman’s on 1st across from Cherry Creek Mall - old Tattered Cover location. I was having a hard time hunting down their store info, so here it is: 303.320.1001, Fillmore Place. Reported last November here, and now confirmed here and here.

Wondering about those crashed cars parked around Denver with caution tape around them? I’ve sighted one at Coors Field and one at Market Street station so far.  It’s part of a seat-belt campaign in Denver.  Buckle up people!