The Albuquerque Tribune’s opinion page has a regular “bouquets and brickbats” feature, in which it heaps its praise or derision on what’s happening with local issues.
The Tribune sent a bouquet to the Albuquerque City Council for designating landmark status Monday night to El Vado Motel on Route 66.
Albuquerque obsessed with razing historic buildings in the 1960s and 1970s. Whole neighborhoods were leveled by urban renewal and other misguided efforts at “progress.” So even little acts of mercy deserve praise these days.
The City Council on Monday voted to make the embattled El Vado Motel at 2500 Central Ave. S.W. a city landmark, the better to spare it from destruction. The 70-year-old motel was regarded by Route 66 advocates as one of the few remaining, good examples of motel architecture from the highway’s heyday. People from all over the country protested plans to turn the property into town homes – despite the owner’s promise to spare small portions of the motel.
A couple of options now include the city working with the owner to come up with a project acceptable to both – or, as Councilor Ken Sanchez suggests, buying the property.
Neither option should be ruled out – so long as the historic building is preserved for posterity.