As famed baseball player Yogi Berra one said it’s “Déjà vu all over again!”

Since the 1970’s, Albuquerque City Hall and virtually every Mayor of Albuquerque have been fixated and frustrated by the revitalization of “Downtown Albuquerque” hoping to return downtown to its old “glory days”.

Mayor Tim Keller took his plans of Downtown revitalization to the annual meeting of “Visit Albuquerque”.

https://www.abqjournal.com/1214363/mayor-lays-out-new-plans-for-downtown-safety.html

“Visit Albuquerque” is a tourist and business professional organization that markets the city as a visitor, convention and sports destination city.

Mayor Keller called himself the “promoter in chief” when it comes to promoting Albuquerque as a good place to live, work, play and invest.

When Mayor Keller called himself the “promoter in chief” for Albuquerque, he was using the same words used by former Mayors Harry Kinney, Ken Schultz, Martin Chavez and Richard Berry.

Saying “We rise and fall on Downtown” Keller announced three new initiatives to make Downtown Albuquerque as a safer, more attractive place for visitors and increase tourism.

The three initiatives are:

1. Opening a police substation at the Alvarado Transportation Center to address the serious crime and homeless problems in the Central Avenue downtown area that have reached a crisis point. Keller announced that the substation will be staffed by an APD Assistant Chief, police officers and a Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) who are trained in dealing with behavioral and mental health issues.

2. In order to create a tourist, draw the city will begin remediation efforts and activate a second building at the Albuquerque Rail Yards after the city severs the existing contract with California-based Samitaur Constructs, the master developer for the site. In 2007, the city bought the site for about $8.5 million. The historic and vacant Albuquerque Rail Yards are within one mile of the Downtown area located south of Downtown between the Barelas and South Broadway neighborhoods. Albuquerque Rail Yards has 18 buildings still standing erected between 1915 and 1925 and include four major maintenance facilities built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

3. Keller announced he wants to ramp up plans to reinvent the historic Albuquerque Rail Yards by finding a development partner to transform a city-owned parking lot into “an amenity where thousands can gather year-round.” The city has upgraded one building, the blacksmith shop, where the Rail Yards Market Place has taken place on weekends each summer since 2014. Activating a second building will accommodate additional vendors and potentially be a big tourist draw according to Mayor Keller.

Mayor Tim Keller’s claim “We rise and fall on downtown” makes a great headline but the problem is it no way reflects what has been going on in the city for the last 60 years.

The truth is “Downtown Albuquerque” has been transforming during Mayor Tim Keller’s entire life of 40 years plus another 20 years before he was born.

ABBREVIATED HISTORY OF DOWNTOWN REVITALIZATION

A very abbreviated history of “downtown revitalization” efforts is in order.

Central Avenue going West from Broadway Ave to the Rio Grande River is traditionally thought of as “Downtown” by many born and raised in Albuquerque or long-term residents.

Downtown Albuquerque should probably also be considered to include a mile north and a mile south of Central between Broadway and the Rio Grande river so as to include Old Town, the Albuquerque Museum, the Children’s Science Museum, the New Mexico History Museum, the Zoo, the BioPak, which includes the botanical gardens and aquarium, and various government buildings including courthouses and commercial office buildings.

From approximately 1952 to about 1965, Downtown Albuquerque on Central from Broadway to 1st street was considered the “hub of activity” for retail and business where you would shop, bank and go for entertainment.

In the 1960s and the mid-1970s, “urban renewal” was the big buzzwords at City Hall and the then existing City Commission.

Urban Renewal was federal funding “given to cities for the large-scale improvement of urban areas riddled with “blight,” a catchall term used to describe almost anything city planners may have found problematic or offensive with the city structure.

“Blight was used to describe otherwise healthy urban neighborhoods inhabited by a single ethnic group; historic and dilapidated buildings whose owners were either uninterested in renovation or unable to secure funding to do so; heavy, poor, or inefficient traffic flow through central business districts; and nearly any other sociological or psychological issue that was affecting the urban area.”

http://albuquerquemodernism.unm.edu/wp/downtown-urban-redevelopment/

The term “blight” provided ready justification for city planners and developer aspirations.

Today it is called “gentrification”.

The 1960’s-1970’s urban renewal in Albuquerque resulted in city government use of “eminent domain” condemnations and the leveling of entire neighborhood blocks and areas of downtown, including old government buildings.

