Joe Baca Plaza
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Joseph J. Baca Plazuela
1993, City of Albuquerque. Corner of 4th St. and Barelas Rd. SW.
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Looking northwest (Photograph by Regina N. Emmer) -
Looking southeast (Photograph by Regina N. Emmer) -
Looking east (Photograph by Regina N. Emmer) -
Public art (Photograph by Regina N. Emmer)
The Joseph J. Baca Plazuela is an element in the economic redevelopment of Barelas as a center of Hispanic culture. The community park was implemented as part of the Barelas Sector Development Plan, first written in 1973 and updated in 1993 and then again in 2008 and 2014. This plan promoted local, family-owned businesses, instituted the Barelas Community Development Corporation to help provide affordable housing, guided efforts to renovate the neighborhood’s streets and public spaces, and coincided with the decision in 1993 to erect a National Hispanic Cultural Center in Barelas.
The small, triangular plaza sits just south of the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce building and provides an open space for community gatherings and performances at the intersection of Barelas’s main commercial and residential thoroughfares, one block north of the National Hispanic Cultural Center. A tall obelisk decorated with multicolored ceramic tile marks the corner and is connected thematically with tilework designed by students on the adjacent pergola and bus stop, which depict scenes from Barelas’s past as an agricultural, railroad, and automobile-oriented community.
References
Barelas Sector Development Plan, 2008. Accessed January 19, 2016. https://www.cabq.gov.
Writing Credits
Coordinator:
Christopher C. Mead
Regina N. Emmer
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