¡Colores!; 1105; Santa Fe: New Mexico's Places of the Heart, Part 2 of 2

You has always been a community centered around church, home, and family. As Willock had the road in death comes for the Archbishop.

The longer I stayed in the Southwest, the more I felt that the story of the Catholic church was the most interesting of all its stories. The old-mission churches had a moving reality about them, the hand-carved beams and joists, the utterly unconventional frescoes, the countless fanciful figures of the saints, no two of them alike, seemed a direct expression of some real and lively human feeling. Originally built around 1625, the San Miguel Mission is believed to be the oldest church in the United States. Built by Indians brought to the area by the Spaniards, the chapel contains paintings on Buffalo Heights that date back to the early 1700s. These days, there are archaeological displays that indicate Indian occupation of the site from around 1300 AD.

Franciscan missionaries built the Santuario de Guadalupe in 1796. Dedicated to the patroness of the Americas, our Lady of Guadalupe, the Santuario is the oldest shrine in the United States built in her honor. The Adobe walls are three to five feet thick, across the altar hangs a spectacular painting of our Lady of Guadalupe by Mexican artist José de Alcilar. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church was an important focal point of our family life in the sense that we went to church every week there, like most good Catholic families. And the church held a lot of meaning from an early age in my family because my great aunt donated the painting that's above the altar, which is a large painting of our Lady of Guadalupe.

And that was always, even as a child, sort of a point of particular pride to know that your family actually had a place on the altar there. The pain of that church when I was a little girl was always kind of cool because you knew you were walking into part of your own family history. It was more than just a plain building that you went into worship. You were worshiping the weathered upon on the wall that a family member had given. It made it special and it still makes it special for me. In 1851, 25 years after St. Francis of Assisi was chosen as the diocese patron saint Jean-Baptiste Lamy came to Santa Fe and later became its first Archbishop. One of his great accomplishments is the St. Francis Cathedral, which was built around the walls of La Parroquia, which was the main Catholic church in Santa Fe built in 1710.

In contrast to the common Adobe walls in Santa Fe, the cathedral is built of stone and built by stone masons from France and Italy. The rose windows were imported from France. They had an old French priest there that had a confessional that was open and he sat on one side and then had a screen and he sat on the other side. And sometimes if he didn't hear you well or maybe he didn't like what you said, he'd reach around and pinch your cheek. So you know, that's all Santa Fe. So I should ask you, do you ever get a cheek pinch?

Yes. One of the oldest streets in Santa Fe is Canyon Road, where devotion to family and friends remain strong. With many art galleries, Canyon Road today is very different from earlier times. No more than a dozen old-time families still live along lower Canyon Road, where they have been for decades, even generations. Canyon Road, to begin with, I think is the most famous street in Santa Fe. It has to be. The reason it's so famous, of course, is because it's a huge haven of art galleries. It's a wonderful place to stroll and go to little restaurants and go into millions and millions of new galleries. You can spend an entire day in there, ducking and then back alloys and such. But to me, what's much more fascinating about it is its history.

And that history goes back way before the Spaniards had been came to New Mexico, way before 1540 when the Spanish first explored New Mexico with the Coronado Expedition. The Pecos Indians used to come to Santa Fe, the area that would become Santa Fe, and the way that they would get back to Pecos Pueblo was they would take this trail up through the canyon over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the Pecos River Valley. Well, when the Spanish arrived formally in New Mexico after 1598, and they eventually moved the capital to Santa Fe and the early 1600s, they gave the trail a name. It'll come you know that Canyon, Canyon Road in Spanish. The area took on a real agrarian character. People farmed, they grew oats, they grew corn, they grew fruit, alfalfa, irrigation ditches were established. Off of the Santa Fe River because the road was right along the south side of the Santa Fe River. And little by little houses begin to be built, Adobe houses of course.

It was an interesting way that they were built because they were built right flush with the line of the street, which is why today you drive along Canyon Road and the houses and the galleries or whatever they are, are still right flush with the street. And that is something that was a tradition in Mexico and Spain. You built houses right along the street line. You didn't have a front yard and a little white pick of fence and you built it farther off of the street. So that's how those houses got established in that way. Canyon Road for some reason had some particular appeal. So many of the early founders of the Santa Fe art colony, those early artists, began to set up households along Canyon Road as well. And that was really the beginning of sort of the arts association of Canyon Road. And I believe it was in 1951 that the name for some reason was changed from El Camino de Canyón to Canyon Road.

