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CONFERENCE CIRCUIT: The Mile High City: Get closer to the sky at ACRL’s 10th National Conference

by Ellen Metter

About the author

Ellen Metter is professional studies bibliographer and reference librarian at the University of Colorado at Denver, e-mail: emetter@carbon.cudenver.edu

Ed. Note:ACRL will hold its 10th National Conference, “ACRL X: Crossing the Divide,” in Denver, Colorado, March 15-18, 2001.

Are you running for Mayor of Denver?” That’s what people ask as I blather on about yet another marvelous aspect of this not-so-small-anymore town. What can I say? There’s plenty to praise. Friendly people, varied city life, and more mountains over 14,000 feet (we call them 14’ers) than Switzerland.

If you’re a “flatlander,” i.e., not currently living on a windy mountaintop, you’ll want to acclimate to the altitude of the Mile High City. (Yes, the nickname is accurate—stand on the 15th step on the west side of the 24K gold-domed State Capitol Building and you’ll be exactly a mile high—5,280 feet).

So drink plenty of water, avoid salty foods and alcohol before you arrive, and don’t plan on staging an opera performance on your day of arrival. But here’s what happens when you’re a mile high: you’re closer to the sky! Scenes of the breathtaking Denver skyline.

The Colorado atmosphere is a clear, endless blue, and cloudy days bring forth variations in cloud shapes that range from milky Zeppelins to translucent waterfalls. And no one will elbow you and say that you look like a tourist if you feel like gazing heavenward for awhile—Coloradans do it all the time.

Scenes of the breathtaking Denver skyline.

LoDo—Lower downtown Denver

The ACRL convention will be held right off LoDo, the Lower Downtown Denver district, flanked by the University of Colorado at Denver at one end and Coors Field, home of baseball’s Colorado Rockies, at the other.

Formerly a downand-out district, this area of restored turn-of-the-century architecture has been revitalized and features shopping, restaurants, galleries, live music, and entertainment. Visit Larimer Square in LoDo for great coffee and treats at The Market; stylish home furnishings at Z Gallerie; objects flaunting Western kitsch and class at the Cry Baby Ranch; or an evening of fun at Comedy Works [(303) 595-3637].

Larimer Square moves seamlessly into the shops and eateries of Writer’s Square and the 16^th Street Mall, where you can stroll or take a free bus shuttle along this 12-block stretch of sights and activities. New to the mall is the Denver Pavillions, which feature a 15-screen movie complex, such restaurants as the Hard Rock Café and Café Odyssey, and retail stores including Virgin Records, Nike Town, and local favorite Stephany’s Chocolates (my mother threatened to disown me if I don’t send her almond toffee from Stephany’s every birthday.)

Another Denver hot spot is the Cherry Creek Shopping District, a 10-minute drive from LoDo. This area features the upscale Cherry Creek Mall, home to such nationally known higher-end stores as Sak’s Fifth Avenue and Neiman-Marcus. North of the mall is Cherry Creek North, a lovely collection of boutiques, art galleries, and numerous drinking and dining choices.

If you’d like to do some antique hunting on your visit, catch a bus to South Broadway to the area known as Antique Alley (between Mississippi and Iowa), where you’ll find, literally, hundreds of antique dealers with wares ranging from top-quality, top-dollar treasures to bargain-priced finds.

Brew and food

In Denver you’ll enjoy Western cuisine and brews. Colorado is renowned for its varied beer offerings, with more than 80 brewpubs and 18 microbreweries—and more than a dozen of them are in the Lodo area.

On a visit to Tennessee, I stopped in a brewpub where the proprietor heard I was from Denver. “I’m jealous,” he said. “You must have been to the Wynkoop Brewery.” You bet. The Wynkoop Brewing Company (1634 18th Street, off Wynkoop Street) is Colorado’s oldest brewpub and features such original mixtures as SageBrush Stout, Railyard Ale and Patti’s Chili Beer, which has a bit of Anaheim pepper tossed in. Other notable Denver brewpubs include Champion Brewing Company (1442 Larimer Square), the Denver Chophouse and Brewery (1735 19th Street), and the Rock Bottom Brewery (1001 16th Street).

The home of the Unsinkable Molly Brown.

Meet your shopping needs at the 16th Street Mall.

