It’s a familiar sight at the Four Corners Monument: Tourists taking shots like this to show they can be in as many as four places all at once. Photos by Will Webber/The New Mexican
FOUR CORNERS MONUMENT — The hit show Breaking Bad may have made Albuquerque a destination spot for TV enthusiasts, but fans of the series will surely recall Episode 6 in Season 4 titled “Cornered.”
The episode is memorable for the scene where Walter White, the school teacher-turned meth cook extraordinaire, delivers his famous “I am the one who knocks” monologue to his wife, Skyler. The monument has changed significantly over the years, growing from an unprotected sandstone monolith to what it is today.
What makes it notable in this instance is its relation to a popular landmark that many New Mexicans have visited at one point or another. Like the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, the Sandia Peak Tramway or White Sands National Monument, the Four Corners Monument is one of those day trips most folks take at some point.
In “Cornered,” Skyler White drives to the Four Corners with her infant daughter and flips a coin, presumably in an attempt to decide which state to flee to as she contemplates leaving Walt. The quarter settles in Colorado both times she flips. After a moment of consideration, she slides it back into New Mexico and returns home. A aluminum-bronze plate in the center of a granite slab depicts the legal borders where New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona come together. Will Webber/The New Mexican
And with that, the monument that has become the center of accuracy debates in recent years, became just a little more famous.
The only spot in the U.S. where four states converge on a single point, the monument is interesting if only for its simplicity. At its center is a small aluminum-bronze plate that pinpoints the exact spot where the boundaries touch. It is a singular location where countless tourists have stood and taken pictures — proving once and for all that it is, indeed, possible to be in four places at once.
Speaking strictly from a Santa Fe perspective, the trip is fairly easy. Easy, that is, if you consider four and a half hours in the car an appealing thing to do.
Pre-cast tile slabs identifying each state surround the center point of the monument. Also cast in concrete are the official seals for each of the four states.
That’s how long it takes to drive from the state capital to this isolated spot run by the Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation Department. Surrounded by hundreds of square miles of high-desert scrub and rugged mountains, the monument’s appeal is in the uniqueness of its geographic significance.
To know you can stand in one spot and visit four states at one time is an odd feeling. But not as odd as knowing some of the history about the place. It became the center of what was then the territories of the four eventual states in 1863, earning its distinction as a special place when surveyors first erected a simple sandstone monolith.
That was eventually replaced by a stone, then a concrete slab with a commemorative plate. Along the way it grew from a solitary block of concrete in the middle of a dirt parking lot to what it is now; a below-grade visitation point surrounded by rows of benches, elevated sidewalks and covered booths where local artisans peddle jewelry, fry bread and just about anything else you might expect in such a setting.
All around are towering flag poles, each displaying the flags of the four states and the Indian nations that lie within. Between each of the four entry points are 4-foot stone structures with the history of each state carved into its face.
In the middle is where it all happens. In groups of one or many, each tourist takes a turn standing on the disc that signifies the four corners. Some straddle that one point; others lie down and splay out in every direction while giggling picture-takers snap away.
And just like that, you realize that’s all there is to see. In just a matter of minutes, the experience is over and reality that you’re dozens of miles from the nearest stoplight hits.
If you’re lucky, you’ll hear at least one tourist recount the media reports that surfaced a few years ago that claim the actual spot where the states converge is somewhere between 1,800 feet and 2.5 miles away, a happenstance of the antiquated technology available to surveyors who marked the monument in the 1800s.
That debate was put to rest when the federal government ruled that the monument is the legal boundary for the four states despite the fact that the true point may rest somewhere within walking distance.
With camping permits available and hiking adventures always an option, perhaps one day Skyler White will venture away from the monument and find the true Four Corners and flip again.
By: Will Webber (Santa Fe New Mexican) Click here to view source article.
