Today, a clock stands at pretty much the southwest corner of Albuquerque’s “Civic Plaza,” which I put in quotation marks primarily because it’s such a bland, uninformative title desperately calling out for some pizazz. Maybe “Stolen Tiwa Land Plaza” or “John Lewis Plaza,” given that the great jazz pianist grew up here in South Broadway… Read More Mystery of the Missing Sculpture

Came across this advertisement the other day from the March 21, 1933 Albuquerque Journal: My first reaction was probably like yours: Mayonnaise as centerpiece of dieting strategy? I actually wrote up a bit about that ludricrous idea, but scratched it after researching my next question: Who was Lilyan Tashman? A classic movie fan, I don’t… Read More Lilyan Tashman: More Than Mayonnaise

We take a break from our Albuquerque-focused news today because when you find the brass band performing on bicycles story, you’ll go to the ends of the Earth. Or at least to St. John, Michigan: The “Safety Bicycle” with wheels of equal size was sweeping the automobile-free nation, reaching beyond St. John, Michigan to potentially… Read More 19th Century Cycling News

For a long time, the Barelas Bridge at what is now the Hispanic Cultural Center was the only means across the Rio Grande for miles and miles (Alameda being the closest). In constant state of construction/destruction due to floods, pre-Conservancy, most newspaper accounts in the early 20th Century are centered on how badly the bridge… Read More Two Barelas Bridge Stories

As of 1930, there was a new good reason to move up and out to Albuquerque’s University Heights. The ad notes, “When you live in Monte Vista the smaller children can go to school without crossing a single busy street, and within a few blocks of home.” What was a good selling point in 1930… Read More Monte Vista Elementary, 1930

One imagines life in Albuquerque back in 1907 was probably pretty chill. A town of around 10,000 in those days, and not a one of them had to upload a .pdf of a prior submission and convert it to a Word doc before editing and sending a Track Change Draft2.docx to the boss for review… Read More The Eternal Bicycling Menace