Serving the community since 1926
WEEK OF DECEMBER 5, 2024
VOLUME 98 | ISSUE 1
$2
North Denver icon: Muddy’s Coffee House BY JILL CARSTENS SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
Imagine this: Denver’s population is a fraction of what it is now. There is not much of an economy. There are few fancy restaurants, music venues or art galleries, and many parts of the city are a bit run down. But rent is cheap, especially in north Denver. In this scenario — the mid-1970s — you might have been yearning for a cool place to hang out. If you were lucky, you found Muddy’s coffee house, which was located at 2557 15th St. “My friends and I had been looking for a new place to have our weekly debates,” Muddy’s founder and north Denver native Joe DeRose said. DeRose had just graduated from CU Boulder and was heavily influenced by the radical teachings of wellknown professor Howard Higman. Under Higman’s teachings, DeRose and his peers had learned to question society’s institutions and value literature for its ability to shed light on our everyday lives. “The aesthetic of Muddy’s was warm and welcoming,” said Elisa Cohen, who worked there during her college years. “I had just moved back to north Denver and was looking for a place to just hang out. Right as I walked into Muddy’s I was invited to join folks at their table for conversation.” Upon first glance, Cohen described Muddy’s as a disheveled bookstore, with warmth emanating from the worn wood of the historic building. “There were burlap coffeebean sacks hanging on the walls as makeshift wallpaper and couches for communing. Everyone was welcome, from neighborhood weirdos to chess-playing intellects,” she said. The words most often used to describe this unassuming locale are “authentic” and “cultivating community.” SEE MUDDY’S, P4
City to offer income-based rebates on the sidewalk fee Funding will fill gap spaces of city sidewalks BY ALLEN COWGILL SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
Denver’s updated sidewalk ordinance was unanimously passed by the City Council in October, and the new structure includes a flat fee for many residents that will be used to fund repairs to broken and substandard sidewalks. The fund will also be used to fill in missing links in the sidewalk network. Fee collection starts for residents as soon as January and will be included on the stormwater bill residents already receive. Nearly all owners of single-family homes will pay a flat fee of $150 per year. Less than 5% of parcels, those with more than 230 linear feet of frontage, will pay an impact fee of $3.50 per linear square foot above that 230-feet threshold. Residents who are unsure of what their bills might be can look up estimates on a free website at denvergov.org/ sidewalks. Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) will offer instant rebates to homeowners who are incomequalified in a program very similar to the current discounts for solid waste pickup. Homeowners who earn less than 60% of the area median income (AMI) for their household will get discounts, or what DOTI is calling an “instant rebate” on the sidewalk fee, and residents who earn less than 30% of AMI for their household will not pay any sidewalk fees. Homeowners who have already applied for the income-based rebates through DOTI’s solid waste program will automatically receive the sidewalk fee rebates. Income-qualified homeowners who haven’t already applied for solid waste discount and who would like to receive both the rebate for solid Muddy’s founder Joe DeRose and his wife, Cat, on their way to a performance at Muddy’s in 1979.
VOICES: 8 | LIFE: 10 | CALENDAR: 13
COURTESY OF JOE DEROSE
SEE REBATES, P6
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