Opinions from anyone who lives, or has lived in Albq. NM.

Hey Philly Rocket,

I moved to ABQ in January just for a brief stint. I'm just hanging out writing. Be gone by June at the latest. It's a totally friendly town, but a little slow for my tastes. I've only lived in Houston and NYC for any extended period of time and I got bored here pretty fast. Weather's nice though. Mountains are beautiful. Very, very affordable cost of living. Some nice enough bars and restaurants, though again, slow for my tastes.

I live in what they call the student ghetto, right by UNM. Decent neighborhood, great low rent. I'm pretty much right in between Nob Hill and downtown, which are the only places you'd find any nightlife. There's a sports bar on Central (the main drag, also known as Rte. 66) called Coaches where they'll put on the Rockets games for you if you ask. Also a very friendly bar right across from UNM called Joe's where you can shoot pool and drink cheap beer with friendly students and other locals.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I don't know anything about the school, but I know the neighborhood a little.

 

I'm currently living here, but will be gone in two weeks...

1) I have an effiecient at Penn Square Apts. off Montgomery (tons of apts.) and paid $419/mo...Not near school, but the South part of town is a bad part of town...

2) Downtown Nightlife: JJ Maloney's, Distillery...very nice...
Near UNM, there is a cool jazz place (Zinc) and down the street is Martini grille...Also, in Old Town, there is a good happy hour place called Season's...They just opened a Grahm Central Station off Montgomery...

3) Overall, everything is pretty expenseive, especially car insurance, due to the large number of uninsured motorist and drunk drivers...

Hope this helps...

 

rrj:

rimrocker's in town next week and we're gonna try and catch a playoff game together. Email me if you wanna watch a game with a couple diehard Rocket fans who also happen to be diehard liberals. GARM talk only, no D&D. Well, from me anyway. I can't speak for the rocker.

 

Albuquerque baby, Albuquerque

 

Philly:

I don't live in a named complex. The student ghetto's a fairly large neighborhood. I live on Vassar, three blocks south of Central. The streets in the neighborhood are named for colleges, so you can recognize them that way. I'd definitely recommend this neighborhood if you're going to UNM. You can walk everywhere if you want to (school, bars, restaurants, laundry, post office all within blocks of each other). Nob Hill's a short walk and if you're in the mood for a small hike you can even walk downtown. Best places to look for apartments are the alt weekly, The Alibi, and the college daily, The Lobo. The Alibi's online. I don't think The Lobo is but I could be wrong.

 

Philly, I wouldn't mind moving there myself actually. I love the food and the time I spent there visiting my parents when they lived there was a good time.

BJ, is this next weekend. There's a chance I may come up for that.

 

Green Chiles......mmmmmmmmm!!!

I have spent so much time in Alb., NM that I feel like I lived there. All my time spent there was on business, but I did make some friends too. I still visit from time to time.

 

Philly:

I haven't followed football since Earl Campbell retired. Can't answer you there. There's a Fox affiliate here -- sometimes NM, sometimes Rocky Mountain. I saw a Nuggets-Rockets game that wasn't on national TV. Or you could get league pass. Or go down the street to Coaches. They'll put on whatever game you want. Same with an Italian place right by campus.

 

RM95: I think rimrocker's in town for about a week, starting this weekend. Don't know if he'll be here next weekend. Email me if you're serious about coming.

 

My husband used to live in Albuquerque... his comments are below:

I lived in Albuquerque from 1989 to 1992, so my information is perhaps dated, but much of what I say probably is still valid in general. I, too, lived in the "student ghetto" south of UNM, on Cornell just a block south of Central and the campus, which made it extraordinarily easy to walk to my department. I rented a furnished, one-bedroom apartment in 1989 for $315 per month (which had risen to $340 per month in 1992). It was quite cheap, compared to what I had to pay in later years in Houston and Austin, but the utility bills were rather high. In terms of crime, the place was much safer than Houston or Austin, although farther south, as mentioned before, the crime rate goes up.

