Revisiting Auraria

I walked around downtown Denver the other day, and on the way home on the light rail decided to get off and walk around the Auraria Campus, home of the University of Colorado at Denver, Metropolitan State University, and the Community College of Denver. This campus is adjacent to downtown Denver, and was built by leveling the Auraria neighborhood, one of Denver's first settlements. This was a really sad thing to have done, especially since just to the west of here was a vast amount of vacant land that contained only rail yards and warehouses. The old Tivoli Brewery is now the student center. Even though the campus is open and classes are being held, despite the coronavirus, the place was eerily empty, even the Tivoli Brewpub, which was crammed to the rafters the last time I was there. But the lack of people on campus only helped to make the 9th Street Historic District, seen in the photo on the left, even more evocative.

Although the Auraria neighborhood was leveled, a single street was preserved, and is now known as the 9th Street Historic District. Most of the homes here are from the 1870s and 1880s, and they give you a good idea of what the neighborhood looked like back in the 19th century. The old grocery store for the neighborhood (seen in the photograph above) is now a deli, and the photo on the right shows what the homes there were like. These former residences now function as offices for the university. Adjacent to this historic district are several other 19th century structures, including the house where Golda Meir, the first female Prime Minister of Israel, once lived. This is a very pleasant place to spend a few hours. Of course, it would have been even more pleasant if they had left the rest of the neighborhood intact.