Homeowner mural on alley off Indian School Road NE in Alvarado Park neighborhood near Uptown in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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Homeowner mural on alley off Indian School Road NE in Alvarado Park neighborhood near Uptown in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Local pest control company van graced by a Very Large Spider, near an Albuquerque, New Mexico fast-health food outlet featuring "acai and smoothie bowls."
Location: Rush Bowls, La Cueva Town Center; 8100 Wyoming Blvd NE Suite M7; 9:18am
On May 12, 2011, 36-year-old Matt Trujillo was bicycling past Congregation B’nai Israel synagogue on his way to work when a 20-year-old on meth, speeding with a friend to get more, dropped her cigarette and ran a red light looking for it, hitting Matt. Assuming she'd already killed him, she panicked and split. Matt lingered two weeks on life support, but didn't make it.
Matt had worked a dozen years at the recreation supply store REI, where he was a manager. He'd just gotten back to town after joining a bike ride in San Francisco. His killer, Memori Hardwick, received a 9-year sentence in 2012, now long over and done.
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Ghost bikes are a type of descanso, or roadside death memorial, typically placed at or near the fatality scene by family and friends. The bikes are not functional. Like all descansos, in Albuquerque they're statutorily protected from removal; which doesn't always save them. Duke City Wheelmen has placed some 25 white ghost bikes around New Mexico.
Matt's ghost bike has been stolen twice since it was first placed by DCW on July 30, 2011. It was recovered the first time; but this bike is a complete replacement after the original got swiped in May 2015, leaving only the memorial plaque and an angry sign calling the thief a "jerk" but, in small print, requesting the bike back.
Location: Washington Street at Indian School Road NE, Albuquerque, New Mexico; 4:27pm
Benches fronting a Kohls store in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Location: 6800 Holly Ave NE near Paseo del Norte Blvd NE & Louisiana Blvd NE; 2:42pm
HBM!
1951 or '52 Chevy 3100 ½-ton "Advance Design" pickup lounges on a strip mall roof near former Route 66 (Central Ave) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
I could find no info online on this rooftruck or it's placement history. Despite its "Atlas Van Lines" detailing I could uncover nothing associating Atlas with the site. The tenant pylon for the strip mall headlines "Iglesia Profética Tabernaculo de ABBA, Visión de Águila" ("Prophetic Church Tabernacle of ABBA [a term for god], Eagle Vision"), with "Top Tier Barber Shop" listed further down... but nothing vehicle-related.
Location: 505 San Mateo Blvd NE, Albuquerque, New Mexico; 1:16 pm
Steel chair near water feature in a courtyard at 2300 Tucker Ave NE, near University of New Mexico Hospital and related buildings in Albuquerque.
— Signage for apparently lately-rechristened Alpha Dog Pet Groomers on San Pedro Dr NE in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
— Maybe they're worried about getting a Cease & Desist from Vince Gilligan (creator/showrunner for Breaking Bad [2008‐'13], filmed in Albuquerque)? Anywho, even though "Barking Bad Dog Grooming" only returns "Alpha Dog" online, at least today you'll still find Bulldog Heisenberg signage above this site.
Location: 1619 San Pedro Dr NE; 5:37pm
Mural next to a dry cleaner in Albuquerque, New Mexico's International District – otherwise known as "the War Zone."
Location: Custom Cleaners, 5900 Zuni Road SE at Valencia Drive SE; 1:37pm
This 2021 mural was designed by Santa Ana Pueblo artist Warren Montoya on behalf of the local group New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, who built the wall just for this mural. It was completed with the participation of local high schoolers.
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Text found on this mural:
— Amo! No Plomo • [translation from spanish:] Love! Not Lead
— Help • New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence
— Dedicated to People lost to Gun Violence
— Your World • My World • Your Heart • My Heart
— Faith • Hope • Love • Truth
— 66 (with flames on the 6s, exactly as found a few blocks away on the Reels and Wheels bus stop installation in front of the old Hiland Theater at 4800 Central Ave SE [former Route 66])
....okay, what exactly happens when I press this?
— In the Bay Area they've recently had cheerful satirical AI versions of Elon Musk's voice that go off at hacked street crossings, so I guess this is a 'Burque perspective, less the hacking... hopefully.
Location: Wyoming Blvd NE at Carmel Ave NE, northeast corner; Albuquerque, New Mexico; 3:16pm
Evening storm moves in over 24-hour self-serve ice and water vendor in high desert Albuquerque, New Mexico
Location: 439 San Mateo Blvd NE at Grand Ave NE; 7:45pm
—In the background the sadly-shuttered and tenantless landmark Bank of the West Tower at Central Ave NE (Route 66 back in the day), once New Mexico's tallest buildings when finished in 1963 as First National Bank Building East, still reflects the day's last light off its gold mosaic tile trim.
