Albuquerque Audio Walking Tour

Highlights

• University of New Mexico

  Ahead of you spreads a public research university whose Spanish name, Universidad de Nuevo México, still appears on its official seal. Founded in 1889 by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature, UNM is the state's second oldest university, a flagship institution and, with 22,630 students in 2023, the largest by enrollment.

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  Old Albuquerque High School

  Look northeast of Central and Broadway, where five Gothic Revival buildings of the old Albuquerque High School campus in Huning Highlands gather around a courtyard. Here, on the northeast corner of Central and Broadway NE at the center of an area now called East Downtown or EDo, five buildings gather around a central courtyard.

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  KiMo Theater

  Oreste and Maria Bachechi's KiMo Theatre holds the northeast corner of Central Avenue and Fifth Street in Albuquerque, a Pueblo Deco landmark since 1927. Built in 1927, the KiMo is an extravagant example of Pueblo Deco—a deliberate blend of adobe-style Pueblo Revival forms with decorative motifs drawn from indigenous cultures and the soaring lines and linear repetition of American Art Deco.

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  Old Town Albuquerque

  Picture this plaza in 1706, when governor Francisco Cuervo y Valdés founded the town for Nuevo México's Spanish crown. This is a place layered with earlier lives; before it became a Spanish provincial town, Diné, Pueblo, Apache, Tiwa and other indigenous peoples lived here.

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  San Felipe de Neri Church

  Notice San Felipe de Neri Church rising on the north side of Old Town Plaza in Albuquerque. Built in 1793, this is one of the oldest surviving buildings in the city and the only building in Old Town proven to date to the Spanish colonial period.

All 39 stops

• Old Town Albuquerque (Old Town)

  Picture this plaza in 1706, when governor Francisco Cuervo y Valdés founded the town for Nuevo México's Spanish crown.

• San Felipe de Neri Church (Old Town)

  Notice San Felipe de Neri Church rising on the north side of Old Town Plaza in Albuquerque.

• Albuquerque Museum (Old Town)

  Here in Old Town, the low, sand-colored walls in front of you belong to the Albuquerque Museum, once known as the Albuquerque Museum of Art…

• Salvador Armijo House (Old Town)

  This hacienda facing you dates to the 1840s, built by the merchant Salvador Armijo.

• Charles A. Bottger House (Old Town)

  This square, two-and-a-half-story American Foursquare rising in front of you was built in 1911 for Charles A. Bottger (1872–1914), a German-American businessman who left Rutherford…

• J.R. Willis House and La Miradora Apartments (Old Town)

  In front of you spreads a Spanish-Pueblo Revival compound known today as Casas de Suenos Old Town Country Inn, the J. R. Willis House and…

• ¡Explora! Science Center and Children's Museum (Old Town Albuquerque)

  Explora, the science center just near Old Town Albuquerque, takes its name from a Spanish command: explore.

• New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (Old Town Albuquerque)

  Ahead of you, near Old Town Albuquerque, rises the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, a public revenue facility of the state's Department…

• Rio Grande Botanic Garden (Albuquerque)

  Beside the Rio Grande at 2601 Central Avenue NW sits the ABQ Biopark Botanic Garden, thirty-six acres of dryland beauty.

• Albuquerque Aquarium (Albuquerque Biological Park)

  Right next door to the Botanic Garden, the ABQ BioPark Aquarium opens onto saltwater worlds far from any desert.

• ABQ BioPark Zoo (Albuquerque)

  Ahead lies the ABQ BioPark Zoo, 64 acres of habitats that trace back to 1927, when it opened as the Rio Grande Zoo.

• Tingley Beach (Albuquerque Biological Park)

  Look south of Central Avenue along the east bank of the Rio Grande, where Tingley Beach anchors the Albuquerque Biological Park.

• Rio Grande Valley State Park (Albuquerque)

  Picture this ribbon of bosque along the Rio Grande, protected as a state park since 1983.

• Barelas (Barelas)

  Immediately south of Downtown, Barelas traces a rough triangle just north of where you now enter Albuquerque's oldest neighborhood.

• Santa Fe Railway Shops (Barelas)

  Eighteen buildings raised between 1915 and 1925 still stand at downtown's southern edge, in the Barelas neighborhood you're walking through now.

