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> These photos were taken in an "older" area of Albuquerque, and
> houses were built in a certain style/size ....
Right. I can't emphasize enough how similar the area is to places you'll find in the pre-war parts of California. Similar, but with more pueblo-revival style to be found.
It might be good to take a couple of shots this July and fix it up so one can click [March]-click [July]-click [March] and so on for some select homes. The difference that lush vegetaion makes is quite striking.
Some of the down-the-hill views will really be different.
Actually, just a few blocks S of Nob Hill is the Ridgecrest area which is also quite nice with few similarities from house-to-house. I'd say the houses there are on the order of 800-1,500 sq ft larger with some bordering on mansion status.
Again, my tour is pretty representative of Nob Hill and when we refer to it, the tour can be used to get a mental picture. I've walked every street and alley in every direction at one time or another.
This is a neighborhood with alleys and garages that open up to the alley. That's old school.
> Originally Posted by jrod2828
> > That place looks like Mexico.
> ... comparing Nob Hill to Mexico. ...
I'm Ok with that. If you have only had experience in anyplace E of the Mississippi then this is culture shock, architecturally.
If you had never been here, I could see Nob Hill being what one had pictured parts of Mexico to be like.
I think that is why so many people gravitate to Rio Rancho because that gives newcomers a familiar 'style' to work with. At street level, you can't tell by looking whether you are in Albuquerque, or Phoenix. Sometimes, you can't tell if you are in Albuquerque or Atlanta. That's what's going to sell some people.
I grew up in a house built in 1928 (after the 1913 floods in Dayton on higher ground). It had solid oak floors (*) with brass weatherstripping around windows and doors and all sorts of nickel or brass fixtures. I think it has a current market value of about $240-280k. I don't think you could build it for less than $1 million now.
An old girlfriend of mine lived in a house that was only a couple years old and said that such an old house gave her the creeps. She said that anything that old must have rats.
(*) A big problem these days is tree poachers. They go into fairly remote areas and cut down big specimens of Oak, Maple, Walnut, grab the biggest sections and take off leaving lots of perfectly good, usable wood to rot. The theft might not get discovered for years. Some mature specimens can be worth six figures. Maple and Walnut can be especially desireable since they go into expensive automobiles.
Again, nothing against the look of ABQ. It's just different and looks mexican to me. I'm sure there is a huge difference between NM and Mexico but I don't know what that is yet. Speaking of that, what is the difference between the 2 in terms of food, culture, home styles, etc.?? ... Just curious.
I totally understand where you are coming from. Albuquerque isn't really so much mexican as it is Spanish combined with the Local Pueblo Indians (though that is the same thing that happened in mexico). New mexico's culture is a blend of Anglo-Ranchers/Cowboys, Mexicans, and Native Americans. New Mexican food is vastly different that Mexican. Sure we both call them enchiladas, burrittos, etc. but we use a completely different kind of chile, that you can only find in New Mexico. Homes and such are typicallky in five styles here: Suburbian Two Stories (those good old block houses), ranches, terriotorial style (red bricks that outline stucko), Pueblo Revival, and Tin Roofed Style. Google a local realtor site and take a look at the homes, you will see that there is a great variety. That being said, Pueblo Revival is the dominant architecture type in these parts. Just wait until you see our airport.
The reason that your "mexican" comment was percieved somewhat negatively is because New Mexicans are very sensitive to being referred to as part as Mexico. New Mexico has been a United States territory since before the civil war in the Mexican war. New Mexico was extremely vital for victory for U.S. victory in WWII (ie. Manhattan Project, A-Bomb, Trinity Site, Navajo Code Talkers, etc.) So New Mexicans won't take very kindly to being considered "mexican." Just FYI So if you see someone here who is "mexican" they are actually referred to as hispanic (not latino). Trust me, people here are very nice. Just don't come with alot of baggage, and you will enjoy life here famously.
I finally got a chance to take a look at this thread and the link you provided to your photographs.
What lovely pictures! And what a wonderful tour of Nob Hill.