The “Downtown Albuquerque” I remember, growing up as a kid, attending St. Mary’s Catholic School and my father’s barber shop “Paul’s Barber Shop” on Lomas and 3rd Street is:

The many retail stores on Central Street downtown or the Central Street area before urban renewal including Sears, JC Penny, Montgomery Ward’s, Fedway Department Store, Paris Shoe Store, Stromberg’s clothing, American Furniture, People’s Flowers, Russell Stover’s candies, Mc Clullens, Kurt’s Camera Coral, Krees’s , Levines, Woolworth’s, Payless Drugs, Zales Jewelry, Skaggs, Fogg’s Fine Jewelry, PNM (across from the KIMO) the Sunshine, KIMO, State and the El Ray movie theaters, just to mention a few.

Around 1965, from San Pedro going east and north east was basically vacant land that was developed over the subsequent years with many homes built by Mossman Gladden Homes and Dale Bellamah Homes.

The original Albuquerque Convention Center was built in the late 1960’s as was the old 5 story Frank Horan City Hall building and the 4 story downtown main police station were built and still stand on property that was condemned in the name of “urban renewal”.

To the north of the original convention center was built the “Hilton Double Tree” hotel, 201 Marquette, NW, built in 1975, to serve the convention center and the “semi-circular” architecture portion of the hotel was supposedly inspired by “hot air” balloons and originally painted in various colors.

During urban renewal, many residential areas downtown were demolished and replaced by office buildings and it had an impact on retail businesses along Central Downtown.

The 14-floor building known today as the New Mexico Bank and Trust Building, 3701 4Th Street, NW was opened in 1960.

The 13 story Dennis Chavez federal office building at 500 Gold, SW opened in 1965.

Both the 18 floor Compass bank building, 505 Marquette, NW and 12 story PNM office building, 414 Silver, SW, were built in the mid 1960’s and both opened in 1966.

The 6 story First Plaza building, 200 3rd St, NW, was completed in 1972 and was the corporate headquarters of First National Bank owned by the Maloof Family.

The 16 story Wells Fargo Building at 200 Lomas, NW opened in 1973.

The 10-story Bank of the West and Davita Medical building complex at 303 Roma, NW with parking structure across from the Wells Fargo Bank on Lomas also opened in 1973.

The 8 floor, city owned, Plaza Del Sol, 600 2nd, was opened in 1975 and was originally a bank building.

The 8 floor AT&T building at 111 3rd NW, was built in 1978.

The 8th floor “Plaza Campana” 400 Tijeras the houses Molina Health care was built in 1981 and has gone under significant renovations over the years.

Locally owned banks such as First National Bank, owned by the George G. Maloof family and Albuquerque National Bank started to establish branch banking before the banks were bought by bigger national banks.

It was not until the early 1980’s that the City-County Government Center, 11 story building located at 1 Civic Plaza west of the plaza and located between the Frank Horan City Hall building and the old District Courthouse was erected.

Urban renewal in the 1960s and 1970’s gutted or demolished many historic and government buildings in downtown Albuquerque.

The Alvarado hotel at 1st and Central was demolished in 1970.

The Franciscan Hotel at 5th and Central was demolished in 1972.

Parking lots replaced both the Alvarado and the Franciscan Hotels.

The demolition of the Franciscan Hotel and the Alvarado Hotel and restaurant contributed significantly to the demise of the downtown area.

The distinctly dome designed Albuquerque Civic Auditorium east of the old St. Joseph’s Hospital opened in 1957 and was demolished in 1987 and a city own entertainment venue never replaced it.

At one time, the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce offices were located at the Albuquerque Civic Auditorium when the dynamic and visionary GY Fails was the executive director for many years.

Two businesses that have survived for decades on Central downtown have been the “The Men’s Hat Shop” and “Skip Mazel’s Indian Jewelry and Crafts Trading”.

It was with the building of the major retail shopping malls in the 1960s and when the city growth and population began spreading to the East and North East when the downtown area very slowly began to wither and die.

Winrock mall was opened March, 1961, Coronado Shopping Center was opened March, 1965 and both were “open malls” and two of the very first malls ever opened in the county.

Both Winrock and Coronado have expanded and transformed various times from open malls to closed indoor malls

Winrock basically closed down for years with only the Dillard’s Men’s and Women’s locations and is now going through yet another transformation.

The “Uptown” Commons stores complex was opened in 2006 and built on the original site of St. Pius High School.

After urban renewal of the 1960s and 1970s, Albuquerque’s population growth continued to the North East Heights with Coronado Shopping Center and Winrock eventually replacing the Downton retail shopping area of the city with many of the national downtown retail stores relocating to the malls such as Sears, JC Penny’s and Wards’.

In the early to mid-1980’s, the City Council attempted to revitalize Downtown as a place to go with the multimillion dollar “Festival Market Place”.

