Some Backstory

I came across this column I wrote for Crosswinds awhile back, in those halcyon (there's that word again) days when I first hatched the idea to move to LA. It's a bit dated...all my favorite places have since closed...including Crosswinds...and I've been out of Santa Fe for a year now--yikes. But I think it all bears repeating. Que viva la Crosswinds!

Letter from Santa Fe
By Heidi Utz

When I first vacationed here in the 1980s, I was struck by Northern NM’s distance from the rest of the country. Back then, there were few chain stores or highways, no wi-fi hotspots, and little that could be construed as “practical.” People called you mi hita a lot (even if they didn’t know you), said hello to you on the street, and looked you in the eye when they spoke. And it was more than just “have a nice day.” I fell in love what seemed like a close-knit community, the adobe churches, the rituals and traditions: Fiestas, farolitos, Canyon Road on Christmas Eve, las Posadas. I appreciated the more leisurely pace, even as I struggled to recalibrate my city-self down to it. I’d traveled a fair bit, but recondite NM felt like somewhere I’d never been before. By 1991, I knew I needed to live here.

Obviously, Santa Fe has changed over the past two decades. Some would say it was “ruined” before I even got here. If nothing else, it’s grown. Santa Fe County has gained almost 45% more people, having ballooned to 143,000 residents. Growth within the city has been less dramatic, up from 59,000 to 65,000—but those extra 6,000 seem to be a particularly loud bunch who take up a lot of space. Town seems much fuller these days—full of people who don’t lean on the word mañana as much as they lean on their horns.

Driving down scenic south Cerrillos Road (near where Wal-Mart plans its new fiefdom), I feel a bit like I’m back in New Jersey. The shopping opps stack up like plasma TVs at the Best Buy. It’s as if Santa Fe suddenly became hip to its own austerity and realized that the “comforts” of the rest of the world were now somehow acceptable. I often joke that when I first moved here, you had to go to Albuquerque to buy a pair of scissors. Now, it seems, you can not only find scissors, but 40 different varieties of Swedish pinking shears. But such diversity has its costs. Corporate profits go to Chicago, while local businesses can’t hope to compete. Thanks to a certain behemoth, no one’s rushing to open a new bookstore, and the only remaining indie music store is The Candyman. And I won’t even mention the Starbuck’s Effect on my favorite cafés, now resting in peace.

I’ll admit that I patronize my fair share of big boxes to purchase the basics—it’s cheaper and more convenient than driving to Albuquerque. Yet the smell of outgassing plastic, the glaze in the employees’ eyes, the bad lighting, and the insanely colored point-of-purchase displays frequently remind me of the original reason I came here: to escape the mainstream. And while retail chains may be unavoidable in America the purchaseful, their recent muscling-in serves to create a much different experience of New Mexico for those of us who live near the south side of town. Out here, “local color” means the cherry-red glow of Target, making one wonder what’s so very unusual about “the City Different.”

This phenomenon also extends up 285, heading toward Espanola. Fifteen years ago, roadside stands and hand-painted billboards were part of the charm of driving to Abiquiu or Taos. Today we’ve got slick new blacktop—and barely anyone selling hornos, weavings, or velvet Elvises. I remember when Pojoaque was a Dairy Queen and a candle store. Now it’s a bad acid trip of construction equipment, ugly casinos, flashing resort signs, and not-so-slick billboards. I hear they’re soon going to start building condos inside the camel.

The funk, my friends, is gone. Back in 1995, I wrote a lengthy newspaper article about the funkiest places in Santa Fe. Most have closed. The few that still exist (Blue Moon Books, Café Oasis, Carlos’ Gosp’l Café) are bucking the tide daily. I have a theory that they’re subsidized by former hippies-turned-stockbrokers who can’t quite let go. Even Evangelo’s got cleaned up. I liked it better filthy, with the aging Polynesian fringe motif. I miss the old-school funk. Of all the sleazy gin joints, why did Gerry Peters have to jack up the rent on mine?

It’s hard not to note a certain ugly mood in town, rumbling like the enormous subwoofers in those tricked-out Acuras. Santa Fe feels big and busy and a lot more distracted. It’s like we’re all following the admonition to “be here now,” while simultaneously talking to Cleveland on our cell phones. People are rushed, curt, impatient, unfriendly, and filled with urban attitude. Our progression seems a bit like spinners, those hubcaps that keep moving even when the car is stopped. I see precious few small-town charms and a lot of big-city hassles—without the reward of the higher salaries and greater sophistication.

Driving is as egregious as ever, but people seem to be going way fast while paying zero attention. The once-descried lack of turn signal use now pales in comparison to the newest trend I’ve observed: not waiting for the light to turn before proceeding. Red—it’s the new green.

And then there’s the housing market. With the median home price fast-approaching $400K, it has become almost impossible for those earning Santa Fe incomes to purchase a Santa Fe home. Of course, this problem is ubiquitous in desirable zip codes throughout the country. Some young couples I know have resorted to migrating 40 minutes south to Rio Rancho, where home prices plummet along with the number of pastel pots for sale. The week my former partner and I arrived here, we considered bidding on a comfortable home in El Dorado for $92,000. A couple years later, we plunked down a whopping $102,000 for a lovely 3-bedroom, 2-bath house within city limits. Someone told us it was a good investment…indeed. Someone told us we were selling it too soon…indeed.

Lest I seem overly focused on the “half-empty” scenario, let me mention some of the positive changes I’ve observed during these two decades. Thanks to the Living Wage Ordinance, salaries have improved dramatically and will continue to do so. People who used to have to work 3 and 4 jobs to afford it here are now down to 2 and 3. However, the cost of living is still exorbitant, and gas prices are, as ever, mysteriously higher than anywhere else in the state, including Los Alamos, one of the richest communities in the entire country. As with Michael’s Jackson’s acquittal, no one seems to be able to tell us why.

In addition to a far better scissor selection, we have gained greater culinary options. Back in the early ’90s, it seemed you had to drive to Denver to find a decent restaurant serving something other than carne adovada and chicken enchiladas. I would have killed for a simple turkey sandwich on NY rye. There was no Ben & Jerry’s, no bagels, no chai. It was an era filled with unspeakable deprivations. Now, at least, there’s more diversity in our restaurant offerings. Who knows, some bold entrepreneur might even open a deli someday.

Along with the welcome addition of the GC3 skating rink, several additional gyms have materialized. And Santa Fe seems to have finally acknowledged that exercising can take other forms besides tai chi and yoga. We’ve built a few bike lanes—though in odd places like Cerrillos Road—and drivers are starting to realize that it’s possible to share the road with bicycles without idling behind them trying to imitate their pace.

NM was the first state to designate a film commissioner, and Santa Fe’s cinema scene is thriving under Governor Bill. The industry now shoots films in the area just about every month, including biggies like The Longest Yard and The Missing. In two years, the economic impact from these productions has grown from $8 million to $200+ million. This “clean” industry is exactly what we’ve needed, a great source of training, jobs, and revenue. Cineastes like it, too. In a town of 65,000, we have 23 screens (and 12 more within an easy drive). Each week so many new independent film offerings appear that you could easily spend an entire weekend eating popcorn and endlessly pondering mise- en-scène and mise-en-shot. Our film festival has also grown by leaps and bounds, having recently added a Film Center at the Cinemacafe to screen truly alternative features and works by locals.

But despite these notable improvements, I still feel wistful that a place so special to so many might get tossed into our overzealous melting pot and come out looking like the same McCulture that plagues the rest of the country. Yet how do we just say no? Can Santa Fe get its funk back? Or is it gone forever, swept up in how we, as Americans, have come to define “progress”?