City Cast Denver

Denver Public Schools let out for the summer last week, which means DPS superintendent Dr. Alex Marrero now has one full school year under his belt — and it was a rough one. Declining enrollment sparked fears of school closures. A beloved Northside teacher was let go, prompting student walkouts and protests. Mass shootings tested DPS’s security plans and resurfaced the debate over cops in schools....

It’s no secret that Denver’s housing market is nuts. But when we sit down to talk about the causes and solutions for our ongoing issues with housing, things tend to get heated, complicated, and divisive. So, we’re looking to Denverites for their “big ideas” to help steer this and other conversations about our city’s future. What can the Mile High do to make this place better for everyone? Today on...

Summer’s (almost) officially here, and we’re here for it! Today on the show, Producer Paul Karolyi is joined by Newsletter Editor Peyton Garcia and Host Bree Davies to chat about what makes summer the best season in Denver. From short mountain jaunts to cool new art installations, the City Cast Denver crew has lots of ideas for your next weekend outing.  Bree’s Picks: Go for evening bike rides! (G...

If I-70 had a mayor, it would be Alejandro Brown. He started the I-70 Things Instagram account a few years ago when he was stuck in ski traffic. It was a fun way to share silly moments and crazy stuff people (and animals) were doing on the side of the highway. But then, something changed — Alejandro realized that the account could also serve as a public service, too. Today on the show, Host Bree D...

Drag has come a long way in the past century — and more recently, thanks to shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race, the culture and art form have fully entered the mainstream. Now, a whole new generation of performers who grew up watching Ru and her kin have created scenes of their very own. Like here in Denver, 17-year-old Jameson Lee and his mom, Robin Fulton, created Dragutante, an annual event spotligh...

Way back in 2018, the theater wizards behind Control Group Productions started dreaming about what it might feel like to live in a not-so-distant future Denver wrecked by climate change. Then the pandemic came along and, as they say, “helped with that.” This weekend, they are premiering The End, an immersive bus tour of our local culture and ecology — just, you know, a heck of a lot drier, meaner,...

It’s no secret — Denver’s a car-centric place. But it doesn’t have to be! Today on the show, we’re bringing you a conversation with transit advocates and experts about what we could do differently when it comes to embracing multiple modes of getting around, while keeping equity and the climate in mind. Host Bree Davies is joined by Marcus Robinson, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Ride for Rac...

During World War II, the U.S. government incarcerated more than 10,000 Americans of Japanese descent at a concentration camp smack in the middle of desolate, hardscrabble southeast Colorado. It’s an ugly chapter in American history that has, in the last few years, been subject to renewed interest and attention from archaeologists, historians and, most recently, horticulturalists. Colorado Public R...

If there’s anything constant about Denver, it’s change. Recently, Host Bree Davies was driving down Colfax and noticed that a lot of things about her favorite street in the city were in flux. Block after block, recognizable buildings were now holes in the ground; other familiar parts of the built environment had been fenced off; and many beloved businesses were closed. Bree took her woes online an...

Starting on June 17, Denverites registering a phone number might get a new area code: 983. Yes, it can spell W-T-F, but that’s not what’s got people talking. Old Denver heads are proud of their 303 and, to a lesser extent, 720 area codes! So host Bree Davies (720), producer Paul Karolyi (614), and newsletter writer Peyton Garcia (720) are wading into the messy native/transplant conversation and un...

Denver City Council voted last week to ban the concealed carry of guns in city buildings and parks, with the goal of making these areas “gun-free” zones, according to City Attorney Kristin Bronson. But Anubis Heru, co-founder of 1770 Armory and Gun Club in Five Points, doesn’t think that’s the answer to the problem of rising gun violence. Today on the show, he talks with Bree about racial profilin...

The Stan Kroenke-owned Colorado Avalanche are tearing up the NHL playoffs, but the billionaire tycoon still won’t make a deal with Comcast to allow most Denverites to watch. Now, Kroenke wants to tear up the parking lots around Ball Arena in favor of a brand-new 55-acre downtown neighborhood — which could mean some downtown Denverites would lose their views of the mountains. So today on the show,...