The Festival Market place was intended to be a large entertainment venue where civic plaza now sits and nearby areas.

“Concerned Citizens” of Albuquerque mounted a voter initiative to put it on the ballot that killed the festival market place.

After the demise of the Festival Market Place at the polls, the City Council exerted itself even further with Downtown revitalization by pushing the expansion of the Albuquerque Convention Center with the major addition of an east wing and a parking structure.

The 21 story Hyatte Regency and 22 story Albuquerque Plaza complex, which opened in 1990, were built in part with city bonding to coincide with the convention center expansion.

From 1985 to 1989, the Albuquerque City Council continued with efforts to try to revitalize in part Downtown Albuquerque.

In 1987, the City Council enacted the 10-year quarter cent “Quality of Life” tax which included funding for a Performing Arts Center, the Children’s Science Museum, the Botanical Gardens, the Albuquerque Aquarium and the Balloon Museum and the acquisition of critical open space in the Sandia foothills.

The Children’s Science Museum, the Botanical Gardens, the Albuquerque Aquarium and the Balloon Museum were all constructed.

The performing arts center was originally proposed to be built at a cost of $60 million and was to be built on the city vacant land located directly north of Civic Plaza in an effort to revitalize downtown.

Another voter petition drive initiative was undertaken that forced a vote on the proposed performing arts center and voters said no to the project.

From 1990 to 1994, downtown revitalization took the form of trying to build a new baseball stadium in the area of Broadway and Lomas to again revitalize the area and bring people to downtown.

Relocating the baseball stadium failed and the old baseball park for the “Dukes” baseball team was leveled and rebuilt calling it a “remodeling” and the stadium was renamed “Isotopes Park” after the city was able to lure another professional baseball team.

The BioPark, with the Rio Grande Zoo, aquarium and botanical gardens, is the number one tourist attraction in the State of New Mexico.

During the 2015 municipal election, Albuquerque voters wisely approved with an overwhelming majority the voter petition drive initiative to increase the gross receipts tax for the BioPark.

The tax will raise $255 million dollars over 15 years for the BioPark.

There are $40 million dollars in upgrades and exhibits needed to the BioPark facilities and without making those repairs, the city risks losing many national certifications.

COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS

“Downtown Albuquerque” has become the government and financial district for the city with the location of city hall, the City/County Government Center, the Metro Court, State District Court, the Federal Courts, the Social Security Administration, the main bank branches of Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Bank of the West Compass Bank and other banks and government agencies.

The center of Albuquerque and the new “downtown” is the uptown area of the city consisting of Coronado Shopping Center, the many shops at the Commons at Uptown, the Winrock development that will include even more retail shops and even luxury housing when it’s done not to mention all the restaurants that have popped up in the area with even more planned not to mention the commercial office space in the area.

Mayor Keller’s emphasis on Downtown revitalization and tourism should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone.

Frankly it is doubtful much will be accomplished and it is misguided on many levels.

Mayor Tim Keller is not proposing anything dramatic nor visionary to revitalize Downtown Albuquerque which is very disappointing given the platform of change and economic development he ran on.

Increasing law enforcement presence that is sorely needed and again trying to restore the historic Albuquerque Rail Yards is commendable, but is not a game changer and far more can and must be done.

The entire city has in fact “outgrown” and left downtown in many respects.

Make no mistake, the “Downtown Central” area must and can be revitalized because of its historical significance and being a part of historic Route 66.

Downtown Albuquerque is the sole of the city because of the history it represents.

There has been a very large number of multi-story apartments and condos developed directly south of Central between 1st Street and 6th Street within the past 10 years along with the Silver Street “grocery store” in one of the developments.

The residential developments are Downtown’s biggest hope yet for Downtown revitalization because it will sustain vibrant downtown activity, where people can live, raise a family and work and play which is the “walkable city” concept.

The Albuquerque High School condos and the Lobo Rainforest Building and Innovate Albuquerque development across the street at Broadway and Central will no doubt help with Downtown revitalization.

The “One Central” development located at 1st Street and Central, which is now opened, is a public-private mixed-use development, including at least 39,000 square feet of commercial space with an entertainment tenant initially described as an upscale bowling alley with at least two other retail or restaurant tenants, 60 residential units and a 429-space parking garage.

https://www.pressreader.com/usa/albuquerque-journal/20180830/281513637023190

Downtown Central dodged a fatal bullet when the decision was made not to run the ART Bus project and by pass the area entirely.

When the Albuquerque Civic Auditorium was demolished, the City did not replace it with any entertainment venue its size

With the demolition of the Civic Auditorium, Albuquerque began to rely heavily on “Pope Joy Hall” and “The Pit” as entertainment venues and later the Hispanic Cultural Center with its state-of-the-art venue.