The city funded or pitched in on a multitude of high-profile commercial construction projects all across the metro this year. Yes, there was the Paseo del Norte/I-25 interchange project; the city funded about $50 million of that massive $93 million project in north Albuquerque. But it was the Central Avenue corridor, particularly in and near Downtown, that reaped much of the activity and planning for future projects.
Here we look at projects that were completed and others that are in the pipeline in 2014. Click on the accompanying slideshow to see images of the projects.
Albuquerque Convention Center
This year, Bradbury Stamm Construction completed the $25 million renovation of many areas inside and outside the Convention Center. The hope is that the updated look will spur more activity in its 270,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space. It was the first overhaul of the complex since 1991.
4th Street Mall
Downtown’s 4th Street Mall, from the its intersection at Central Ave. to the south end of Civic Plaza, had long been considered a blight. The city entered worked with Wilson & Co. on designs and then tapped RMCI to do the work for a total reconstruction in 2014. The multimillion-dollar project began in earnest in late June and was completed this December. The once bleak stretch is now a two-lane street with pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly features.
Historic Rail Yards
New life emerged just south of Downtown at the city’s historic Rail Yards in 2014, where, beginning in May, tens of thousands of visitors embraced a new Sunday market. That was made possible by the $1 million city-funded clean up of the Blacksmith Shop at the almost 30-acre site. The Rail Yards have huge potential for development in the coming years, and the city finalized its master development plan with California-based Samitaur Constructs.
Downtown/EDo barrier, Entertainment District
In 2014, the city pursued a $15 million grant that would have helped remedy one of Downtown’s most pressing problems— the physical and psychological barrier between it and East Downtown. It didn’t get the grant but has said it will go after other funding to raise the pedestrian underpasses that now exist at 1st Street and Central Ave., bringing them to the surface and erasing the barrier. The project would leverage connections between the future Innovate ABQ site at Central and Broadway and the Convention Center, First Plaza Galeria and the proposed Entertainment District, which is now city-owned land at the northeast corner of 1st Street and Central Ave. City officials are looking at the ideas they have received on the Entertainment District.
Albuquerque Rapid Transit
This came closer to fruition in 2014. If all goes as planned, the first phase of ART could be in place and running along Central Ave. by 2017. ART is modeled on other similar projects across the country — a system of sleek buses with dedicated lanes that stop at raised platforms, subway style, where riders have pre-purchased tickets for quick on-and-off access. The city would be responsible for securing 20 percent of its approximate $100 million cost.
De Anza Motor Lodge Another developer dropped out, and another request for proposals was issued by the city to redevelop East Nob Hill’s city-owned De Anza Motor Lodge in 2014. A new developer is being identified now, and mixed-use proposals for the site run the gamut from restaurants to hotel rooms, apartments and a Route 66 museum.
El Vado Palindrome Communities was approved by the city in 2014 to redevelop the former El Vado Motel site on the western end of Route 66. Redevelopment costs could be almost $16 million, with a proposal calling for a food court, amphitheater, boutique motel, small events center and workforce housing.
By: Damon Scott (Albuquerque Business First) Click here to view source article.
The latest numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau show New Mexico is still losing population — one of the few states in the nation experiencing a contraction, according to a KOB TV report.
New Mexico is one of six states that lost population from July of last year to July of this year. A total of 1,323 people left the state during that time.
Coming on the heels of a loss of 8,809 residents in the preceding 12 months, the worry is that the state appears to be losing the best and brightest of its young people.
Talk to recent college graduates in New Mexico — and those who are about to graduate — and you get the picture. The career opportunities are just not here for most of them. The jobs are in Denver and Dallas and Seattle and St. Louis.
“I know a lot of different places like Colorado are looking especially for people with my degree,” said UNM Mechanical Engineering student Jimmienell Morgan. “I’m an engineering student and that’s my basis on it because I know other places are looking more for me than New Mexico is.”
The latest Census Bureau numbers show Illinois losing 9, 972 people who moved away in the period from July 2013 to July 2014. West Virginia lost 3,269, while 2,664 moved out of Connecticut. Alaska had an “out-migration” of 527 people, and Vermont lost 293.
