Looking at a residential cross-section of a city is like studying a tree’s history by examining its rings. Though not always concentric, successive neighborhoods stretching away from the core offer a chronology of a city’s growth patterns. Such is the case for Albuquerque, where the growth path beginning in the late 19th century extended eastward from the downtown core up onto the East Mesa and ultimately to the Sandia Mountain foothills.

The rings around downtown and some farther out show imported building styles that have influenced the city’s residential architecture. Queen Anne cottages and Craftsman bungalows predominate near the core while ranch houses, split-levels, and a variety of neo-eclectic styles line streets near the foothills.

In between, the intermediary rings from before and after World War II encompass subdivisions that retain a distinctly Southwestern character, harmoniously blending regional and Mediterranean details. They recall a period when many newcomers to Albuquerque readily embraced the Southwest, including suburban housing that evoked the region. The Monte Vista subdivision to the east of the University of New Mexico is an excellent example of that era’s enthusiasm for Southwestern suburbanism.

Platted in 1926, Monte Vista is a compact neighborhood approximately a half-mile square that comprises some 500 homes as well as a public school, three churches, and two small business clusters. It extends east from Girard to Carlisle and south from Lomas Boulevard to the Central Avenue commercial district. Unlike those in most of Albuquerque’s older neighborhoods, few of its streets fall in a grid. Instead they are arranged in a series of obliquely angled roadways designed to compensate for the arroyo that once coursed down what is now Campus Boulevard. In fact, as you walk eastward through the neighborhood along Campus, you notice that the higher streets to the north and south descend to the former arroyo floor. This street pattern reflects the efforts of William Leverett Sr., the realtor who platted the Monte Vista subdivision in 1926, to minimize the threat of cloudburst flooding that created a wetland during monsoon season where Campus and Girard now intersect. These oblique streets create occasional triangles and five-point intersections that add visual interest and slow the pace of movement through the neighborhood.

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