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July 29, 2021
DENVER, COLORADO
A publication of
VOLUME 94 | ISSUE 36
All-Star Game fell short for businesses Promised crowds didn’t quite live up to hopeful hype BY SARAH MULHOLLAND DENVERITE
Disparate toll is similar to other studies of health and financial status
Business owners in Denver are combing over their receipts now that Major League Baseball’s AllStar Game has come and gone. The early returns indicate that the event might have fallen short of expectations set by three months of hype. “Overall, it was better than most weekends … (but) to the extent that everyone was hoping, it wasn’t really there,” said Erik Riggs, owner of Freshcraft, a casual restaurant specializing in craft beers about a 10-minute walk from Coors Field. State and city officials said the economic impact could be between $100 million and $190 million when it was announced in April that Major League Baseball was moving the All-Star Game to SEE ALL-STAR, P15
BY JOHN INGOLD THE COLORADO SUN
This could explain why people who frequent Denver’s City Park have become accustomed to seeing bald eagles in the area. “We know that our population of eagles has increased in this area,” said Reesa Conrey, an avian researcher with CPW. “And we know that our population of humans is also increasingly very rapidly.” CPW is embarking on a four-year study to learn why these eagles — the national bird of the United
Consider, for a moment, two neighborhoods in Denver: Platt Park and Westwood. Both are in the southern half of the city, separated by a two-mile drive along Mississippi Avenue over the railroad tracks. Both are home to lots of young families. And both, of course, are 16 months into weathering the coronavirus pandemic. But, according to a new report by a respected Colorado health policy think tank, the two neighborhoods have had dramatically different experiences with the virus. Westwood, where 90% of residents identify as non-white and many are low-income, has some of the highest rates of coronavirus cases of any neighborhood along the Front Range in the new study from the Colorado Health Institute. Platt Park — mostly white and relatively affluent — has some of the lowest. The bracing disparity reinforces what researchers and public health authorities have seen throughout the pandemic: Coronavirus hasn’t hit everyone equally. “People with the means to avoid risky situations and to work at home were more successful at avoiding COVID-19, while their less affluent neighbors — literally across the
SEE EAGLES, P11
SEE COVID, P10
Crowds pour into Coors Field before the MLB All-Star Game. July 13.
KEVIN J. BEATY/DENVERITE
Study focuses on bald eagle boom Front Range corridor includes nests of birds once rare in the state BY KYLE COOKE AND CLARISSA GUY ROCKY MOUNTAIN PBS
It’s no secret that the human population on Colorado’s Front Range is expanding. State officials predict that in the 10-year range from 2019 to 2029, Colorado will
Report shows link of income, COVID risk
grow by more than 800,000 people, with about 87% of them settling in the Front Range. More perplexing, however, is that another population is growing in that same densely populated urban corridor: bald eagles. According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), the whole state of Colorado had just three known bald eagle nests by the end of the 1970s. Today, the state is home to more than 200 nests — some in “unconventional” locations, like the Front Range.
INSIDE: CALENDAR: PAGE 7 | VOICES: PAGE 8 | LIFE: PAGE 9
ON AN UPSWING
Pickleball is still popular among seniors, but now younger generations are discovering the sport
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