See? El Vado wasn’t in that bad of shape after all December 15, 2005
Posted by Ron in Motels, Preservation.1 comment so far
A report by the Albuquerque Tribune about the Landmarks Commission recommending that El Vado Motel be designated as a landmark was published this afternoon. I won’t repeat it here, since most of the basic facts were reported on this site earlier today. But there’s this interesting snippet:
While public comment was made for and against the designation, commissioners ultimately based their decision on their private tours of the building last month.
“I was amazed at the good condition of El Vado,” Commissioner Barbara Maddox said. “I have seen properties in far worse condition be restored.”
New owner Richard Gonzales keeps harping about the alleged poor condition of El Vado. Yet his statements don’t stand up to scrutiny — especially by people who’ve actually inspected the property.
Landmark status for El Vado Motel recommended December 15, 2005
Posted by Ron in Motels, Preservation.4 comments
Here’s the short version of this: Route 66 wins.
On Wednesday, the City of Albuquerque’s Landmarks & Urban Conservation Commission unanimously recommended that El Vado Motel on Route 66 be designated a city landmark.
A city staffer told me today that the landmark recommendation has to receive final approval from the city council in the next 90 days. However, the staffer told me that even in the interim, El Vado is protected as a landmark.
So new owner Richard Gonzales can do nothing to alter the property until the city council decides otherwise.
On a related note, Gonzales’ application to change the zoning of El Vado from commercial to residential has been deferred indefinitely.
Congratulations, Route 66 aficionados. You protested the proposal to raze El Vado, and the city of Albuquerque heard you loud and clear.
Yukon’s historic grain elevators endangered December 15, 2005
Posted by Ron in Attractions, Businesses.1 comment so far
Route 66 travelers driving west into Yukon, Okla., typically have been greeted by the huge grain elevators and a big lighted sign, “Yukon’s Best Flour.”
Now the Daily Oklahoman reports that the elevators are up for sale for $1.75 million. The reason? Urban sprawl around Oklahoma City has greatly reduced wheat acreage in the region. When less wheat is being grown, you have less revenue coming into the grain elevator.
“I know a lot of Yukon residents are really going to miss it,” said Sandy Meier, executive director of the Yukon Chamber of Commerce, noting that she bought cottonseed mulch from the co-op every spring for landscaping.
Meier said Yukon leaders hope the elevator — or at least the farm store — will be bought by someone who reopens it.
“Hopefully, they’ll sell it and it will remain as the (center of) our downtown agriculture business,” she said.
Carl T. Avey, who has the Yukon property listed with Thomas Lay Realtors, said the types of property for sale in Yukon — the elevators, warehouses and a retail store, all straddling Main Street, which is historic Route 66 — should make it appealing to different types of buyers.
However, it probably won’t be appealing to another grain-buying and storage business.
“We’re hoping they wouldn’t have to tear those down, but if the new owner wouldn’t want them, they could be flattened,” Avey said.
There’s no word on what would happen to the “Yukon’s Best Flour” sign, which was restored a few years ago and is lighted nightly.
A reading list — 30 years ago and now December 15, 2005
Posted by Ron in Books, People, Web sites.add a comment
Lynne Murray, who’s an author based in San Francisco, kept a spiral notebook journal 30 years ago on what she was reading. She uses her blog to re-examine what she read three decades ago and what she’s reading now.
Murray is reading two books that have Route 66 connections. She gives summaries of both:
Lost America: The Abandoned Roadside West, Troy Paiva (foreword Stan Ridgway): I started with Paiva’s web site at www.lostamerica.com where you can see his photographs taken at night of abandoned places. Drive-in movies, the decaying resort around the Salton Sea, ghosts of former military bases — photographed to bring out an eerie beauty. I immediately wanted the book as a gift for my road warrior, younger brother. Fortunately I could get a signed copy from the author. The stories Paiva writes of his adventures taking the pictures are as colorful and wild as the photos themselves
Route 66: The Highway and Its People, Susan Croce Kelly (text), Quinta Scott (photographer): The Piava book sent me back to re-read this photo essay and history. I had originally bought it because I used some Route 66 locations in Large Target. But the book was a keeper. It’s fascinating how that Chicago to Los Angeles highway was developed in the 1920s and ’30s — the road the Joad family took out of the Dust Bowl in “The Grapes of Wrath.” It boomed and played a major part in our national history through the ’70s until it was finally officially replaced by five interstates by 1985. My father and brother drove on it from Los Angeles to Chicago in the 1970s, and even then it took some doing to find it in places.
The Croce Kelly-Scott book is particularly invaluable because it shows people and places that are long gone. It was one of the first Route 66 books after the highway was decommissioned. Also, Scott’s “Along Route 66″ is an extraordinary collection of photographs of Route 66 businesses, some dating back more than 25 years.
