Happy Saturday Denver. We have gone through some serious transformation this week. We took a brief dip into winter, baseball season dropped into our collective lap, and this week the city's "right to rest" activists finally reckoned with the law. Let's work backwards and review:
Yesterday was opening day at Coors Field, and thousands of people flooded the ballpark neighborhood. This guy was covered in kids.
To celebrate the occasion, we took a look back at the personal collection of the urban planner who pushed to place Denver's baseball HQ where you know it today. Back then, they thought the team would be the Bears, and that the stadium might have a Fenway-esque rear wall shaped like a mountain.
And speaking of baseball, we covered the opening of the Maven Hotel in LoDo's Dairy Block, which boasts a swanky (and pricy) baseball-themed suite.
While I was wandering around on Wednesday I met Prita the cat, who was not shy about sharing her (his?) triumph over this mouse.
Wednesday saw the reintroduction of a bill at the Capitol that aims to crack down on cities that adhere to "sanctuary" policies. The legislation would allow victims of crimes committed by undocumented residents to sue cities meeting that criteria.
Also on Wednesday a jury of 6 unanimously ruled that all three defendants challenging their urban camping ban tickets were guilty. This marks a milestone in "right to rest" activists' battle to repeal the ban. This week Colorado Representatives Joe Salazar and Jovan Melton introduced a bill to outlaw such policies at the state level.
The previous day was a freakishly cold and snowy day. In a week when most people could wear shorts before and after Tuesday, the weather was an ominous reminder of what homeless activists and city policymakers have been arguing over for months: shelter, health and what is acceptable when it comes to survival.
This image by the Daily Camera's Lewis Geyer shows another end-of-the-line on the Front Range this week, a prayer over the stump of a controversial tree in Boulder that was finally cut down.
And now for the beginning of the line. We visited Backyard on Blake, a hip commercial area that's just opened in RiNo.
We also peered into the future at Lockheed Martin, where they're working to 3D print satellites, among other Jetsons-esque projects.
Now, I don't mean to gush, but there's a reason the Denver Post's Helen Richardson has made this roundup for a few weeks in a row. Last weekend was the Denver March Powwow, something of a big deal in the national powwow circuit. She killed it with some green-backed portraits of dancers in full, glorious regalia:
And there's one more thing I had to share. This actually happened last week when I didn't make this roundup. The Longmont Times-Call's Matthew Jonas caught some radical images of an osprey and a crow battling midair over a fish. You can see why I had to include it.
Keep on doing fun, important, regrettable and outrageous stuff Denver. There's an army of photojournalists out here waiting to catch it.
