Walking Albuquerque. Stephen Ausherman

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      2 HUNING HIGHLAND: LEGACY OF THE RAILROAD AND ROUTE 66

      BOUNDARIES: Broadway Blvd., Coal Ave., Elm St., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave.

      DISTANCE: 2 miles

      DIFFICULTY: Easy

      PARKING: Free parking on Broadway Blvd., Coal Ave., Elm St., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave.

      PUBLIC TRANSIT: Buses 66 and 1618 on Central Ave. at Broadway Blvd. Numerous routes serve the area. Railrunner station is on 1st St. south of Central Ave.

      In 1880 German immigrant/merchant/entrepreneur Franz Huning platted the lots east of the newly arrived railroad. By 1888, he’d already sold 63 percent of the 536 lots. Huning’s Highland Addition, Albuquerque’s first Anglo neighborhood, reflects Anglo-American values and Victorian tastes in home design. Architectural examples include Queen Anne, Italianate, and Colonial Revival—all styles that could be ordered prefabricated in factories and delivered via the railroad. A growing fascination for and dependence on automobiles contributed to the neighborhood’s decline. The 1937 realignment of Route 66 (Central Ave.) cut it in half. In the 1960s, I-25 emerged on the eastern boundary, and liquor stores and cheap motels popped up near its intersection with Central Ave. The area was in rapid decline by the mid-1970s. Its first step toward recovery came in 1978, when the Huning Highland Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The rebound continued into the late 1990s and early 2000s with the city’s initiative to redevelop east downtown, or EDo. The new name and gentrified urban face-lift is not without its critics, and there’s still much room for improvement, but the push continues to restore and balance the celebrated characteristics of both the railroad era and the heyday of Route 66.