dirtyrome

this morning i was walking down a capitol hill alley from my friends house to my car. it was a gloomy beyond gloomy morning for denver and that mixed with the dirty streets of capitol hill made me feel like i was in rome again. and i don't mean dirty in a gross-you-out kinda of a way, or anything against capitol hill, more that the patina of it's walls, sidewalks and streets have aged and been used well enough to give off this feeling. a streets of italy feeling. it is no secret that rome is a dirty city. i was appalled when i first got there and startled by the truth when a roman friend of ours mentioned that graffiti was the wallpaper of the city. i'd like to give romans the benefit of the doubt that they have been occupying this city for their 2,763rd year and it's no doubt well broken in.

a few unglamorous shots of rome that i love:

our local lunch market: campo de fiori

a roman resident


like i said, wallpaper.


an appropriately unkempt jollypower gym


a gypsy with a baby that stole my tears


wet clothes in Trastevere

yesdenver

i read this off of a site i stumbled upon the other day: Urbanophile

He’s very impressed:

I spent the past few days at a conference in Denver, Colorado. And, I’ll tell you, that city impressed the heck out of me. It’s a medium-sized city (just under 600,000 residents), and you can walk across its downtown in about twenty minutes. While the scale is much smaller than my hometown of Philadelphia, Denver seemed to be doing things other cities are only dreaming of.

Denver has a beautiful and efficient light-rail and bus system. The 16th Street pedestrian mall is vibrant, beautiful, and well-used. A free (!) two-way bus system runs every few minutes to take passengers across the fifteen blocks of stores, restaurant, entertainment, benches, trees, lamps, and chess tables. They also have bike sharing!

Cherry Creek and the Platte River run along the west side of the downtown with an extraordinary set of walking and biking trails. At the confluence of the creek and river, one encounters beautiful Commons Park and a stunning vista of the skyline. The gorgeous Millennium Bridge takes pedestrians from Commons Park to the pedestrian mall. The scenery is beautiful, all the while, surrounded by the Rockies.

The architecture definitely impresses. I am not usually a Daniel Liebeskind fan, but his Denver Art Museum is stunning. The new, edgy buildings of the civic center mix well with the historic architecture of the state capitol and other older government buildings. The Denver Convention Center is also a pretty exciting building (yes, that’s a big blue bear pushing against the wall).

Everywhere I looked there was major public art. This is a city that clearly cares about creating a beautiful place for its citizens and visitors. Meanwhile, a host of new condo and apartment buildings are filling in the landscape, bringing more residents downtown.

some things stated i agree whole heartily with and others i struggle to accept. thank you for your rave on denver, as i do just love this city.