Photo: Stephen Brackett & friend | By Catie Cheshire, Westword | The 87 Foundation, a group formed to preserve the Mile High City’s cultural identity and vibrant nightlife scene through a “night mayor” approach, is currently in the process of changing its name to ONE Denver.
But it’s not just a new moniker that’s being rolled out: The group is also working to dive into more safety solutions for local revelers and establishments by commissioning research to gather data on the current state of Denver’s nighttime economy.
ONE Denver has contracted the Responsible Hospitality Institute to conduct a landscape assessment. ONE Denver is raising money to fund the study, which will cost an estimated $250,000 and take eighteen months to complete. The money will also go toward programming and coordinating solutions in the meantime.
“We don’t want our survey of the communities to be entirely extractive,” says Stephen Brackett, executive director of ONE Denver and founding member of the band Flobots and nonprofit group Youth on Record. “At the same time that we’re trying to ask people how they want to celebrate their time in the city, we want to actually be able to have activations like cookouts.”
Other ideas that have been floated include small concerts in neighborhoods, where people would get to enjoy themselves while sharing their vision for nightlife in the city.
ONE Denver wants to strengthen the conversation, not reinvent it.
“The bars and the venues and all those places are deeply embedded stakeholders who have a direct interest in everything being much, much safer,” Brackett says. “They already are spending a lot of time and effort in working with neighborhood associations and working with local police and trying to find solutions and all these things.”
ONE stands for Office of Nighttime Economy — the heads of which are sometimes colloquially dubbed “night mayor.” Such a person (and office) would be in charge of coordinating the city’s activities outside of traditional government hours, from bars and nightlife to child care and transportation options for those who work late shifts.
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Read the full story here:
https://www.westword.com/news/denver-night-mayor-group-changing-name-downtown-safety-solutions-17756487
[Thanks to Alex Teitz for contributing this article! http://www.femmusic.com]
Photo: Stephen Brackett & friend (from his Facebook page)
September 21, 2023| Colorado Music-Related Business| Barb Dye