(and bicycling) renaissance.
Yet there’s never been a shortage of places to explore on foot, and each step brings you that much closer to the best aspects of the city’s richly diverse culture. Cuisine features prominently into many routes where restaurants tempt you with aromas both exotic and native. Art is often quickly accessible not just in nearby galleries and museums but also outdoors. With hundreds of public artworks—sculptures, murals, mosaics—the city is essentially a museum without ceilings. And with nearly 3,000 square feet of parkland per person, Burqueños (Albuquerqueans) have more open space than any other city dwellers in America. And plenty of sunny days to enjoy it. On average, Albuquerque basks in 310 days of sunshine per year.
A walk just about anywhere in this multifaceted town reveals layers of its history, which exceeds 300 years. These 30 walks delve into the city’s past and ponder its future, all the while encouraging you to go out now and experience its quirky nuances at a leisurely pace.
One of the greatest challenges in writing this book was predicting what readers might find absent from or added to any given route. For updates and other useful bits of information, visit restlesstribes.com/walq.
1 THE DOWNTOWN SCENE (AND WHAT’S BEHIND IT)
BOUNDARIES: Broadway Blvd., Gold Ave., 7th St., Lomas Blvd.
DISTANCE: 2 miles
DIFFICULTY: Easy
PARKING: Numerous lots and free street parking north of Central Ave., west of Broadway Blvd.
PUBLIC TRANSIT: Buses 66 and 1618 on Central Ave. at Broadway Blvd. Numerous routes serve the area. Railrunner station is on 1st St. south of Central Ave.
Albuquerque is geographically divided into four quadrants that are officially part of any street address: NE (northeast), NW (northwest), SE (southeast), and SW (southwest). Central Ave. delineates north and south, the BNSF Railway tracks divide east and west. This walk hits all four quadrants, following a route as creative as the area it explores. Inspiration for this walk comes largely from expert wanderer David Ryan, author of the book and blog The Gentle Art of Wandering, who said, “When I walk in cities I hope to find a combination of interesting streets, alleys, paths, stairs, and whatever else is available along the way to make the walk special.” With that in mind I sketched out a route using the alleys, an underpass, and the viaduct; then David and I set out to walk it. As expected we wandered off course, dropped in on businesses where we had no business, talked to strangers, gazed upon murals, waved at security cameras, debated the purpose of seemingly pointless structures, reminisced about what used to be here, took guesses on what might be there in the near future, and generally spent an entire afternoon in awe of everything around us. In these mere 2 miles (an abbreviated version of our meander that day) are enough sites and stories to fill volumes. What follows then are the briefest possible descriptions of 30 or so random things that captured our attention.
Start at the southwest corner of Central Ave. and Broadway Blvd. First Baptist Church looms on the northwest corner with 87,000 square feet of building space on 7 acres of land. It sustained severe fire damage in 2010 and was on the market for $7.5 million in 2014 and was acquired by Innovate ABQ, an idea incubator that links local high-tech institutions with start-up companies to create innovative businesses.
Walk west on Central. These first two blocks to the underpass are the only part of the walk in Albuquerque’s southeast quadrant. Much like Four Corners Monument, where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet, the center line of Central beneath the railroad tracks is where you could straddle Albuquerque’s four quadrants at once, but that’s not advised. Also in this underpass are a series of panels featuring historical photos and interpretive information. The translucent panels seem to light up as you approach or leave, depending on the angle of the sun. In 2014, the city announced plans to elevate the underpass, so you may find yourself crossing over the tracks instead.
Once you cross the tracks, the site on your right (a parking lot in 2014) is slated to become downtown’s premier entertainment hub. On your left, the first building you pass in the southwest quadrant is the Alvarado Transportation Center, a feature in Walk 3. For now continue past the neon signs for Century Theatres and Tucanos Brazilian Grill. The smoky aroma on this corner is difficult to resist for those who crave unlimited servings of charred and skewered meats. For those who prefer delicate fare, Sushi King is right next door. The next door down is Sunshine Theater, the hottest downtown spot to catch concert tours. Memorable shows in past years include CocoRosie and Insane Clown Posse. The six-story Sunshine Building, a reinforced concrete construction with a yellow brick façade, was designed by Henry C. Trost to house Albuquerque’s first movie palace, which opened in 1924. It’s one of a dozen or so buildings on this route that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Turn left on 2nd St. Blink and you’ll miss the Chama River Microbar tucked in the southwest corner of the Sunshine Building. The mural across the street is Mother Road, a tribute to Route 66 (Central Ave.) by Working Classroom. Poke your head in the alley ahead for Ernest Doty’s raven composition in aerosol and house paint, We Exist Somewhere Between Limbo and Purgatory. Past that is my personal favorite, Totem of the Ancient Ones, a triptych mural by Thomas Christopher Haag.
Turn right on Gold Ave. The first building on your left housed the National Institute of Flamenco for 15 years before it burned down at the end of 2013. Sidewalk cafés, art venues, and other hip ventures come and go on this quiet block. Vacancies are common and soon filled with pleasant surprises. Ahead at the northwest corner of 3rd St. stands the distinctive Occidental Life Insurance Building. Henry C. Trost designed this 1917 masterpiece to resemble Doge’s Palace in Venice. A fire in 1933 destroyed its mahogany and Circassian walnut interior, but its glazed white terra-cotta tile façade of Venetian Gothic arches remains largely intact.
Cross 3rd St. and turn right; then take a left into the alley on the north side of the Occidental Building. The most colorful mural on this block belongs to Burt’s Tiki Lounge, a Polynesian-themed faux dive that was inexplicably placed on Esquire magazine’s list of best bars in America. At the end of the block and fronting Central Ave. is the Rosenwald Building. Another creation of Henry C. Trost, this former department store opened in 1910 to carry the wares of Aron and Edward Rosenwald, German merchants who arrived in Albuquerque in 1878. The reinforced concrete structure is considered New Mexico’s first fireproof building, despite the fire that gutted it in 1921.
Before ducking down the alley in the 400 block, take a few steps south to see the plaque embedded in the sidewalk. It marks the geographic center of Albuquerque in 1912. (Over the century that followed, the geographic center shifted 1.5 miles north and about a quarter mile east. The 2012 plaque is on the north side of Coronado Park, between 3rd and 4th Streets.)
Now take a quick detour north to the Downtown Contemporary Gallery in the historic Yrisarri Block. This building was completed in 1909 and has housed the gallery and numerous artist studios since 1996.Other buildings you’ll sneak behind on the 400 block include the Old Post Office and the Albuquerque Federal Building, both fronting Gold Ave. The post office was built in the Spanish Colonial Revival style in 1908. Since 2000, it has housed Amy Biehl High School, a charter school named for a high-spirited social activist from Santa Fe who, in 1993 at the age of 26, was murdered near Cape Town, South Africa. The six-story, 63,000-square-foot building by its side displays a marvelous assortment of Southwestern motifs throughout the exterior detailing. Take a detour to its front entry to check out the assortment of randomly placed terra-cotta petroglyphs inlaid around the archway, keeping in mind that swastikas were a distinctly Navajo motif when the building was completed in 1930.The eight-story, block-long former federal office on the south side of the alley ahead was probably built in the 1970s and has spent most of the current century echoing the sentiments of that era. In 1978 Susan Dewitt wrote in Historic Albuquerque Today, “Off Central, pedestrians are often faced by blank-walled buildings, menacing and uninviting.” No doubt she