¡Colores!; 1401; Albuquerque's Historic Neighborhoods; Manuel's Food Market

More or less know each other pretty good as opposed to a neighborhood where nobody knows anybody. It's not a neighborhood. Right. Just a place to live. Excellent. Hang on a second. That was good. We weren't rolling yet. Okay. Okay, we're good. Okay. The red lights on. And I'm not hearing any audio. Can you count to 10 for me please? One, two, three, four. Is this clicked in? Five, six. Seven, eight, nine, ten. I know. There we go. Okay. So tell me. What do you think a neighborhood is? Yeah.

In my opinion, the neighborhood is a place to live for you. Know your neighbors. For your neighbors know you and watch out for you to say place to raise your children. More or less. It's convenient to a lot of stuff. For instance, our neighborhood is convenient to downtown. If you're a drinking man. Convenient to the hospital, to the school. That makes a neighborhood where people know each other and relate to each other. As opposed to just the place you go at night to sleep. Get up and go to work. So let me ask you that one more time. You know, I think that what you're saying, so much stuff you're saying there is really key to the theme of the program. So is the neighborhood a place where people have roots where they belong, where their history is, where their ancestry is? Oh, I see what you mean. Sure.

Sure, that's. I'll ask you one more time. So tell me, what do you think a neighborhood is? A neighborhood is a place where you can go back generations in the family. And people still live in a neighborhood. As opposed to they build new houses, new people move in. They don't know each other. Like, for instance, you can go visit your grandmother down the street. You can visit your cousins, your friends from decades. People you went to school with are still living in the neighborhood. So actually it is, you're right. It's a place where you can trace your roots back generations. That's a neighborhood, I guess. It would be a good definition. Excellent. So do you think you live in a neighborhood? And if so, why?

This, I mean, this particular neighborhood? Yeah, I mean, do you think you live in a neighborhood from a larger standpoint? Do you think that this is a neighborhood and that you live in a neighborhood? And why? Well, I don't exactly understand what your question is. What's very simple. For instance, it can start from for a second there. I ask you, do you think you speak? So do you think you live in a neighborhood? Sure. I live in a neighborhood. I know practically everybody in the community. And I can't go back generations now because I am the next generation. But definitely living in a neighborhood where I got in trouble, I could go across the street, talk to my neighbor, and he could help me in some way. As opposed to going across the street and talking to a stranger who wouldn't make it a neighborhood,

I get the sense that there's something kind of neat about that. Because not everybody has that. In fact, I would say probably very few people have that sense of neighborhood. You know, they live in a apartment or a house made out of other neighbors. That's exactly right. Neighborhoods, especially our neighborhood, everybody that lives here today was involved in saving the neighborhood several years ago. And they're the same people today that they were then that are willing to get up and be counted for a cause. Anything that's going on in the neighborhood. My neighbor down the street there, Frank Martinez. The people that live in the apartments here, they're elderly. I can't name them by name, but I know they're faces.

And certainly they come to us for help in many different areas and ways. So that would be a good definition of this neighborhood. So what's it like living here? What has changed? What stayed the same? Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, one second. There you go. So what's it like living here? The neighborhood was here long before I was. In fact, it was one of the, everybody claims that it's the older neighborhood in Albuquerque. It was, it is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Albuquerque. And during the 70s, it completely changed. It went from a blighted area. It went into a redeveloped area under urban renewal.

This neighborhood was scheduled to be relocated. And the land was scheduled to be the New Albuquerque High School. But the neighbors got together and decided that it should be a redevelopment action instead of a relocation action by urban renewal. And that was done by cooperation from all the neighbors. And that's what's neat about the neighborhood. Not only can you go across, talk to your neighbor and get some help if you need it. But they proved themselves to be willing to help. And it was a complete turnaround, which was a shock to urban renewal. And kind of a shock to us because it never had happened in that way during the history of urban renewal. Did that give you sense of pride and does it still give you sense of pride?

