Albuquerque Nob Hill - Highland District

Albuquerque, Central Region of New Mexico

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Nob Hill - Highland District

Central Avenue, Nob Hill-Highland's main street, has a split personality. It is Albuquerque's original "Main Street," like Main Streets all across the country, but its other personality is Route 66, the great Mother Road which carried countless Americans westward to California during the Great Depression. This dual personality has contributed to Nob Hill's fascinating blend of roadside architecture designed to appeal to the weary motorist, and storefronts designed to appeal to neighborhood shoppers.

Until the mid-1930's Central Avenue east of UNM, Nob Hill's Central Avenue consisted of a few motor courts, gas stations, campgrounds and a cafe. Albuquerque proper was still off to the west, but the city's street car system did make it out to Nob Hill.

Although Route 66 already crossed New Mexico, it seemed to be in no great hurry. From 1926 through 1937, when you headed "west" on the route, you turned north near Santa Rosa, made your way through Santa Fe and then turned south toward Albuquerque via Fourth Street. But, in 1937, Route 66 straightened out and headed directly west across the state, cutting 107 miles from the journey. The realignment let motorists run from Tucumcari straight to Grants, bringing them right down Albuquerque's Central Avenue from Tijeras Canyon to Nine Mile Hill.

With this the only paved road crossing New Mexico, development began to spread east and west along its shoulders. Small towns and businesses no longer on the route were cut off, but other entrepreneurs sparked into action as the tourist stream flowed down its new course.

Suddenly, travelers were driving through the Highland and Nob Hill neighborhoods on their way to downtown Albuquerque. Central Avenue was no longer just a country road. Motels with neon signs competed for the travelers' attention, and retailers and restaurateurs vied to meet their needs.

Roadside architecture beckoned to drivers: A cafe shaped like an iceberg, evoking images of cold drinks and ice cream cones, opened for business on the present site of the Lobo Theatre; a sombrero-shaped restaurant offered Mexican food. The Aztec Lodge and the De Anza Motor Lodge presented pueblo-inspired accommodations, while others such as the Wigwam boasted teepees in which children could play.

WPA projects in the late 1930s, such as the State Fairgrounds and Monte Vista Fire Station, assured development along east Central.

By the beginning of World War II, Nob Hill had grown into Albuquerque's first suburb, a thriving residential community complete with a modern movie theater, pharmacy and many stores, restaurants and motels. Construction was halted during the war, but afterwards the population boomed and building began in earnest. In the late 1940s, R.B. Waggoman developed `the Nob Hill Business Center, one of the first modern shopping centers west of the Mississippi. The Center and the district blossomed into the most fashionable area of town.

Route 66 travelers eventually traded the exotic little motels for the comfort of familiar national chains who had been attracted by the increasing traffic flow. The completion of Interstate 40 in 1959 was another blow. Motorists no longer had to travel through the city on the somewhat narrow Route 66, littered with stop signs and traffic. They gave up the slow, romantic journey through the "enchanting" state of New Mexico to move at speeds of 60 to 70 miles an hour to get to their destinations, often driving through the night. In 1955, Albuquerque's Route 66 had 98 motels; by 1992, only 48 remained.

But the Historic Route 66 designation does remain, and the road has been named a Scenic Byway by both state and federal governments. Although many examples of Route 66-era roadside architecture have been lost, the Nob Hill-Highland stretch is considered the most intact in the state.

Nob Hill - Highland District website
http://rt66central.com/index.html

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