Tag Archives: Albuquerque

Hope floats

I spent the whole weekend digging through dozens of old sketchbooks, searching for something I could post as some sort of post-election metaphor. Something that stood for a new day, for rising above the hateful muck we’re all slogging through…something. Anything.

Welp. Yeah.

It’s corny, I know. On that morning last year I thought seriously about taking artistic license with the flag balloon, since overtly patriotic objects aren’t really my style. But for whatever reason, I reported it accurately, keeping it as-is. And now I’m clinging to it as an image, corny or not. I have a feeling that drawing is going to provide a lot of ballast for my little metaphorical balloon in the months and years ahead. Time to relight the fire, and—fair winds or foul—do everything I can to stay afloat.

Criss-cross corner

This post is part of an ongoing series called 66 Fridays, which explores the wonders of old Route 66. Click on the preceding “66 Fridays” link to view all posts in the series, or visit the initial overview post here.

In downtown Albuquerque is an unassuming corner with a curious distinction. This is the place—the only place—where Route 66 intersects itself.

It’s not so unusual to have several Route 66-es in the same city—after all, Tulsa has at least three, and St. Louis changed the alignment of the route so many times I’ve lost track of the number. Yet nowhere else along the Mother Road do two different alignments actually cross each other. You see, when Route 66 was first established in New Mexico in 1926, the logical thing to do was to send the road through the capital city—so off to Santa Fe it went, and then it curved southward to come into Albuquerque from the north. At that time, there was no straight-line route across New Mexico, so travelers coming to Albuquerque from the east had no choice but to take that winding, partial-dirt, mountainous road through the capital first. But then, quite suddenly, all that changed: just a few years later, a new 66 cut an arrow-straight path into Albuquerque from the east and bypassed Santa Fe entirely. (And today many people have no idea that 66 ever went to Santa Fe at all.)

Like everything else along Route 66, there’s a story behind this. The short version is this: Arthur T. Hannett, who was governor of New Mexico when Route 66 was born, lost his reelection bid in 1926, and found himself with an axe to grind. Convinced he had been ousted by a conspiracy on the part of his political opponents at the state capitol, he hatched a scheme to reroute 66 away from Santa Fe in revenge.

The trouble was, he had only a little over a month before his successor would be sworn in. So he ordered nearly every piece of road-construction equipment in the northern half of the state to be diverted to his project, and made every construction worker he could get his hands on work nonstop to cut a new road bed from Santa Rosa to Albuquerque. The workers slept at the construction sites, toiled through snowstorms and skipped the holidays, and the new 69-mile road was completed in just 31 days. By the time the new governor, Richard Dillon, took office on January 1, 1927, it was too late. Despite opponents trying to block the project during those 31 days (including sabotage attempts where people put sand in the gas tanks of the construction equipment), nobody could deny the convenience of a straight, fully-paved road. The new route saved hours of driving, so before long, motorists were already using it heavily, leaving Santa Fe in the dust. It took another ten years before the road was paved all the way to the Texas border and the new section gained the official Route 66 designation, but by then it was already the main arterial across the state.

That story isn’t the only thing interesting about the corner of 4th and Central. That spot’s other claim to fame is what might just be Albuquerque’s best and most iconic building: the KiMo theatre.

Built in 1927 in a spectacular blend of Art Deco and Pueblo Revival styles (who knew those two went together so well?!), the theater’s name translates to “mountain lion” in Tewa, the language spoken by many of the region’s Pueblo people. The KiMo narrowly escaped the wrecking ball in the late 1970s, when residents voted for the city to buy the building. After an extensive restoration completed in 2000, the KiMo is once again hosting public performances.

Yes, that symbol above is what it looks like; and no, it doesn’t mean what you might think. The swastika is an ancient symbol that once had positive connotations in many cultures before Hitler twisted it to his own ends. To the Navajo it stood for the Whirling Log, a healing symbol, and to the Hopi (whose traditions the above design emulates) it represents spiritual wandering.

Oh, and hey: apparently the building is haunted. The theater staff leave appeasement offerings in a back stairwell and everything. The place was closed on the day we were there, so I couldn’t get a look at the inside, but you can bet I’ll be back. Neither angry ghosts or vengeful ex-governors can stop me.

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Time-tested tables

Next time you’re in New Mexico to admire the hollyhocks, you’ll be sure to work up an appetite. And Route 66 is dotted with some of the best lunch spots in the Land of Enchantment. My favorite is probably the Plaza Cafe, the oldest recipe in Santa Fe (yes, Route 66 goes through Santa Fe…or it did, anyway; that’s a story for another day). I didn’t know that fact when we walked in, but it makes sense: both the food and the decor make this place a keeper.

Downstate a bit in Albuquerque is another Route 66 relic that is still alive and well. You might recognize it from my earlier post featuring its sister property across the street. Like the Plaza Cafe, this place is quintessentially New Mexican, inside and out.

El Camino was chosen for us by some local friends, and it turns out they knew us well. From the impeccably preserved interior to the killa-dilla sopapillas, I was ready to move in by the end.

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Lumberjacks of 66

Since Route 66 passes through the Great Plains and the Desert Southwest, and not at all through the North Woods, it’s not a highway that brings thoughts of Paul Bunyan to mind. Yet there are a handful of Pauls along the Mother Road, if you know where to look.

