ABQ: Greater Downtown Neighborhoods

ALBUQUERQUE

Downtown Neighborhoods

Greater Downtown Albuquerque has around a dozen neighborhoods, depending on how they are defined—West Park, West Old Town, Old Town, the Downtown Neighborhoods area, Sawmill, Wells Park, McCellen Park, Santa Barbara/Martineztown, Huning Highland, South Broadway, Barelas, Raynolds Addition and Huning Castle (Country Club).

McCellen Park remains a neighborhood mostly in name, only. The area began to turn commercial with the original Route 66, which ran north/south from Santa Fe to south of Albuquerque, following the Rio Grande, in the 1920s. Downtown it ran along Fourth Street.

In the 1930s Route 66 was realigned to run east/west on what is now Central Avenue. It continued to run through McCellen Park and encouraged more commercial development. But it was the building of the freeways, I-25 and I-40, with the nearby interchange and subsequent industrial development, that seemed to end the residential appeal of the neighborhood.

Eventually the actual park, for which the neighborhood was named, was replaced by the federal courthouse. The building sits back from the street to mimic a park feeling. A controversial statue of a pioneer woman statue was moved to the side and back of the site.

The area is now mostly occupied by businesses and government buildings related to the courts. With new apartment buildings and condos being built in the core of Downtown, theorectically the neighborhood could be revived in a new form.