The Census Bureau says New Mexico had an out-migration of 9,750 people from April 2010 to July 2013.
By: Mike English (Albuquerque Business First) Click here to view source article.
A Republican state senator from Albuquerque has introduced “right-to-work” legislation that would prohibit private-sector employees from being required to join a union or pay union fees as a condition of employment.
The proposal, which was widely expected after Republicans won control of the state House earlier this year, is intended to make New Mexico more appealing to companies considering relocating their business to the state, said the sponsor, Sen. Sander Rue, R-Albuquerque.
“When you talk to the folks who go out and try to pitch New Mexico to out-of-state companies, they come back and tell us there are several obstacles to getting those folks to operate here,” Rue said. “… When they come back and tell us that we don’t stay in the hunt for these out-of-state businesses to come to New Mexico in a large part because of our (lack of) right-to-work laws, then we need to do something to change it.”
New Mexico currently allows unions to require all employees covered by a contract to either be members – whether they want to or not – or pay union fees.
Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, said this month that he would oppose right-to-work legislation in New Mexico, saying the policy has not yielded the promised economic gains in states that have implemented right-to-work laws. Sanchez did not return calls for comment Monday.
Senate Majority Whip Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, said Democrats would oppose Rue’s bill. He cited data compiled by the liberal nonprofit Economic Policy Institute in 2012 that showed right-to-work states on average at higher unemployment rates, lower median wages and fewer benefits for workers.
“This is not an economic detriment, as evidenced by the numbers,” Padilla said of current New Mexico law that allows employers and unions to agree to mandate union participation.
However, right-to-work supporters such as the conservative nonprofit Rio Grande Foundation in New Mexico cite data showing right-to-work states average faster job growth, higher per capita income and faster population growth.
Excluding Colorado, all of New Mexico’s neighboring states have enacted right-to-work laws.
Rue’s proposal
The proposal would not apply to public employees unions such as local branches of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the American Federation of Teachers.
A small percentage of New Mexico’s workforce is affiliated with private-sector unions that would be affected by the law, but Rue said his proposal is focused on the message to employers considering relocating to the state.
Rue said that although he objects to the New Mexico public employees unions’ practice of requiring nonmembers to pay the unions “fair share” fees to cover contract negotiation expenses, he opted to exclude the public sector unions to focus on the economic-development potential.
“This isn’t about going after the unions for me,” he said.
Rue said he had not discussed the proposal with Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, who has voiced support for such legislation.
Martinez spokesman Michael Lonergan said the governor “supports allowing workers to decide for themselves whether to join a union or financially contribute to one, and does not believe anyone should be forced to join a union or contribute to one as a condition of employment.”
Payroll deductions
While Rue’s proposed right-to-work bill doesn’t affect public sector unions, those unions are the target of a second legislative proposal that would end the state’s practice of deducting public union dues or fees from state employees’ paychecks on behalf of the union.
The change would force the public employees unions to collect their own dues and fees directly from state workers.
“There might be a lot of folks that are having this money taken out of their checks and they’re really frustrated about it, but they have no choice,” Rue said. “For the state to be a party to that sort of thing and to provide that service to the unions is absolutely wrong.”
Other states such as Wisconsin that have prohibited union fee withdrawal from state paychecks have seen union membership and voluntary dues payments decline.
Martinez earlier this year said she supported efforts to end the state’s practice of withdrawing union fees from state workers.
Rue also said he believes the practice of withdrawing fees and paying them to public employees unions violates a clause of the state constitution that prohibits government from donating to private interests, in this case the service of collecting dues.
Padilla, the Senate Democratic whip, said he is against the proposal.
Carter Bundy, political director for the New Mexico branch of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, said payroll deductions are common in both the public and private sector.
He said the change is politically motivated to limit public employees’ unions in the state.
“I think he (Rue) knows darn well, and the administration knows, that this is a political attack that has nothing to do with the law or helping the economy,” Bundy said.