Certainly. Everybody's proud of the results of that. As a matter of fact, as some of the older people in the neighborhood who have died, the houses have come up. And the grandchildren have moved into those houses. Now they're part of the neighborhood, as opposed to the houses being sold to strangers. The children from the original residents have moved in. So there were three options that were offered by the urban renewal. And you could sell your house and relocate yourself wherever you wanted. Or you could sell your house to the urban renewal and have them relocate you. Or you could stay in the neighborhood and redevelop. And that was what was unique about what happened here in Martinez Town. Well, the whole Martinez Town thing is unique.

It's been written up at the university journals. It's been written up under urban renewal histories that it's the first. And I guess today the only neighborhood that was saved from complete destruction and relocation to what it is today. And you can see by going through a neighborhood. Have new parks, new housing, a new senior center, public housing. We're surrounded by public housing and most public housing is a source spot. But in our case, it has been pretty much people moving into public housing. We immediately become residents of the neighborhood. So it's a good idea for them to be integrated and have the benefits of the neighborhood. Does it give you a sense of pride to come into the store and start spending this neighborhood for a very, very long time?

And know that this store directly serves the neighborhood? Certainly, it's prideful that we were able to maintain especially the stores. Very few of these stores exist in a metropolitan area. And especially six blocks from the urban center. You don't see many stores. There used to be a lot on here, but I think we're one of the dinosaurs that slept. And it is a sense of pride that we have to be able to still service the community as a place where people can come and shop and visit. They're actually neighbors come in and we depend on them. They depend on them. They come in, they're short, a few cents, bring it back tomorrow or next day, and they still do.

Tell me about the story about about the days when people would come in and they would say, you know what? I don't have the money, but I'll have to pay it for the month. When the whole concept of running a tab, because that's, you know, most young people, I know. I want to wear these guys' monitors on a shirt. Is that something that most people, certainly, under people don't have no idea if there's not in the repertoire at all? So I think what happened here is, Manuel, my father-in-law, who built this store. And so, brick by brick, not brick, Adobe by Adobe. In his day, he said, sometimes people would come in and they were all working, whatever their job was. But they would come in and buy their groceries and just sign a ticket, not even sign a ticket. And when they got paid, they'd come in and pay their bills.

And it was a, let me say it's like taking your EBT card or your bank card. And you're going in and you buy your provisions and they swipe your card. And then, at the end of the month, you pay that bill off, but this was a cash transaction. You'd shake a person's hand. And yeah, you can have credit. And you knew the person was going to pay you. I don't know if you can do that today, but we still have people that come in and need assistance and they can get it here. I don't know how these fast food places are, but if you go in and say, I don't have any money, but I'll pay you tomorrow. We'll come in tomorrow when you got money. But that's one of the things that also defines a neighborhood is trust in the neighbors that live in the area. I think it's a good, I think it's a good, a good way to run a business in life and whatever it is you do.

So nice to have trust in your fellow man, but that's what we have here. And we do have a lot of new people in the neighborhood that come in and get information. We're like an information station also. What happened here before? Where's the smoke coming from? Why did you let McDonald's move into the neighborhood? Things like that. And it consists also of having periodic town meeting type things where people have something to get off their chest. They come in and they're not afraid to let us know what they're thinking. Good, that's excellent. Let me ask you first, what are some of the problems that the neighborhood faced in the past and then certainly faces today?

Back in the 50s I guess it was the city commission decided that this area here would be utilized for expansion by the city. And they changed the zoning from residential to commercial. And during the process you couldn't get permits to update your housing. So it was a process of blight of a neighborhood, the blighting of a neighborhood by city regulation. You couldn't go down to the city hall and I want to add a room or update my house or like that because it was a residential development and it was in a commercially zoned area.

