Home Is Where The Heart Is
KUVO’s heart has been big enough to hold seven locations/venues/facilities as part of its history. And like any homeowner will tell you, each move required more trucks because KUVO had accumulated more “stuff.” In this case “stuff” was broadcasting equipment and office furniture.
Plans for KUVO began in 1982 on the dining room table at the home of Flo Hernández-Ramos. In 1983 the project spilled into the law firm of Federico Peña, Alfredo Peña and Manuel Martinez at 1658 High Street. Space, loaned rent-free to KUVO, was available because Federico was busy being the Mayor of Denver and imaging – no creating – a great city. Housed there, were Nan Rubin, technical consultant, Patricio Córdova Special Events Coordinator and Flo Hernández-Ramos, Project Director.
Many a fundraising event happened from that office. There were mountains of panty hose, yards of fabric, ribbon and cotton batting for the Watt-a-Baby dolls sewed together for the Adopt-a-Watt program. (Thank you Joyce Martinez and the Community Helpers youth, under the direction of Mercedes Hernández.) In that office, we created a Mexican Christmas marketplace in the empty buildings at the Denver Center for Performing Arts and a celebration of Día de los Muertos at Pirate Contemporary Oasis. All the while we kept our eyes on the prize - funding and construction of a functioning radio station.
Happy as we were on High Street, a move was always in KUVO’s future because it needed broadcast studios to be a real radio station. The requirement was that there had to be “line of sight” between the broadcast studio and the transmitting tower. Once the studio and transmitter could see each other through an engineering lens – although not visible to the naked eye – as long as there was a table for the control console, KUVO was good to go.
Home at Last
In 1984 a table and a control console was about all KUVO had. But thanks to a grant from the Public Telecommunication Facilities Program of the Department of Commerce the station soon acquired new, state-of-the-art 1980’s equipment.
On the third floor of 1225 Wazee Street – which has since been renamed Auraria Parkway – right across from Auraria campus, KUVO built its first broadcast studios. The property was in the West Wazee Warehouse District originally constructed in 1880. The studios – okay, so it was just a tiny, unventilated room in an old warehouse with a lot of heat-producing broadcast equipment crammed into it – were on the third floor. It was so hot that even on the coldest winter day, on-air hosts had to wear tank tops. The studio might have been hot but it was acoustically sound thanks to the Village Inn Pancake House which donated empty egg flats for us to staple to the walls.
Like the speakeasys of the Prohibition Era, KUVO was a hidden gem. There was no exterior signage indicating its existence. If you didn’t enter the KUVO space through the back industrial elevator with its wooden slat door pulled down by a rope, then you’d climb up three flights of stairs to be greeted by a pink pachuco painted by Carlos Fresquez. But in these rudimentary studios, KUVO began broadcasting on August 29, 1985.
Two Professional for Our Own Good
In 1986 KUVO was able to move into the professional broadcast studios abandoned by KBPI at 4460 Morrison Road. The building, owned by the American Indian Center, had real acoustic material in its studios and a tall tower in the back yard.
It was here that KUVO got its first taste of attracting celebrities. Celia Cruz stopped by unannounced and the surprised on-air host, tickled pink to be in the presence of an icon of salsa, did little more than giggle instead of conducting an interview. When Charles Brown visited, the doors to the station had to be locked to prevent hordes of women from invading. A number of the on-air hosts dressed to the nines the day that a very young Gloria Estefan stopped by for her scheduled interview. And Danny Glover did a last-minute wardrobe check in the one-way mirrored windows before setting foot inside.
KUVO celebrated its first anniversary at the Morrison studios. Mayor Peña did a ribbon cutting, Representative Patricia Schroeder came by with her congratulations, KUVO had a cake worthy of any wedding or quinceñera and John Muñoz and His Fabulous Vibrotones had everyone dancing in the parking lot.
At the time Morrison Road was an industrial artery through the neighborhood and had not yet come into its full vibrancy and sense of community. After an interview with KUVO’s news director, Denise Washington Blomberg, Joe McKeon from the Piton Foundation invited KUVO to be part of the Five Points Media Center. Unfortunately, the Media Center was merely a concept so after the lease expired on the Morrison Studios, KUVO moved into “transitional studios” on Federal Boulevard.
Three was Charming
When the Colorado Rockies baseball team first came to town in 1993 their permanent home at Coors Field hadn’t been built yet so they played their first two seasons at Mile High Stadium, just five blocks from KUVO’s third studios at 2246 Federal, a former Safeway cake bakery – no, they hadn’t left any cupcakes behind. The Rockies were off to a good start and so was KUVO, making more than $26,000 by selling parking for each of their 82 home games.
We shared the premises with PBS Television Station KBDI, Channel 12 and had a layout with all the offices and studios surrounding a large “war room” where we conducted membership drives. We also perfected our party and event skills. At one karaoke party, the entire KUVO staff sang “Bugle Boy of Company B” proving that their talent lay in playing music, not in singing.
In our Federal Studio era, we initiated one of our most controversial radio programs – The Ken Hamblin Show. Ken had been released from his program on the big talk radio station downtown and gave his all to public radio. Described as an African-American conservative, he delighted some, disgusted others and divided all. KUVO received letters for and against the program. Eventually Ken received an offer he couldn’t refuse allowing him to return to commercial radio.
When KUVO left, the building again changed careers – it became a Family Star Early Learning Montessori Center.
Four Good
At last in 1994 the Five Points Media Center at 2900 Welton was ready for KUVO, KBDI and the Community Access Channel to move in, but not before years of fundraising and dreaming.
The facility started its life as a bakery and later became the Eastside Health Center until Eastside Health moved across the street into new, modern facilities. 2900 Welton was then abandoned by all but the pigeons who found their way in through the broken windows. It was hard to imagine that great music could emanate from a building with an inch-deep carpet of bird-droppings.
The Five Points Media Board of Directors, with support from the Piton Foundation, raised enough capital to take the Five Points Media Center from blueprints to reality. The tenants, KUVO 89.3 FM, KBDI Public Television Channel 12, Community Access Cable were coordinated by the administration of the Five Points Media Center which ran its own programs, including a media camp.
When KUVO moved into the Five Points Media Center we realized what a difference it made to be IN COMMUNITY! KUVO was welcomed with open arms by the people and organizations whose reputations and work in Five Points had created a camaraderie with everyone pulling towards a common goal of improving the lives of people of color and showcasing the talent of the community.
Five and Still Alive
In 2014 KUVO and its sister station, The Drop merged with Rocky Mountain PBS and become Rocky Mountain Public Media. The merger was on paper but for six more years the offices and studios were split between KUVO’s home on Welton Street and 1095 Bannock where Rocky Mountain PBS inhabited the former home of Channel 9.
Finally during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the capital campaign of $35 million successfully created the Buell Media Center. It was a beautiful building that no one could move into until the Centers for Disease Control gave the all-clear. Now the Buell Media Center is reaching its full creative and community service potential through the cross pollination, information and resource sharing between all of the non-profit organizations that inhabit the Media Center.
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