Because I don't drink nor listen to rock music, I can say little about the area bars. None of the names mentioned earlier are familiar. I do know there was a venue that frequently hosted live musical performances and showed sports on the TV a block east of my apartment on Central. There were several eating establishments within a few blocks, plus a Denny's opened in 1991 a couple of blocks away, which drew an interesting clientele. I suppose one could walk to the Nob Hill area (to the east) or to downtown (to the west, if you can manage going almost two miles and don't mind the almost 250 foot elevation change along the way). Nob Hill had the Lobo Theater in it, sort of like a plainer version of the River Oaks Theater in Houston, and downtown was the KiMo, which I believe also had live performances there.

Because there was a lot of interesting things in the neighborhood, I didn't have to use my car a lot. This may have been why my auto insurance was so cheap. When my safe-driver discount kicked in 1992 (available to anyone who had resided in the state for three years without a claim), my rate fell to about $550 a year. Inflation may have taken its ravages on that number by now. If you do go driving around, the recreational activities available blow away anything in Texas. To the east are the Sandia and Manzano Mountains, encompassed within the Cibola National Forest. To the north are Santa Fe, Los Alamos, and the Jemez Mountains and Santa Fe National Forest. To the west (as well as to the north) are the various Indian pueblos, if you're into cultural things. You can even find interesting things to the south, although you have to travel further; within a couple of hundred miles are the Gila Mountains, Gila National Forest, and the Aldo Leopold and Gila Wilderness Areas. For those who are of a risk-taking nature, I believe Isleta Pueblo, just south of Albuquerque, now has a casino open....

You probably won't find much about the Rockets locally; the big thing in town is of course UNM and the rest of the Mountain West Conference. Back when I was there and the Lobos' men's basketball team was good (Luc Longley), University Arena ("The Pit") routinely sold out its 17,000+ seats for games. For pro sports, the football team you'll hear about the most is the Broncos, and for basketball it's the Nuggets. For baseball, most of the ink goes to the minor-league team, the Isotopes, and most of the rest goes to their major-league sponsor, the Florida Marlins (back when I lived there, it was the Dukes and their sponsor, the Los Angeles Dodgers).

If you don't mind the fact that it can get very cold or very hot there sometimes (it got down to zero and up to 104 once when I lived there) and can be very dry (days below 10% humidity are common in June), Albuquerque can be a very pleasant place to live. It's not the hippest town, but for those who need a coolness infusion, there's always the adobe theme park known as Santa Fe 60 miles away. I'd also be remiss if I didn't note that I lived on the same block as the Frontier Restaurant, which automatically meant I ruled....

Ferdinand
Proud Houston Rocket fan since 1971

 

Batman, Gamz, and RM,

I'll be in town late Sunday night, so it looks like the only chance I'll have to catch a Rockets game with the New Mexico Clutch Chapter will be on Monday night.

(Gamz--I'm sure I'll be too ticked at the refs to get worked up into a Bush rant.)

Philly,

You'll like New Mexico... good people, good food, good nature stuff, good school, different cultures, different attitudes, different history, cheap cost of living (as long as you stay south of Santa Fe).

Regarding jobs... if you don't mind hard risky work and you've got a decent head on your shoulders, I can probably get you a job as a wildland firefighter... most student types can make it through the whole year on what they earn during the summer.

 

By the way, I'll be on per diem, so the first $35 is on me.

 

watch out for the drunk Indians



nah, NM rocks, lived there for 5 years, much slower and easier pace of life than Houston, thats for sure

 

Will do...I will be here until next Thursday and would love to hang with some fellow Rox fans...

Maybe Monday night...There is good Sports Bar (Spectator's) on my side of town, or mayber near UNM...My mom is coming this weekend and I'll probably won't be able to see the game Saturday...

 

Dude, Since your buying, I'm definitely there...

I'll e-mail you guys and we can pick a location for Monday night...

 

Isabel, tell Ferdinand, that he does in fact rule for living on the same block as Frontier.

Yummy.