The man who gave his heart to the city now has his name emblazoned forever in the city's heart.

On Tuesday, Mayor Wellington Webb renamed one block of Elati Street to Gene Amole Way, in honor of the longtime Rocky Mountain News columnist. The name change becomes official Dec. 20 when the city unveils the new street signs.

''I'm pleased that this designation is next to the Rocky Mountain News, where I spent so many wonderful years,'' said Amole, who has written a column for the News for nearly 25 years.

The newspaper, which sits on the renamed block between West Colfax and West 14th avenues, will change its address from 400 W. Colfax Ave. to 100 Gene Amole Way.

''The new street name will be especially meaningful to those of us who work at the Rocky because it will be a permanent reminder of the writer who set the standard for Denver journalism,'' News Editor and Publisher John Temple said.

The mayor called Amole a living legend, modern-day pioneer and great human being who has helped shape and preserve Denver history.

''This community is a better place because of Gene,'' he said.

The mayor recalled a lunch with Amole and Webb press secretary Andrew Hudson at the Kapre Fried Chicken Restaurant in Five Points a couple of years ago.

''Hudson, a jazz musician, asked Gene, a jazz aficionado, if jazz great Charlie Parker had ever visited any of the jazz clubs in the Points,'' Webb said. ''Hudson listened in awe as he was given a 20-minute history lesson from Gene with stories about the jazz era in Denver, and which great musicians visited, and which unsung jazz greats lived in Denver.''

Amole, a third-generation Coloradan whose family arrived in Denver in 1877, has chronicled his hometown since 1942, when he began his radio career. He co-founded classical radio station KVOD in the 1950s and was involved in Denver television production from its earliest days.

Amole's first column, which appeared in the Rocky Mountain News on Dec. 18, 1977, marveled over the morning - the first of many celebrations of life in Colorado. Morning was also the title of his first book of columns in 1984. It was followed by two other collections of the best of his thousands of columns, Amole Again in 1987 and 1998's Amole One More Time.

''The News appreciates this recognition for one of the most remarkable journalists ever to work in Colorado,'' Temple said. ''If anybody deserves to have a small part of the city named after him, it's Gene Amole.''