Whole Foods worker takes a load off in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The mural, reminiscent of a Southwestern style of hand-painted flowerpot, is called #NorthTowneBloom and was completed in June 2019, designed by Nikki Zabicki and painted in collaboration with artist Roe LiBretto. The title is in honor of the location at North Towne Plaza between a Chico's and Sandia Saloon. Just north is the better of 'Burque's two Whole Foods markets, IMHO.
Location: 5815 Wyoming Blvd NE; 4:53pm
Spirits of Walter Heisenberg and Juan de Oñate ride the door at a marijuana dispensary on Nine Mile Hill (on the town's West Mesa border) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Location: Breaking Bud Dispensary, 8715 Central Ave NW (former Route 66/the Mother Road); 8:17am
The full storefront of Breaking Bud Dispensary may be viewed here.
On Monday August 5, 2019, Alexus 'Lexy' Cortez was trying to negotiate her bike past an overgrown pyracantha (firethorn) bush when she spilled into traffic. Struck by a hit & run driver, she did not survive. The 25-year-old single mom left behind a very young son impressively named Dzatherynn Jezmuthigh Graham.
Albuquerque-based bicycle enthusiast group Duke City Wheelmen placed this Ghost Bike in honor of Lexy on Monday 08/19/19.
Ghost bikes are a type of descanso, or roadside death memorial, typically placed at or near the fatality scene by family and friends. In Albuquerque they're statutorily protected from removal but that doesn't always save them. Duke City Wheelmen has placed some 25 white ghost bikes around New Mexico.
Location: median, Louisiana Boulevard NE near Kiowa Avenue NE, Albuquerque, New Mexico; 3:07pm
Lexy Cortez obituary: www.salazarfunerals.com/obituaries/alexuslexy-cortez
One of six current locations of a celebrated Albuquerque New-Mexican fare restaurant, a few days before the location's grand reopening.
Location: 8518 Indian School Rd NE; 8:37pm
Garcia's first opened in 1975 at a hole-in-the-wall downtown at 4th & Mountain NW. Now they sell their biscochitos (cinnamon and anise butter cookies) and salsa at local grocers. The hole-in-the-wall succumbed to the pandemic and neighborhood issues in 2020, after 45 years.
Commemorative display celebrating this Mexican ice cream shop's time (2015-'16) as a cable TV shooting location for 5 episodes of the Breaking Bad series Better Call Saul. The shop played 'El Griego Guiñador', the lair of baddie character favorite Hector Salamanca.
An ofrenda is a homemade shrine, often commemorating a beloved who has passed.
Location: paletería La Michoacana de Paquime; 6500 Zuni Rd SE, Albuquerque, New Mexico; 6:11pm
La Michoacana's real shopfront can be seen here.
Paleterías everywhere are called "Michoacana" like this one; but in Better Call Saul canon "El Griego Guiñador" ('The Winking Greek') was so named by Hector in honor of his baddie boss Don Eladio, after the Greek amulet against the evil eye the Don always wears (little good it did him!).
La Michoacana's Better Call Saul episodes:
2x06 Bali Ha'i
2x07 Inflatable
2x08 Fifi
2x09 Nailed
3x04 Sabrosito
Caricature of onetime Paquimé archeological site inhabitant discovers ice cream & big gulps at Mexican paletería, or ice cream shop, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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Location: La Michoacana de Paquime; 6500 Zuni Rd SE; 6:21pm
Part of La Michoacana's shopfront on another day can be viewed here.
This shop is themed after the ancient site near Casas Grandes, Mexico. Paquimé was a regional trade and cultural center that flourished in the 14th-15th centuries in the northern México state of Chihuahua, just south of the present-day US state of New Mexico. It had significant exchange with the Southwest's Pueblo peoples. Excavated Paquimé is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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MARGINALLY RELEVANT ASIDE:
—Something I loved about the culture of Guatemala when I visited there in the mid-1980s were the many small social rituals folk practiced. –Such as, as the end of a meal, one always asked to be excused; and permission would be granted with the words, "buen provecho."
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Partially Happy front window of paletería La Michoacana de Paquime, a Mexican ice cream shop located in a part of town nicknamed the "war zone" in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
A commemorative display celebrating the Breaking Bad series Better Call Saul, which shot scenes here for five episodes, can be glimpsed inside on the opposite wall. A better view is here.
A wider view of the shopfront on another day is here.
Location: 6500 Zuni Rd SE, 6:43pm
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico; June 21, 2024, 8:19pm
Formerly known as the "National Atomic Museum" and "Sandia Atomic Museum," this repository of nuclear science relics and information was established by Congress in 1969 and moved into its present site in 2009. Exhibits fill the pictured building with its Beryllium 9 sculpture above and south of the doors.
The surrounding grounds are strewn with several dozen assorted (and presumably neutered) historic missiles, bomb types, jets and a few related miscellany, such as a reproduction of the detonation tower for the 1945 Trinity nuclear test (the first nuclear bomb explosion), partially viewable here.
