Ernst Haas: Route 66, Albuquerque, 1969
Via The New York Times
Sunday, August 11, 2013
"And in Albuquerque itself, what’s of interest?
I’ll admit that when you enter the city on either Interstate, 40 or 25 — they meet smack in the middle — Albuquerque doesn’t look, shall we say, particularly picturesque. It seems like lots of strip malls and chain restaurants. But it has a stealth charm. Once you get into the neighborhoods, you realize it possesses a great amount of culture and history and natural beauty surrounding it.
Central Avenue is a great drive. A part of Route 66, it’s still dotted with old neon motel signs like that great Ernst Haas photo. There’s a great art gallery called Mariposa Gallery and a restaurant we love called Zinc.
The Sandias, the mountains to the east, are omnipresent. Take the cable car up to a restaurant called High Finance, which is a good place to eat. It’s stark beauty up there; you can see for hundreds of miles."