In 1970, we lived at 432 Chama Street SE. It is a ways from Nob Hill, but so much of the architecture in your photos looks so familiar and brings back good memories for me.
Chama St. back then was mostly rental houses/apartments and many of the people who lived there were military families like we were. It was a very poor somewhat rundown area, but I always felt safe there and could go out for walks with my infant son or I could walk to the laundromat a block away and never be afraid. I am sure things are very different in that neighborhood now!
Is Nob Hill generally safe? It is certainly a lovely area. Thanks for posting your pictures.
If you click the Search box, you'll find gobs of Edgewood stuff. Once you read up a bit, you can post in that thread. Remember that you are leaving a legacy for others to search on and asking/answering inside a Nob Hill thread will just frustrate people.
If you enter [edgewood commute] you'll come up with some stuff, but you'll also pull in a bunch of stuff in other forums like Pittsburgh and Atlanta.
It's generally best to visit an advanced search engine (Yahoo!/google) and specify that the results only come from the following domain:
[www_city-data_com/forum/new-mexico/
.................................................. ........ I replaced '.' with '_' so the city-data computer won't convert it into a clickable URL.
> In 1970, we lived at 432 Chama Street SE. It is a ways from Nob Hill, ...
It's now borderline War Zone, but has some cool houses.
> Is Nob Hill generally safe?
Generally, yes. You'll see dog-walkers and stroller-pushers around there.
Recently, there was a purse-snatching and stabbing (after she complied with the demand to relinquish her purse) in the area just SE of Academy and Wyomng, so no where is totally safe.
I'd say you were more likely to be seriously annoyed than threatened on any given day in Nob Hill. (You are also more likely to be seriously amused than annoyed.)
Again, nothing against the look of ABQ. It's just different and looks mexican to me. I'm sure there is a huge difference between NM and Mexico but I don't know what that is yet. Speaking of that, what is the difference between the 2 in terms of food, culture, home styles, etc.?? ... Just curious.
Hey jrod2828,
Just an FYI for you and your wife:
I remember some xeriscaped yards in Albuqueruqe and Santa Fe that were absolutely green and actually really colorful from about April to October.
This in mind I was surfing the net for xeriscaping in that area and found this really great nursery (based in Santa Fe) that has several locations in the Middle Rio Grande Region, and offers catalogs for enviroinmentally conscience people all over the country. Apparantly they will ship plants anywhere in the US. Check this out:
I think people in New Mexico have a tendency to look at their front yards, see little or nothing growing, and then walk and park everywhere. As a result the soil is packed incredibly hard, no rain ever soaks in, and nothing can grow. (And your neighborhood runoff problems escalate.)
But if you mark off the places to walk and park and do even a little to improve the soil, then water can be retained and you can find plants that will thrive. You can either buy them at High Country Gardens or you can see what comes up. In this area (north of Santa Fe at 6,000 feet), we get Juniper, snakeweed, chamisa, and various cactus -- all of which I find attractive. Juniper is an evergreen that grows to eight-ten feet very slowly. Snakeweed, despite its name, is a round little green plant crowned with yellow flowers for most of the summer. Chamisa is hard for me to describe and there seem to be several things around here that people call Chamisa.
My favorite cactus is the pincushion, looking like its name and bearing flowers in the rainy season.
ABQ has a tremendous range of altitude -- so the plants that thrive may vary considerably.
But I wouldn't spend much money at High Country Gardens unless I improved the soil or you might be throwing your money away. Remember -- spend more on the hole than on the plant.
Oh, yeah -- Russian sage. It's an import and does so well it borders on being a weed, but it is a beautiful blue for months.
It is just three photos - looking down a couple of streets near a house that we looked at back then.
As I said, during this time, you can't get a feel for what the houses look like. It's so "foliated" that I cannot even place where the house or streets are. Even though there is an enormous aid to location - an evergreen Ponderosa Pine next to the house and both streets (looking South) appear to come to an end in these views.
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Make Albuquerque green without water.
