Thanks to a wave of redevelopment, downtown Denver’s once-neglected Union Station finds itself surrounded by action in a way it hasn’t been for more than half a century. LoDo, short for Lower Downtown, has brought life back to the city center, and this Beaux-Arts monument deserved to be more than a footnote in transportation history. Now it’s an authentic downtown gathering place, as well as the home of the Crawford Hotel, a 112-room boutique hotel whose lobby still does double duty as a waiting room for rail passengers. The rooms are located on the upper floors in what used to be offices ringing the soaring 65-foot central hall. It took a massive renovation to make these spaces habitable, and the results are impressively luxurious, with nods to Victorian elegance, Art Deco swankiness, and contemporary post-industrial loft living, depending on the room type. And there’s more to the Crawford than just the rooms and the lobby — a selection of shops, restaurants, bars and cafés share the space. Not only that, but it’s no exaggeration to say you’re surrounded by the very best of what Denver has to offer, from the Tattered Cover bookstore across the street to the nearby David Adjaye–designed Museum of Contemporary Art, and the countless bars and restaurants that fill LoDo’s streets.