Since it’s opening on May 4, 2014, the Sunday market at the Rail Yards has grown and diversified, attracting increasing numbers of shoppers and families out for a good time. Located in downtown Albuquerque (777 First Street SW), adjacent to the Barelas and South Broadway neighborhoods, the market occupies the old Blacksmith Shop, one of the historic buildings on the 28.3 acre site that has lain idle for years. Prior to opening the Sunday market, the building was made safe; renovations included new window glass, fire-suppression, roof repair, electrical service and a 130-car parking lot just outside the main entrance (parking $1, entrance to the market free).
The old Rail Yards buildings themselves are stunning. Gigantic structures with great steel beams and multicolored window glass, one can imagine how they must have looked in the heyday of train travel. Before 1960, approximately a quarter of the city’s residents worked for the railroads. Albuquerque was an important hub, with its graceful Alvarado Hotel designed by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter. Trains pulled up at the station, and travelers had just enough time to eat a delicious Fred Harvey meal. Indigenous artists sold their wares under the eaves that bordered the platform.
By 1970, the airplane had replaced the train as America’s preferred means of travel. Many of the old railway hotels were torn down, including the Alvarado: a mistake with dire consequences for the downtowns once anchored by such hotels. The station house built to simulate the Alvarado is a poor copy. It services our city’s train and bus depot needs, but its soul is no longer intact.
It is to the credit of everyone who has been involved in redeeming our downtown—all those who envisioned new life in the old Rail Yards buildings, put up the money, and did the hard work—that these glorious structures are being reclaimed. The Blacksmith Shop is step one. The city’s marvelous music group, Chatter, drew a large audience to the concert it staged there several months back. Now the Sunday Market is becoming an anticipated weekly attraction.
The Market opened on May 4th and is scheduled to run through November 2nd. It operates each Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. According to Howie Kaibel, the community manager and marketing director for Yelp Albuquerque and one of the promoters of the Rail Yards Market: “The market will celebrate the organizations, farmers, artists, educators, musicians and culture that make New Mexico unique.” PNM is the 2014 season’s title sponsor, with additional support from Levitated Toy Factory, Presbyterian Healthcare Services, and Dekker/Perich/Sabatini.
The Rail Yards Market’s mission is to celebrate the cuisine, culture and art of Albuquerque and the State of New Mexico. Its commitment is to: preserve the legacy of a historic downtown neighborhood, gather the city’s many communities around a shared space, nurture the next generation of local entrepreneurs, create a dynamic hub for Albuquerque’s agricultural and artisanal communities, promote tourism, demonstrate one of many potential uses for the Rail Yards site, and promote the knowledge and preservation of New Mexico’s heirloom crop varieties.
I visited the Rail Yards Market for the first time on Sunday, August 3rd, and enjoyed every minute of my stay. A good crowd—couples, families with small children, even one mother with a 6-week-old baby bound to her breast—was clearly enjoying itself. The operators of the great variety of booths were uniformly welcoming and generous. Free treats were in abundance. Products including fresh produce, home-baked breads, delicious scones, fragrant tortillas, nicely-made baskets, jewelry, candied applies, refreshing fruit cocktails served in hollowed-out pineapples, artisanal soaps and scrubs, herbs, slightly used cowboy boots, garden plants, and the inevitable T-shirts were on sale.
I was delighted to find beautiful squash blossoms and immediately thought about making taquitos de flor, the tacos I used to love when I lived in Mexico. They require the illusive squash blossoms, Oaxacan cheese, fresh green chiles, onion, and pungent epazote. I asked for the herb at every stall I came to. Only one grower told me he has some, but didn’t bring any because “no one ever buys it.” By this time I was determined to make the tacos, though, and decided to wing it with the good tortillas I’d found, the squash blossoms, onion, chile, and whatever cheese I might have in my refrigerator.
A stage was set up at either end of the long galley, with local talent rotating in performance. A special space for children seemed to be fulfilling its mission of providing the younger set with interesting interactive crafts and games. Many of the tables advertised the wares of Albuquerque’s many vital community organizations, such as Los Jardines Institute.
As interesting as the market, at least to this writer, are the great old buildings themselves. Exiting the Blacksmith Shop from its broad rear door, one can walk a few steps and peer into another large structure, fascinating in its grand interior. At this time a sturdy fence prevents people from entering this building, but hopefully the Blacksmith Shop success will lead to the reclamation of other parts of the old Railway Yards.
In fact, that continued reclamation is already underway. On July 24, 2014, Albuquerque’s Chief Administrative Officer Rob Perry signed an agreement with Samitaur Constructs to begin a more complete development of the Rail Yards site. The agreement, known as the Master Development Disposition Agreement, lays out the relationship between the city and the developer, and defines what is expected of the latter. The plan was approved by the City Council on June 16.
Rebecca Velarde, the city’s Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency manager, says the plans call for a variety of uses for the site, including light industrial areas, a museum, housing, and cultural activities such as a regular farmers’ market. Perhaps in this way, the Rail Yards Sunday Market fulfilled its objective: showing city planners that such an endeavor could be successful. “The current Market will likely be moved,” Velarde said, “but it’s in the interest of the developers to find a place for the market to continue since it has already brought so much traffic to the site.
Velarde explained that “some of the buildings on the site are not actually historically significant, so those may be removed and demolished. Others are significant.” So, it turns out the Sunday Market we’ve all been enjoying is transitory. I hope it will find a permanent home, and that the Rail Yards will undergo a more intelligent and long-range renovation than the old Alvarado Hotel.
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