Denver is famous as America’s “mile-high” city. This is because its geographical position as the gateway to the Rocky Mountains places its elevation roughly a mile above sea level. Indeed, its reputation is inextricably tied to the Rocky Mountains, but I actually think that this is a bit misleading. Denver is a decidedly flat city. It is the last city in the Great Plains before the beginning of the Continental Divide. You’ll see this illustrated on the map below. Denver’s urban sprawl pushes right up the edge of the mountains!
The observatory was/is equipped with a 12-inch Zeiss refractor telescope that you can actually go look through. Since 1935, an estimated 7 million people have looked through it to catch a glimpse of the stars, which makes it the most used telescope in history by far. In WWII the planetarium was used to train pilots in celestial navigation. Later, in the 1960s, it would be used for that same purpose as a part of the NASA space program. In 2002 this place underwent a major renovation mostly focused on its visitor-facing amenities. Now there’s a café, a gift shop, and a movie theater. I’m sorry to tell you we’re not going into much of this stuff today though. We’re here to catch the sunset!
First off, what I’m defining as “Richmond” here is actually made up of 4 smaller districts: Inner, Central, and Outer Richmond… and a little area to the north called Lake Street. This neighborhood (or group of neighborhoods) is essentially a big grid system, which, despite occupying an extremely urban area of San Francisco, is surrounded on almost all sides by nature.