When we heard about a new bar opening in downtown Denver themed after the city of Pueblo, we were skeptical, to say the least. Who would want to theme a bar after a Colorado town? Would this place make a mockery of our southern Colorado cousin? And really, how could you even capture the essence of such a misunderstood and overlooked place like Pueblo, anyway? Host Bree Davies wanted answers, and s...

When Styler Rising opened Metamorphosis Fitness in 2015, they focused on creating a place that embraced exercise, strength, and transformation. But what Styler didn’t realize was that they were also providing something else — a safe, queer-affirming gym environment. So, the fitness business went through a transformation of its own, and things really took off after a TikTok about the gym went viral...

In the waning hours of their 2022 legislative session, the Colorado General Assembly finally reached a compromise on a bill meant to stop the spike in fentanyl-related deaths across Colorado. After months of debate, they agreed to toughen punishments for possession of smaller amounts of the synthetic opioid. Just like the lawmakers, we made this bill our top priority for the legislative session, s...

Move over Greta Thunberg, Colorado’s got its own wunderkind climate champion. Her name is Madhvi Chittoor. She’s 11-years-old, and she lives with her parents in Arvada. But every chance she gets, Chittoor zips across the world speaking out against plastic pollution, leading climate rallies, and meeting with world leaders, like Vice President Kamala Harris. Today, Bree sits down with Chittoor to ta...

It has been ten years since Denver enacted an urban camping ban, providing the legal basis for what many housing activists are now calling “Denver’s Decade of Doom.” So to mark the occasion, we are bringing you this bonus episode of the new Elevated Denver podcast. Their hope for the podcast is to build compassion for the experience of being unhoused, to see this as a system issue and not an indiv...

Ten years ago this week, Denver leaders signed an urban camping ban into law. Since then, folks across the city have experienced displacement, skyrocketing housing costs, and fewer and fewer sheltering options for those living on the margins. Today on the show, Bree sits down with Denver Homeless Out Loud cofounder Benjamin Dunning and Westword reporter Conor McCormick-Cavanaugh for a wide-ranging...

On April 27, Gary Arellano was shot and killed in La Alma-Lincoln Park. The city’s response? Fence off the park to the community, something that Arellano’s family says is in direct opposition to what he would have wanted. And this wasn’t the first time the park has been closed to the public because of violence. So what’s to be done in this rapidly gentrifying neighborhood? Denver Post reporter Eli...

Earlier this year, North High School teacher Tim Hernández came on the show to talk about his experience teaching in a pandemic. But he also spoke passionately about the cultural significance of the work he does as a Chicano teacher on the Northside, and the importance of teaching Chicano and Latino history to his mostly Latino classes. So last week when Tim posted online that he was being let go...

It’s our producer Xandra’s last hurrah in Denver before she heads off to Philadelphia. So we had to ask: What‘s on your bucket list before you leave Colorado? Her number one choice was a trip to the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keensburg, home to 38 tigers that once belonged to the man they call the Tiger King. So we sent her off to visit this past weekend. Bree sits down with Xandra to get the inside...

Denver is sooooo bad at recycling and composting. In fact, our diversion rate — the amount of waste we divert from landfills to recycling and composting — is a paltry 26%. So how did Denver get so far behind when it comes to trash? And what are we doing to catch up? Councilman Jolon Clark has been pushing for one surprising, seemingly counter-intuitive measure since he was elected to City Council...

We’ve brought you a burger crawl, a breakfast burrito battle, and a fried chicken chowdown. Now, we’re tackling something sickly sweet and asking the big, round, frosted question: Who makes the best donuts in Denver? Peyton, Paul, Xandra, and Bree took on the task of taste-testing four of the top contenders in the Mile High City (and may have suffered a collective sugar overload in the process, so...

Jen Korte likes to throw big parties. She also doesn’t really drink that much. But as a musician, Korte has seen first-hand how much art and music are often intertwined with drinking culture — so, she set out to change that. The result is Clearheads: A Booze-Free Hang, Korte’s monthly party happening this Sunday, May 8, from 12pm to 4pm at Fort Greene bar in Globeville. The all-ages party de-cente...

The U.S. Supreme Court is planning to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 50-year-old decision guaranteeing federal protection of Americans’ right to an abortion. That’s according to a leaked, draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito published by Politico earlier this week. What would that decision mean for Colorado, where our state just put a new law on the books defending abortion rights? Bree and Xandra are...