So we had six hours or so to burn.
So we walked down 16th Avenue, which is a mall. Malls are meant for walking along. They are vehicle-less areas. So WTF is that bus doing? There are free buses that go up and down the mall. Nice idea. They are supposed to not pollute much as they are some sort of hybrid system. There was at least one Starbucks on each block. We could not believe it. Then again Starbucks is apparently about the atmosphere not the coffee. Americans seem to like drip coffee and coffee that has been in a pump thermos for hours. Australians tend to like espresso in its many forms, or at least Melburnians do. There's a fair difference between them. We found a 1950s/rock style cafe to eat lunch at (lunch for Nathan - burgers and me won't get along).
We walked and walked and walked until we got to the other end of the mall. Then we looked at the Capitol Building:
It looks a lot like other capitol buildings though maybe not as white. Plus there was the council?county?parliament? building facing the capitol building. Very grand. I have pics but really they are not that grand. The light was from behind the building and it is not well lit.
I was more entranced by this:
yep. Steam coming out of the ground. Doesn't happen in Australia. Happens all over the USA it seems, especially in the colder areas. I remember seeing steam coming out of the road in NYC in August. I can only imagine there are steam pipes running all over the place.
There were a lot of benches in this area. We walked through at about hmm, 3pm. There were a LOT of people staking out the benches. Most of the people were men and had a lot of bags and were pretty darn shabby looking. All bar about 5 benches out of say 100 were already claimed. I wonder if the local residents see the poverty of these homeless people? I found it rather disturbing cos there was nothing I could do for them. Maybe I found it disturbing because we are about to be homeless. We won't have an address for a month.
So it is sorta ironic that one of the next pics I took was of this wall:
What is a city but its people?
3 comments:
Denver sounds like quite a sad place. I expect that there are so nicer areas but I do like the plaque you photographed.
I would like to point this out to you:
"In recent years, Denver has taken a stance on helping people who are or become homeless, particularly under the administrations of mayors John Hickenlooper and Wellington Webb. Denver's homeless population is considerably lower than many other major cities, but residents of the city streets have suffered during Denver's winters. Although mild and dry much of the time, Denver's winters can have brief periods of cold temperatures and varying amounts of snow. As a result, the city has set a national precedent on homeless services, with the creations of a ten-year plan to end homelessness (a plan now becoming popular in other cities as well), a task force and commission to end homelessness, and an expansion of human and civil services through the Denver area."
Please don't judge a wonderful city (one that I live by and work in) by six hours experience.
And they're not buses, they're shuttles. I ride them to work every day.
And had you been there longer, you would have realized how deeply steeped in culture it is and that it is a happy, booming city.
Oh and a few more things. It's not 16th Avenue, it's 16th Street, but I'm nitpicking. The mall is an outdoor mall (The 16th Street Mall) and spans an entire street. However, the street is not just a mall, there are also business buildings that line it, my dad works in one of them. The shuttles are there for people shopping, yes, and people commuting to work. And if you use the "Americans are just fat and lazy" rebuttal, I would also like to point out that Colorado has the healthiest population in the United States with the lowest rate of obesity.
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