Albuquerque's Environmental Story
Albuquerque's Environmental StoryNowadays the most important arterial highways through Albuquerque are Interstates 40 and 25 (I-40, I-25). No one would accuse them of having much individuality - if it weren't for the shape of the landscape and the color of the license plates, travelers could easily imagine themselves to be in Louisiana, Michigan, or Idaho. But these two throughways are fast and efficient and the favored means of traveling across town. Yet not so many years ago, when our city was smaller, quirkier, and perhaps more colorful, driving from one place to another was a livelier undertaking.
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Of all the interesting streets to traverse in town, none was, or still is, more striking than Central Avenue. A quite long road in its own right, it is part of a much longer one, Route 66 - glorified over the years in novel, song, and television show - and Central Avenue shared in the earthiness and exuberance of that highway. Most travelers along it got their first impressions of Albuquerque when they saw it appear before them down in the distance, whether they drove through Tijeras Canyon on the east or Nine Mile Hill on the west. Very likely they stayed in one of the hundreds of motels along the roadside; they were probably fascinated or repelled by the weedlike growth of fast-food places, filling stations, night clubs, and the like. If they continued on Central, they passed through the heart of the downtown, small by standards of many other cities, but proud. And eventually, they would leave behind the thinning buildings and reenter the desert. In a capsule form, they had seen much of the character and evolution of Albuquerque. No other street could have communicated so much.
City planners would call Central Avenue an "Alpha Street." The term is elusive to define, but Grady Clay, editor of Landscape Architecture, writes of "the single street which unfolds for visitors the most knowledge about a city. It offers a cross section of the city's history, poses object lessons in urban decay and revival, and offers a glimpse into principles of landscape design that seem universal and never out of date." Surely Central Avenue, with its wide-ranging assortment of turn-of-the-century downtown structures, green parks, thriving educational and health institutions, seedily declining entertainment districts, and booming new businesses, has much to tell us about Albuquerque's past and future.
(Up to Section II, Back to Climate and the Built Environment, On to History of Central Avenue)