Today, nearly 60% of the buildings between Paseo de Peralta and Palace Avenue, house galleries and tourists account for two thirds of the traffic. Commercial rents average $20 a foot and an average home on the street sells for more than $200,000. Yet amid the rising taxes and increased bustle, many locals choose to stay, ask any of them why, and words like history, family and roots are a big part of the answer. But it's still beautiful. It's still a wonderful place to walk. And the one time a year that I'd say the community still really gets together and goes there as Christmas, Christmas Eve. The place is just lined with photo-lethos and luminarias, photo-lethos being a little paper bags with candles and then luminarias, the bonfires. And every set that he sets up these lights along the road and people walk along and watch the lights and send Christmas carols and stop into little galleries and have hot apple cider or hot chocolate or whatever.

And I think it's at that time a year that many, many locals still go back to Canary Road and begin to feel that warmth again. Let me brought with him to Santa Fe, an ideal of civilization, the marks of which can still be seen today. St. Vincent Hospital, which was run by the Sisters of Charity, St. Michael's High School, and the College of Santa Fe, which were run by Christian brothers, were marks of a more gentile society. The first public high school in Santa Fe, Santa Fe High School, opened in the late 1800s and St. Michael's High School started accepting girls in the 1960s and still exists today.

The College of Santa Fe is now on the site of the World War II era, Bruns General Hospital, which was purchased by the Archdiocese. Perhaps the University of New Mexico may have been located in Santa Fe, but according to legend, given the choice of the New State University or the State Penitentiary, the Santa Fe leaders chose the State Pen. Because they thought it would provide more jobs. Many conveniences that you used to be able to find downtown just don't exist anymore. Have you ever tried to get gas in downtown Santa Fe?

At one time you could. As downtown Santa Fe became more geared towards the lucrative tourist industry. Many old staples for the locals went by the wayside. One such place was a hardware and lumber yard called Big Joe Lumber. Nowadays, the Palacio El Dorado Hotel stands where Big Joe Lumber used to be. Big Joe Lumber Company was the utmost in a hardware store when we were growing up. They had paint. They had windows. They had all kinds of lumber. They had cement, stucco, hard plaster. They had all kinds of hardware. And then they also sold saws and drills. Anything that you needed. So they were like the forerunner of, say, home depot or furrows or something of that nature.

Big Joe, it was fascinating. They had the most beautiful knobs and just really design or kind of things. And the people that owned it could tell you exactly how to do everything. They could tell you how to refinish furniture and what to use everything for. And they were just a wealth of information. And people went down there and they had any questions. They went to Big Joe to find out how to do it. There are other places in Santa Fe that, like the rest of the country, have been phased out. One such phenomenon was the drive-in movie. Yeah, we went to the drive-ins. We went to the drive-in movies. Well, the Yuck is the only one that comes to my mind. Can you think of any of it? We tore it down. That's where, that's where Walmart is and what have you. That was late. But the Yuck will we do remember. We definitely had some good experiences. But, you know, you didn't have to get a babysitter. You just piled everybody into the car and went to the movies.

So that was a good part of it. Oh, hot summer night. I mean, they didn't go usually. Well, they did have some heaters that they put in the windows. But on a hot summer night, it was great. Just to pile the kids in the car. They'd usually go to sleep in the back seat. You didn't have to get a babysitter. That was about the only way we saw movies. Like many places that were sleepy little tones years ago, the work spread and Santa Fe grew famous worldwide. I was recently in L.A. with my husband. And we had just driven into L.A. after that, 12-hour trip. And we were at a gas station or something like that. And there was this gentleman walking by down the street. He stopped when he saw our car and he saw the New Mexico license plate. And he said to us, he said, Hey, New Mexico, you must be from Albuquerque. And my husband said, no, we're from Santa Fe. And he says, oh, you're rich people.

You pay a living Santa Fe, you must be rich. And then he just walked on down the street. And at first, it was very funny. Our first reaction was to laugh and laugh hysterically. And then I got in the car. We were driving around. And I suddenly got a little angry and just a little frustrated. Because I thought to myself, there's this image of Santa Fe that is very widespread, very prevalent, obviously. And it's an image of wealth. And I think it's so wrong. I think it's the wrong image, it's the wrong perception. Santa Fe, in as much as the roots that I have, we use a lot to be. In whatever customs we have, in customs that we have maybe lost and maybe modified.

But they have the same meaning to me today. And probably more so, as I have grown over. A lot of times you took these things for granted. And once you get out of Santa Fe and you travel the world, you can always see what these other cities are missing. In an ever-changing world, where buildings are bulldozed and shining skyscrapers are erected, Santa Fe remains unchanged. The tenets of the buildings may change, but the warmth of the stone and other walls continue to hold Santa Fe's heart.

Santa Fe is a proud city of tolerance and respect, a flux of cultures, a place of spirit and inspiration. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.