Customer Reviews

Street Names of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, & Taos

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This book did give some interesting history about how the street names originated. It would have been more interesting if perhaps the book could have contained photos of Albuquerque. It also would have been a better read if they perhaps incorporated the history of local landmarks, nevertheless, it was neat to learn the origin of some of the street names in Albuquerque.

I hesitate to even review this book, because I don't know that its author should be encouraged.
Think about this. This guy lives in Lousiana, and he wrote a book about the street names of Albuquerque (and Santa Fe, and Taos), New Mexico. That, to me, is about one notch above collecting stamps, as far as obsessive, pointless hobbies go--researching and writing a book about the STREET NAMES of Albuquerque--the street names of a mid-sized city in a state that doesn't even border his own.
That's kind of odd.
Because, it's not as if the guy chose some fascinating subject that defies geography--no. No, he chose one of the most mundane New Mexico subjects that there even is--street names, most of them applied by developers.
Plus, its author really didn't do that complete of a job with it. I'd say, for every ten times I've looked up a name in here, I've found what I was looking for every five times or so. I have learned a few things from it, despite the author's questionable grasp of the state's geography, but it's partial at best, and not at all comprehensive.
I admit this book is the only reference on this subject that I know of, but overall it's disappointing. Part of that disappointment is because many explanations for the street names are just boring--a large majority of them seems to have been named by developers for no especially interesting reason. THAT, of course, he couldn't really help, except he could at least have been witty about it. Or someone else could have. But part of the disappointment could be because the author lives in another state and seems to have come here for only two months to put this together. And part of it could be the cover, which I could never really get past.
The cover: holy cow, this book has maybe the worst cover I have ever seen. I realize the author was in a tough situation with his wife claiming to be an artist and all, and perhaps rejecting her hideous drawing of three Native Americans as his cover art would have resulted in the author sleeping on the couch for a while, but it is just awful. Crotch-kickingly awful. Eye-gougingly ugly. A celebration of cleft pallette, botched plastic surgery, bad art, and Southwestern stereotypes--the sort of image that's so bad it casts a filthy pall over any reading experience that follows viewing it and makes an objective review of the thing nearly impossible.
This book, I think, is a good example of the sort of thing that can result from rushing in to cash in on something. Gill is the author of STORIES BEHIND NEW ORLEANS PLACE NAMES, and evidently his publisher, Bonus Books, Inc., thought he could do something similar for a place he wasn't from, didn't live in, and wasn't about to take the time to learn much more about.
Ahh.... The book is not without merits, since its acknowledgements imply that a number of knowledgeable locals were invited to contribute what they knew, and, again, it is probably the only book on the subject, and probably an unfortunate necessity for local historians wanting to cover all their bases.
And, whatever, it'll probably teach you a few things---it's "a treasury of stories...extremely informative" according to the Slidell-Sentry News (that titan of journalism), but still, I wish it was better.

I was interested to acquire this book because I was curious to know the origin of many of Albuquerque's street names.

Unfortunately, I am STILL curious.

Here's a few examples of names that aren't in there: San Mateo, Wyoming, San Pedro . . .

Has the guy ever been to Albuquerque? How can you send a book off to print without having at least a couple of sentences about the city's major streets, even if just to print unconfirmed theories? I kept flipping around in the book to make sure I had the right city. It does have Lomas, Carlisle, and Juan Tabo, though. But just because it's a major street in Albuquerque doesn't mean that it's in here, which I view as inexcusable.

Meanwhile, as if to play with you, the book straight-facedly informs you that "Rio Grande" was so named because of its proximity to the river, and "Academy" got its name because it ran along the Albuquerque Academy.