Central Avenue in Albuquerque: Something Like America
By Chadd Scott on
Central Avenue through Albuquerque: 1st Street through 8th Street.
Something like America.
This is no fantasy.
KiMo Theatre on Central Avenue in Albuquerque. Photo by Chadd Scott.
Interspersed among the spectacular and historic Pueblo Deco KiMo Theatre, the funky/retro Arrive motel, Ex Novo Brewery, boutiques, neon, and coffee shops are homelessness and addiction. Empty storefronts. Prosperity alongside real pain.
Something like America.
Central Ave. through Albuquerque is seedy enough to be interesting without being dangerous. Visitors looking for upscale fantasy and the mirage that everything is just so with the country can find it across town at Los Poblanos. Central Ave. is for the folks. The cholo’s. The coffeehouse outsiders who are insiders in ABQ. The arty crowd. Fans of underground music and underground wrestling and local art. The bar regulars. Central Ave. has legit bars, not restaurants with bar seating and apps.
Central Avenue is multicultural and proud of it. Better for it. Like America. Mexican, Latino, Indigenous, and Anglo. Look at the restaurants: arepas, Cuban sandwiches, New Mexican chiles, sushi. All of it made well.
Smell chiles roasting in the fall at the Saturday Downtown Grower’s Market in Robinson Park, one of America’s best farmer’s markets. Red and green chiles are the same, the red ones have been dried, the green are fresh. Fresh bread and tamales and pupusas and flowers and art, also. Lucky fall visitors might hear sandhill cranes calling along their migration route high overhead.
Central Ave. animates all the senses.
Listen for flamenco on Central Ave.
You couldn’t avoid the alternately trilling and thumping Chicano beats if you wanted to. Central Ave. gets live and loud Friday and Saturday nights during the warmer months with lowriders. Cruising.
If you’re staying at the Arrive with a bedtime before midnight, bring earplugs. And a white noise machine. And ask for a room facing away from Central Ave.
Arrive motel neon sign along Central Avenue in Albuquerque. Photo by Chadd Scott.
Following a 20-year crackdown, cruisers finally pressured Albuquerque City Hall to end restrictions in 2024. In Albuquerque, in New Mexico, lowriders and cruising are cultural traditions, not delinquency. A lifestyle.
Join the ese’s and homegirls every Sunday afternoon on Central Ave. for a freestyle car(art) show.
Sunday morning, dine at quirky Curious Toast across Central Ave. from the Arrive. The breakfast/brunch menu is loaded with delicious and unusual favorites like green chile biscuits and gravy, and green chile bacon bread pudding, as well as daily specials.
The Arrive features Central Ave.’s largest and most dramatic mural, right above its vintage pool: Nani Chacon’s +Crossroads+ (2024). The artwork brilliantly combines Chacon’s Diné-Chicana heritage through background pottery patterns, the foregrounded lowrider, and a blooming prickly pear cactus honoring her homeland.
Nani Chacon’s '+Crossroads+' mural on Arrive motel in Albuquerque. Photo by Chadd Scott.
For murals along Central Ave., don’t overlook the street’s side alleys. Gems there. At the old Maisel’s Indian Jewelry & Crafts trading post (510 Central Ave.), too. Peer through the security fencing. The store has been closed since 2019. Its original owner hired budding Pueblo artists including Pablita Velarde, Harrison Begay, and Pop Chalee to decorate the façade in the late-30s. They’re all icons now. Calling back to the KiMo Theatre, “ki-mo” means “mountain lion” in the Tiwa language.
Find Native art and culture today at Arrowsoul Trading Post, kitty-corner from Arrive where Indigenous resistance meets retail.
Central Ave. can feel like a different country and like home at the same time. For a certain kind of person, a certain kind of traveler, Central Ave. is just right. Art, culture, food, music, diversity – something like America; all of the Americas.
Jesse Littlebird and Thomas Christopher Haag, 'Buffalo Return to Route 66' mural at Central Avenue and 7th Street in Albuquerque. Photo by Chadd Scott.
I began visiting New Mexico regularly after the pandemic as my arts writing took off. Starting in 2022, I’ve been multiple times a year. Previously, I’d fly into Albuquerque and as quickly as possible rent a car for the drive to Santa Fe. Then I spent one day in ABQ. Then a weekend. My most recent visit to New Mexico was June of 2026; I spent five days in state and happily never left town.
I write regularly about Albuquerque now, promoting it as one of the premiere arts and cultural destinations in the United States. I stand by that. Not instead of or in comparison to Santa Fe or Taos, as its own thing.
Spicy.
Diverse.
Working class.
Scuffling.
Cruising.
Progressing, backtracking.
College kids and tourists and addicts and artists.
Something like America.