Teetotalers should try the elegant Afternoon Tea at the Brown Palace [321 17^th Street, Mondays through Fridays, 12-4, reservations recommended at (800) 321-25991. And if tea is, well, your cup of tea, enjoy a tour and tea tasting at Celestial Seasonings in Boulder [(303) 581-12021.

Unique Colorado fare can found in downtown Denver at the excellent 1515 eatery (1515 Market Street), which offers grilled rattlesnake over penne pasta; the Cadillac Ranch (1400 Larimer Square), serving smoked buffalo sausage quesadillas as an appetizer; and the Denver Buffalo Company (1109 Lincoln Avenue), with dishes featuring duck, quail, and, of course, buffalo.

Vegetarians are also well-tended to, with meatless and just plain old healthy options available at most Denver-area restaurants. (Denver is the “thinnest” city in America!)

The city also has the excellent variety of ethnic restaurants you’d expect in a metropolitan area, including Delhi Darbar (1514 Blake Street), with a lowpriced, all-you-can-eat luncheon; Tommy Tsunami’s Pacific Diner (1432 Market Street), featuring Pacific rim specialties and a slick style; the Little Russian Café (1424 Larimer Street), a hearty dinner choice (closed for lunch); and Playa Azul (1500 Curtis Street), not fancy but with good-tasting, reasonably priced Mexican fare. Choices in restaurants abound and few disappoint.

Other Denver attractions include Colorado’s Ocean Journey, featuring 15,000 water and land creatures, including native Colorado fish, sea otters, zebra sharks, and Sumatran tigers. Another enjoyable destination is the U.S. Mint, one of only four mints in the United States. The Mint, which makes coins of all denominations, has free weekday tours of the facility [320 W. Colfax Avenue, (303) 405-4791].

Plan a visit to the U.S. Mint, one of only four in the United States.

Cultural sites

Though the history of the Queen City of the Plains isn’t ancient—it’s interesting. That famous heroine of the Titanic made her home in Denver and a tour of the Molly Brown House Museum [1340 Pennsylvania Street, (303) 832-4092] offers a view of upper middle-class living in the early 20^th century and stories of the unsinkable woman herself. The Colorado History Museum (1300 Broadway) has permanent exhibits that include a look at the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers (an elite Cheyenne warrior society), early railways, mining, and one of the largest collections of Mesa-Verde artifacts in the world.

The Rocky Mountain region also has its share of art and cultural activities. The Denver Center for the Performing Arts (the PLEX), second in size only to New York’s Lincoln Center, is a complex of eight theaters in a 4-square-block area, topped by an 80foot-high glass archway. The PLEX presents plays, concerts, dance, comedy, and cabaret [Speer & Arapahoe, (303) 893-410]. Groups that regularly appear at the PLEX include the Colorado Ballet [(303) 837-8888], Opera Colorado, and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra [for both the opera and the symphony (303) 986-8742],

The Denver Art Museum [100 West 14th Avenue Parkway, (303) 640-4433], a fortresslike, towering structure, features many styles and types of art, including Western masterpieces by Remington and Russell, Native American art, and special exhibitions, such as this past summer’s Toulouse Lautrec show.

Sharing the plaza with the Denver Art Museum is the 540,000 square-foot Denver Public Library, designed by world-famous architect Michael Graves. Also be sure to see The Yearling, sculpted by Donald Lipski, the aesthetically controversial sculpture to the north of the library; it’s a brown-and-white horse looking rather small astride a very big red chair. Civic Center Park is also to the library’s north, home to many of Denver’s festivals.

The Denver Public Library was designed by Michael Graves.

No need to go hungry after admiring art or book browsing. The Art Museum’s restaurant, Palette’s, is exceptional, and a single malt whiskey and some fish and chips can be had nearby at Pint’s Pub [221 West 13th Avenue, (303) 534-7543], a haven for Anglophiles.

Rather fortuitously, the ACRL convention is scheduled for the very weekend in 2001 that the Denver March Pow Wow is being held at the Denver Coliseum [March 16-18, (303) 934-80451. This event draws people from around the world to enjoy Native American song, dance, drumming, arts, jewelry, and crafts. A past pow-wow attendee recommends that you plan to bring enough money to buy unique items at the pow-wow since you won’t be able to resist them.