The City should explore reinventing and changing the branding of the Downtown Albuquerque Central with an emphasis on historical Route 66.

An arts or entertainment district development that will expand further the new entertainment complex on 1st and Central should be explored.

The building of an entertainment venue for 5,000 to 6,000 people such as the civic auditorium with another dome type facility can be explored.

Rather trying to attempt to again remodel the convention center for an arena with bleachers that has been proposed, City Hall should place on the ballot a voter initiative to build a downtown, multipurpose entertainment and sports arena.

The number one tourist attraction in the State of New Mexico is the Bio-Park.

The City needs to expedite expansion and repairs to the of the Bio-Park wherever it can with the upgrades and repairs to the facilities.

Old Town will always be a critical component of Downtown Revitalization and projects to enhance Old Town, including expansion of the Albuquerque Museum and Children’s museums should be developed.

One project for the City to consider is acquire the “Romero Residence” on Old Town Plaza, convert it to a “Mayor’s Residence” to be used not for living but for City and ceremonial events.

Mayor Keller has time to make a difference in downtown revitalization if he really wants to but our city will not “rise and fall on downtown” as he claims especially if he fails as all other Mayor’s and City Councils before him have failed with downtown revitalization.

For more on economic development and growth see:

Investing In Ourselves To Achieve Economic Development

On August 27, 2018, Senator John McCain’s former campaign manager Rick Davis, acting as a spokesperson for the McCain family, read aloud the text of the late senator’s final letter to the public. “These are John’s words,” he said. What follows is a transcription of what Davis read:

“My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for 60 years, and especially my fellow Arizonians, thank you for the privilege of serving you, and for the rewarding life that service in uniform and in public office has allowed me to lead.

I’ve tried to serve our country honorably. I’ve made mistakes, but I hope my love for America will be weighed favorably against them. I’ve often observed that I am the luckiest person on Earth. I feel that way even now, as I prepare for the end of my life. I’ve loved my life, all of it. I’ve had experiences, adventures, friendships, enough for 10 satisfying lives, and I am so thankful. Like most people, I have regrets. But I would not trade a day of my life in good or bad times for the best day of anybody else’s.

I owe this satisfaction to the love of my family. One man has never had a more loving wife or children he was prouder of than I am of mine. And I owe it to America to be connected to America’s causes: Liberty, equal justice, and respect for the dignity of all people brings happiness more sublime than life’s fleeting pleasures. Our identities and sense of worth were not circumscribed, but are enlarged by serving good causes bigger than ourselves.

Fellow Americans, that association has meant more to me than any other. I lived and died a proud American. We are citizens of the world’s greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil. We are blessed and are a blessing to humanity when we uphold and advance those ideals at home and in the world. We have helped liberate more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history, and we have acquired great wealth and power in the progress.

We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down; when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.
We are 325 million opinionated, vociferous individuals. We argue and compete and sometimes even vilify each other in our raucous public debates. But we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country, we will get through these challenging times. We will come through them stronger than before, we always do.

Ten years ago I had the privilege to concede defeat in the election for president. I want to end my farewell to you with heartfelt faith in Americans that I felt so powerfully that evening. I feel it powerfully still.

Do not despair of our present difficulties. We believe always in the promise and greatness of America because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit, we never surrender, we never hide from history. We make history. Farewell fellow Americans, God bless you, and God bless America.”

MEGHAN McCAINS EULOGY TO HER FATHER JOHN McCAIN

“The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for, and I hate very much to leave it.” When Ernest Hemingway’s Robert Jordan, at the close For Whom the Bell Tolls lies wounded, waiting for his last fight, these are among his final thoughts. My father had every reason to think the world was an awful place. My father had every reason to think the world was not worth fighting for. My father had every reason to think the world was worth leaving. He did not think any of those things. Like the hero of his favorite book, John McCain took the opposite view: You had to have a lot of luck to have had such a good life.

I am here before you today saying the words I have never wanted to say, giving the speech I have never wanted to give. Feeling the loss I have never wanted to feel. My father is gone, John Sidney McCain III was many things. He was a sailor, he was an aviator, he was a husband, he was a warrior, he was a prisoner, he was a hero, he was a congressman, he was a senator, he was nominee for president of the United States. These are all of the titles and roles of a life that’s been well-lived. They’re not the greatest of his titles nor the most important of his roles.

He was a great man. We gather to mourn the passing of American greatness, the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice, those that live lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served.