So it was planned to obsolescence of a neighborhood. So by the time that urban when you all came in and was threatening to relocate everybody, houses were in very bad condition. As a matter of fact I've got some pictures here that I took before and after of what the housing was in this area. Can you start from one second, give me a white shot please, I need to change my address. But I'm not going to get into that. Can you tell me about the, so take it from where you talked about and now I have some photos here of the neighborhood from before. Yeah, I have some, it took some photographs here of the neighborhood before the urban renewal and you can see we had a march on city hall back in the late 60s, early 70s where we had support from people from all over the county neighborhoods. For instance, here's a, here's some from La Sierra and from all town and from different parts of the neighborhoods supported our move to redevelop the neighborhood.

We had the Archbishop here supporting our efforts to save the community and the community pretty much looked like this in a state of disrepair streets weren't paying. We were plagued by flooding. You wouldn't believe that today. We had some help from then center to Montoya when he was the senator for our neighborhood and. And Luan our US representative was here and helped us in our efforts to redo the neighborhood and really that part of the neighborhood is really interesting because in those days on the city commission where people like. The city commission was on the city commission. Remember Luis Aveira, the non political person that rent for mayor and one and spent all his time.

Am I on? Am I talking on? Yes, we're going to get sued. He was on the city commission and we had some pictures of before and what the neighborhood looks like now. For instance, the street on food was unpaved and people coming out of the old auditorium, lastly matches, came down that street. Well, anybody living on food in the morning after a wrestling match or something that happened at the auditorium would have to get up and dust themselves off before they even take a bath because of the dust that created. And then if they had a concert up there, it was always mace smell smell around the neighborhood where your eyes would burn because.

Under the under the redevelopment, all the streets were paved, flood control was instituted. We got in sewer lines. We got in storm sewer lines. The whole neighborhood was transformed from a blighted area into a modern neighborhood such as you can see here today. So controlled by the neighborhood association, which was known as the citizens information committee of my things time. And that is exactly what it was because. People that wanted to know what was going on would come to the neighborhood association. And remember and ask them questions and we were supposed to be able to answer their question. Consequently, I would say about 85 or 90% of the people that lived here before opted to stay here, which is good. Otherwise, would all be living someplace else.

And this might have been the city center they called it at that time. That's what it was scheduled to be. Good thing that didn't happen. Well, we're happy. Some people are not happy with it, but we are. Let me ask you what does what makes Martinez town different from a lot of the other neighborhoods in Africa. Switching gears here a little bit. Well, I think you just look back and you're prideful of what you were able to do with the run down neighborhood by working in conjunction with the city, the state and the government. Those three entities had to be involved in the redevelopment of my views time. You're actually in a more simple level as you work in the shop and you go out in the street and see people drive through. You almost have to look at it from a larger perspective.

I mean, what makes this neighborhood different from any other neighborhood in town? Is this the same as Francisco? Well, I think the diversity and the residents would make it so much more unique than any other neighborhood because we have a new influx of people. We have the old folks. No matter fact, public housing was built primarily to house people that were renting substandard houses from absentee landlords at that time. And then we took care of all the elderly and we took care of the people that were the original inhabitants here. So actually in all phases of the redevelopment of the neighborhood and looking at it and being prideful of the fact that you were able to accomplish that were very little money. I might cite an example, the new senior center that has just been finished recently cost almost $700,000.

About a third, about about a third and what it cost to build, rebuild the whole neighborhood because there's a little over $3.5 million in the fund to redevelop my thingies town. So you look back with pride. It's a diverse neighborhood and that some people come in with chips on their shoulder because they want to do things. Of course, they all have to go through the normal channels. We've become bureaucrats. But we listen to what people have to say. Not me anymore. I'm no longer the president, but I still get involved. Where does that fierce loyalty to this neighborhood come from?