• AT&SF Freight Office (Downtown Albuquerque)

  Pebble-dash stucco covers the AT&SF Freight Office, built in Downtown Albuquerque in 1946 by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

• El Modelo (Barelas)

  Refugio and Carmen Garcia opened their tortilla factory here in 1929, and El Modelo still holds that corner of Barelas, in Albuquerque.

• Huning Highlands (Huning Highlands)

  Just east of Downtown Albuquerque, rows of Victorian rooflines mark the neighborhood known as EDo, or East Downtown.

• Whittlesey House (Huning Highlands)

  Three stories of logs and stone make up the Whittlesey House, tucked into the Huning Highlands of Albuquerque and now home to the Albuquerque Press…

• Old Albuquerque High School (Huning Highlands)

  Look northeast of Central and Broadway, where five Gothic Revival buildings of the old Albuquerque High School campus in Huning Highlands gather around a courtyard.

• Old Main Library (Huning Highlands)

  This Pueblo Revival building in Huning Highlands dates to 1925, when it opened as Albuquerque's new Main Library.

• KiMo Theater (Albuquerque)

  Oreste and Maria Bachechi's KiMo Theatre holds the northeast corner of Central Avenue and Fifth Street in Albuquerque, a Pueblo Deco landmark since 1927.

• Sunshine Building (Downtown Albuquerque)

  Look up at this six-story downtown landmark that has watched the corner change for a century.

• Simms Building (Downtown Albuquerque)

  Glass curtain walls rise thirteen stories above you, marking Albuquerque's first true modernist skyline.

• Rosenwald Building (Downtown Albuquerque)

  Henry Trost of the El Paso firm Trost & Trost designed the Rosenwald Building, the massive three-story landmark in Downtown Albuquerque that went up in…

• S. H. Kress Building (Downtown Albuquerque)

  This flat-roofed department store on the corner has watched downtown Albuquerque change since 1925.

• First Methodist Episcopal Church (Downtown Albuquerque)

  Chartered in 1880, the First United Methodist Church of downtown Albuquerque still gathers on the site in front of you.

• Albuquerque Plaza (Downtown Albuquerque)

  Albuquerque Plaza, also known as the WaFd Bank Building, rises 351 feet on the south side of Civic Plaza at 201 Third Street NW, the…

• Occidental Life Building (Downtown Albuquerque)

  Venetian Gothic Revival shapes the Occidental Life Building, opened in 1917 to Henry Trost's design.

• Hotel Andaluz (Downtown Albuquerque)

  Ten stories of earthtone stucco rise above you here, marking Hotel Andaluz, which first opened its doors on June 9, 1939 as the Hilton Hotel.

• Wool Warehouse (Warehouse District)

  Frank Bond's Wool Warehouse, originally the New Mexico–Arizona Wool Warehouse, faces you in Albuquerque's Warehouse District.

• University of New Mexico (Central Albuquerque)

  Ahead of you spreads a public research university whose Spanish name, Universidad de Nuevo México, still appears on its official seal.

• Scholes Hall (University of New Mexico)

  John Gaw Meem's Scholes Hall, the historic administration building of the University of New Mexico, is the Pueblo Revival landmark you have reached on the…

• Zimmerman Library (University of New Mexico)

  Look toward the center of the University of New Mexico campus in Albuquerque, where Zimmerman Library rises as one of John Gaw Meem's most notable…

• Hodgin Hall (University of New Mexico campus)

  Hodgin Hall, the University Building once called the Main Building or Administration Building, has stood on this campus since 1892.

• Estufa (University of New Mexico campus)

  Kiva-like and windowless, the small adobe Estufa sits tucked on the University of New Mexico campus, close enough for you to touch.

• Jonson Gallery (University of New Mexico)

  Raymond Jonson, the modernist painter, lived upstairs and kept his gallery downstairs in the Jonson Gallery, the modest Pueblo Revival building you see here, completed…

• University of New Mexico Art Museum (University of New Mexico)

  Nearly 30,000 objects, the largest collection of fine art in New Mexico, live inside the University of New Mexico Art Museum, the campus institution in…

• Frontier Restaurant (University of New Mexico / Central Avenue)

  Right across from the University of New Mexico campus, this barn-shaped diner has been dishing out New Mexican cuisine to Albuquerque students since 1971.

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