The most well-known can be found in Flagstaff (where logging actually does happen): a trio (including a set of identical-twin Muffler Men) of big brothers in matching outfits. The guy on the left of the above sketch is hand-hewn out of wood, fittingly, but to me the most interesting specimen is the one on the right half of that spread. That Muffler Man happens to be, rumor has it, the very first one ever rolled off the assembly line. Today the aforementioned wooden statue stands in his place on Route 66, and the Muffler Man now stands near his twin on the Northern Arizona University campus.

The other Paul Bunyan is an oddity, indeed. He stands high above Central Avenue (the more modern alignment of 66) in Albuquerque, keeping watch beside what is now a Vietnamese Cafe. Sadly, this Paul has recently been rendered limbless…but it’s not like he needed to do a lot of logging in Albuquerque anyway.

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Running the Googie gauntlet

If you want to see a good concentration of neon signage you can visit the Miracle Mile in California, or you might try 11th Street in Tulsa. Or you just can head straight for the Googie Mecca. I gave you just a taste of it in last week’s installment, but I figured it was worth elaborating a bit.

There are actually two Route Sixty-Sixes in Albuquerque, as the Mother Road’s path changed from a north-south route to an east-west one. (That’s a story in and of itself, which I’ll tell in a future post.) And both alignments of the old highway are absolutely crammed with vintage neon.

Central Avenue is the more recent incarnation of 66, cutting roughly a fifteen-mile neon swath through the heart of the city.

Googie beacons point the way from the eastern boundary…

…to the far western edge of town. At the peak of Route 66’s heyday in the mid-1950s, there were apparently 98 motels along Central Avenue—yet even in 2015 I lost count of how many old signs we passed.

The Mother Road signage isn’t limited to lodging, either.

Many of the signs were in fine fettle, either newly restored or lovingly maintained. Still, we passed business after business that had very recently been shuttered for good—a reminder that the Route 66 Mom-n-Pop is an endangered species.

About fifteen or twenty years ago, stretches of Central Avenue and its motel relics were plagued with the hallmarks of hard times: drugs, violent crime, human trafficking. Yet in recent years the remaining business owners have made an effort to clean up the thoroughfare and their properties, particularly from Nob Hill inward.

The contemporary result is example after gleaming example of gorgeous storefronts and restored midcentury typography.

I just couldn’t believe our luck—we’d hit the Googie jackpot.

There wasn’t time to finish even a single sketch that day—it was all I could do to keep up by jotting down messy, temporary pencil scrawls. The “To Finish in the Studio Later” debt I incurred that day was enormous, and I’m still paying it off. I haven’t even showed you everything here—just my favorites (oh, that canary Cleaners storefront! A sketch will never do that beautiful, pristine façade the justice it deserves).

So, yeah. I loved Albuquerque already, for other reasons, but Route 66’s mark on the city pushed it into the stratosphere for me. The only downside is that now the bar has been raised a goodly height—and at least where old neon is concerned, it’ll be hard to find anywhere else that can hold a candle to the Q.

The tail wagging the dog

Those of you who are fans of the show Breaking Bad will recognize Fido here, but you might not know that this beauty has graced Route 66 for over half a century. But while the place is notable both for its television fame and the fact that you can get red or green New Mexico chili sauce on your dog, I was there purely for the neon.

For almost all of our Route 66 trip, I had to content myself with seeing most of the Mother Road’s neon during daylight hours only. But luckily for me, we stayed with friends in Albuquerque that night. I told them I was dying to see the Dog House at night, so after dinner we all made the trek back down to Central Avenue together.

I couldn’t decide which stage of the neon motion to sketch, so I drew them all. And that led me to an idea I’d never tried before…

…just a wee bit of sketchbook animation. I think I might have stumbled upon something I’ll keep doing again and again. After all, there’s an awful lot of animated neon out there!

Red and green

If you find yourself in a New Mexico restaurant, your server will ask you if you want red or green chili sauce with your entrée. If you happen to want both, you can answer “Christmas,” and they’ll know what you mean.

Well, I didn’t happen to have a sketch of “Christmas” on a plate, but I figured this was the next best thing. Whether you’re in New Mexico or somewhere else this year, I wish you a very merry Christmas, indeed.

On the threshold

Whenever I travel, I know I’m only seeing a small fraction of wherever I am—usually streets and exteriors. I’m always wondering what lies on the inside of the buildings I pass, and when I’m lucky enough to happen upon an open courtyard, I feel like I’m getting a glimpse of a city’s hidden, inner life. So naturally I’m attracted to doorways and porticoes (seriously, I could dedicate a whole website just to sketches of doors)—even if they remain closed to me. Each time I draw a door, it’s like my hands are asking the question: what’s on the other side?

Sometimes I’m frustrated by my lack of an answer, by the reminder that I’ll never have enough time or access to see everything I want to see. Sometimes, though—like on this day—just admiring the door itself was enough.

Colorful courtyard

Today is one of those rare sunny fall days in my town—as sunny as it was the day I was in Albuquerque a couple of years ago. But in the Northwest, bright weather at this time of year means a wicked cold front—which has me missing the warmth of sun-baked adobe today.

Stones and subdivisions

The very same day the Tailor and I breezed by a sign painter’s version of a petroglyph, we also got to see the real thing, up close.

Of course, they were beautiful and fascinating—but what really got me was the fact that the remnants of an ancient pueblo civilization were perched above a modern suburban neighborhood…

…and that the suburban neighborhood was designed to resemble an ancient pueblo civilization.