This past summer, a major academic conference was held at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, which my wife Sylvia and our graduate student Rebecca attended. Sylvia took some photos of the campus and Rebecca took some of the town. CSU's sports teams are known as the Rams, as vivdly captured in the following statue by the football stadium...
Shown next is Yates Hall, part of the Chemistry Department's complex. Yates mainly hosts undergraduate labs and classrooms.
Moving off campus, Fort Collins's Old Town features the Northern Hotel, which dates back to 1873. According to this historical description:
The building, with 47 small apartments and a tumultuous past, played a profound role in Old Town's development. Once considered the "pearl" of Fort Collins, the hotel hasn't welcomed guests for decades, but its top three floors have provided shelter for some of the city's poorest residents while the ground floor has flourished with stable retail, including Starbucks.
The next two photos are of the Northern Hotel's interior. What the linked article calls the hotel's "ornate lobby" includes some special features: "The once bronze-plated central staircase is now silver, but remains a popular backdrop for prom and wedding photos."
Serving Fort Collins bibliophiles is Old Firehouse Books. According to the store's website, the book-selling business had been passed down through different ownership groups since 1980, until a major development less than a decade ago. "In 2009, the store moved into the old historic firehouse, a Fort Collins landmark. In honor of the building in which the store is now located, the name was changed to Old Firehouse Books."
Along with literature, music plays a large role in Fort Collins. The Jazz Alley mural depicts many icons of popular music from the past half-century or so, including (not necessarily in the order they're standing) Miles Davis, Roy Orbison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, B.B. King, Bob Marley, Jerry Garcia, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley.
The Pianos About Town program invites local artists to submit their ideas to paint pianos (which come from donations to the organization). These proposals are judged competitively, with the winning entries providing visual accompaniment to downtown's street music. The one-hundredth painted piano was recently introduced.
We end this photo essay with two food-and-drink establishments. First is CooperSmith's, whose catchphrase is "One Brewery, Two Restaurants, One Location."
Finally, we have the Town Pump, a bar that's been around for more than a century...
All in all, CSU/Fort Collins looks like a fun place. It's about an hour and 20 minutes north of Denver, but some observers worry that this travel time potentially could double in the next decade due to population growth, if highway renovations to alleviate traffic are not undertaken.