He was a great fire who burned bright. In the past few days, my family and I have heard from so many of those Americans who stood in the warmth and light of his fire and found it illuminated what’s best about them. We are grateful to them because they’re grateful to him. A few have resented that fire for the light it cast upon them for the truth it revealed about their character, but my father never cared what they thought and even that small number still have the opportunity as long as they draw breath to live up to the example of John McCain.

My father was a great man. He was a great warrior. He was a great American. I admired him for all of these things, but I love him because he was a great father. My father knew what it was like to grow up in the shadow of greatness, he did just as his father had done before him. He was the son of a great admiral who was also the son of a great admiral. When it came time for the third John Sidney McCain to be a man, he had no choice but to walk in the same path. He had to become a sailor. He had to go to war. He had to have his shot at becoming a great admiral as they also had done. The past of his father and grandfather led my father to the Hanoi Hilton. This is where all of the biography, campaign literature say he showed his character, his patriotism, his faith, his endurance in the worst of possible circumstances. This is where we learned who John McCain truly was. And all is very true except for the last part.

Today I want to share with you where I found out who John McCain truly was and wasn’t in the Hilton. It wasn’t in the cockpit of a fast and lethal fighter jet or on the campaign trail. John McCain was in all those places, but the best of him was somewhere else, the best of John McCain, the greatest of his titles and the most important of his roles was as a father.

Imagine the warrior the night of the skies gently carrying his little girl to bed. Imagine the dashing aviator who took his aircraft, hurdling off pitching decks in the South China Seas, kissing the hurt when I fell and skinned my knee. Imagine the distinguished statesman who counseled presidents singing with his girl in Oak Creek during a rainstorm to singing in the rain. Imagine the senator fierce conscience of the nation’s best self taking his 14-year-old daughter out of school because he believed I would learn more about America at the town halls he held across the country. Imagine the loyal veteran with his eyes shining with happiness as he gave blessing for his grown daughter’s marriage.

You all have to imagine that. I don’t have to because I lived it all. I know who he was. I know what defined him. I got to see it every single day of my blessed life.

John McCain was not defined by prison, by the Navy, by the Senate, by the Republican Party or by any single one of the deeds in his absolutely extraordinary life. John McCain was defined by love.

Several of you in the pews that crossed swords with him or found yourselves on the receiving end of his famous temper or were at a cross purpose to him on anything, are doing your best to stay stone faced. Don’t. You know full well if John McCain were in your shoes today, he would be using some salty word while my mother jabbed him in the arm in embarrassment. He would look back at her and grumble, maybe stop talking, but he would keep grinning. She was the only one who could do that.

On their first date when he still did not know what sort of woman she was, he recited a poem called The Cremation of Sam McGee about an Alaskan prospector who welcomed his cremation as the only way to get warm in the icy north. “Strange things done in the midnight sun. The arctic trails have secret tales that would make your blood run cold.” He learned it in Hanoi. A prisoner rapped it out in code over and over during years of captivity. My father knew if she would sit through that, appreciate the dark humor that had seen him through so many years of imprisonment, she might sit through a lifetime with him as well, and she did.

John McCain was defined by love. This love of my father for my mother was the most fierce and lasting of them all, Mom. Let me tell you what love meant to John McCain and to me.

As much as he comforts, he was endlessly present for us, and though we did not always understand it, he was always teaching. He didn’t expect us to be like him. His worldly achievement was to be better than him. Armed with his wisdom, informed by his experiences, long before we were old enough to assemble our own. As a girl I didn’t appreciate what I most fully appreciate now; how he suffered and how he bore it with a stoic silence that was once the mark of an American man. I came to appreciate it first when he demanded it of me. I was a small girl, thrown from a horse and crying from a busted collarbone. My dad picked me up. He took me to the doctor, he got me all fixed up. Then he immediately took me back home and made me get back on the same horse. I was furious at him as a child, but how I love him for it now.

My father knew pain and suffering with an intimacy and immediacy most of us are blessed never to have endured. He was shot down, he was crippled, he was beaten, starved, tortured and humiliated. That pain never left him. The cruelty of his Communist captors ensured he would never raise his arms above his head for the rest of his life, yet he survived, yet he endured. Yet he triumphed. And there was this man who had been through all that with a little girl that didn’t want to get back on her horse.

COMMENTARY

In her eulogy to her father Senator John McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain said in part “We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness. … The real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly.”

Meghan McCain also added the sentence “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great” and the line was met with immediate loud applause.

I seriously doubt if Trump’s daughter Ivanka and his son in law Jared Cushner, who were in attendance, clapped.

John McCain, thank you for your service to this great country of ours.

Vija Con Dios Senator McCain.