And then again, it's one of those really sort of poorer questions. I think you might say that comes from the fact that people weren't lied to in the first process of redevelopment and so little oil. But let me sort of in a larger sense of this neighborhood. I know that there's lots of people who grew up here and they did move away. They still live here. Their parents live here, their grandparents live here, and their kids are going to live here. There's a loyalty to the community to this neighborhood. And I think that they don't move away for a lot of reasons, but I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they are so loyal to this neighborhood. They are so committed to this neighborhood. They don't want to live anywhere else. Talk to me about that. What is that? Why is it some people from different parts of town or even people from different parts of town? Because you don't understand that they won't understand. We had a lot of... I think the fact that...

It's just a nice place to live. You can't move on to paradise to move any place else. Except how we need it. But the thing is they feel secure here. And they know that if something happens in the neighborhood, there's always somebody around to help take care of it. It's just a pride in the neighborhood. I don't know if it's that fierce or not, but people that have opted to stay here wouldn't... under normal circumstances want to move any place else. And I'm not saying that other neighborhoods are not the same or that people in other neighborhoods are any different than we are. But we did it from a... We got out of the muck and mire of years of neglect to build this neighborhood.

So that's what I think might contribute to the pride. Where do you see this neighborhood in 20 years? Do you see this neighborhood still being a neighborhood? This neighborhood will be here. For a matter of fact, there's always ongoing updates of the neighborhood. Right now we're involved in the updating of the park, the lighting. There's even talk of designating. Edith is part of the old Camino Real that used to go through this neighborhood one time many, many years ago. As a matter of fact, the place where the store is built now used to be a wayhouse for stage coaches coming up from El Paso and Socorro and going up to Santa Fe in those areas. And this was a stage coach stop.

When Manuel bought the place, he raised the old stage coach and built the store here. The Camino Real, it was needed then, came around behind the store and followed the old Varelas Asekia, the ditch, all the way up into Santa Fe. As a matter of fact, they called it the Bernalio Highway because that was the only highway that you could take from one end to the other without having to defer. But it'll always be a neighborhood. Right now we're talking of having a tour path from downtown through the neighborhood with works of art, where tourists can come around and visit the neighborhood. Now with the old Albuquerque High School, the lofts, we've had people in the store that lived down there and they're curious about the neighborhood.

You notice across the street in the park there in there, that piece of art by Wiesky Menace, that's a great attraction for the neighborhood. And we expect to find more stuff like that to enhance the neighborhood. But it'll be here 40 years? 80 years, under those circumstances. So go ahead and stop tape for a second, give me a community and also talk about the two churches, which is interesting, I think in this community, the Catholic church and the Protestant church. But first tell me about the school, tell me about how important that was to this community. And it's interesting now that's one of the best schools in the city of Albuquerque. My wife went there, the whole family went there. I didn't because I didn't get here, I'm a Johnny Conn lately. I got to Albuquerque in 1939 from Las Vegas. After they let me out of the institution down there, I came over here.

I'm kidding. But the school has been there forever until the late 70s, APS discovered some flaws in the construction of the school. And immediately they took the children out of the school and housed them in another school. One was the school way up in the Northeast Heights, Aztec Elementary. I think the name of it was, but the neighborhood had been using that school for meetings of all kinds, for generations. I mean, you could see the cracks in the floor and like that, but didn't seem like they posed any danger until the engineers went in and looked at it. So an interesting thing about the school is that St. Joseph's Hospital, if you remember when they first built the new building there, the entrance was scheduled to the west side.

You remember that? Well, the entrance was at the west side, and that's the way you went into St. Joseph's Hospital. And they built it primarily because they had a letter from Dr. Spain, who was superintendent of schools back then, stating that if long fellow school and his property ever became surplus, St. Joseph would have the first opportunity to purchase the land. Can you pause right there, please? Give me a touch up. Let's see. And we had some meetings with Sister Celeste and the architects and those days about what they were going to do with the school property. And we thought that they were going to use it as a parking lot. And it was okay with the community, as long as they kept it landscaped and out of the view of the community.

But we went to a meeting and they had proposed two medical towers, shooting up from on top of that block, which further degraded the neighborhood. So we decided that a new school should be there. And with the help from the...