No self-respecting bibliophile would visit Denver and miss a trip to the Tattered Cover Bookstore [(303) 322-77271. The original location in the Cherry Creek Shopping District (at 1^st and Milwaukee) helped set the standard nationwide for large bookstores featuring comfortable reading nooks, good customer service, and a steady stream of book signings. The Cherry Creek Tattered Cover has also created the Fourth Story Restaurant [(303) 322-1824], serving lunch, dinner, and Sunday brunch, in a dining room with a view. A second Tattered Cover [(303) 436-1070], nearly as impressive as the first, is in LoDo, just off the 16^th Street Mall on Wynkoop Street.

A look at the majestic Maroon Bells mountains in Aspen.

While you’re on Wynkoop Street, also stop by the beautiful, historic Union Station train station, featuring a model railroad layout in its basement [call (303) 572-1015 for viewing times] and the Redfish Looziana Roadhouse and Seafood Kitchen. The station is still active, shuttling Amtrak passengers and those riding the scenic Ski Train [(303) 296-4754] to Winter Park, for winter sports, shopping, and strolling.

Sports

Spectator sports abound in Denver, and in March you can take in Denver Nugget’s basketball [(303) 893-6700], the Colorado Xplosion, professional women’s basketball [(303) 832-2225], hockey with the Colorado Avalanche [(303)4051100], and soccer with the Colorado Rapids [(800) 844-77771.

Though the Rockies aren’t playing in March, you can take a 75-minute tour of the impressive Coors Field [(303) 312-2108], designed to look like an old-fashioned ballpark. The Super Bowl-winning Broncos, won’t be playing in March, and their 76,000 seat stadium won’t be quite complete by conference time, but pick up a t-shirt while you’re here!

Outside of Denver

There’s plenty to do beyond the borders of the city. Northwest of Denver, you’ll find the unique community of Boulder, where the New Age is old news, the stunning Flatirons tempt rock climbers, and everyone seems impossibly healthy. The magnificent Rocky Mountain National Park [(970) 586-1206] is northwest of Denver, about 70 miles away. And, of course, ski areas abound, including Loveland [(800) 736-3754], less than an hour from Denver; Keystone, about an hour-and-a-half trip; Aspen/Snowmass [(800) 923-8920]; and Vail [(800) 525-3875], all farther away but great to visit whether you ski the slopes or just admire the scenery.

Your choice of the opera or gambling is available at Central City.

Mountain visitors also enjoy snowshoeing, snowmobiling, or just strolling through such historic towns as Georgetown, a picturesque village of Victorian-era structures [(800) 4728230]; Golden, home to the Colorado Railroad Museum [(800) 365-6263]; the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum [(303) 273-38151; and the Coors Brewing Company, which conducts free tours of its plant concluding with free sam-ples of its brew [(303) 27723371.

Bring extra coins for the one-armed bandits in Colorado’s gambling destinations: Black Hawk and Central City, tucked into the foothills west of Denver, and, heading south in the state, Cripple Creek. Central City is also known for the Central City Opera House, which has performances only in the summer, but welcomes visitors to view its Victorian interior year-round; ask for a tour at the Teller House casino [(303) 2793200],

South of Denver are the stunning red rock formations of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Spring—an enthralling sight [(719) 634-6666], The garden can be enjoyed in any weather, since there are paved roads for autos that wind through the red rocks.

Like most places in the United States, Colorado has unpredictable weather patterns in March, the month of the ACRL conference. Multiply that unpredictability factor by about ten in Colorado! It’s a sunny state— even in the winter—and has more sunny days year-round than Miami, Florida, or San Diego, California.

To illustrate the variability of Denver weather, here are two historic weather reports from March 19: in 1997 there was a high of 71 degrees while in 1998 Denver temperatures topped out at 30 degrees accompanied by 5 inches of snow. The “normal” daytime temperatures in March are in the 50s (which, with low humidity, feels delightful) but can drop 20 degrees or more at night. Wear layers and check the forecast before you arrive.

Let’s see—did I mention line dancing, the Museum of Natural History, the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center, the Denver Botanic Gardens, and the Denver Zoo? Well, I’ve barely begun to brag but even the self-appointed mayor of Denver must stop at some point and let you roam on your own. ■