Ernie Pyle Beach, Albuquerque, circa 1949. Courtesy Albuquerque Museum.

I’m back after a couple of months’ hiatus to working on Ribbons of Green, the new book Bob Berrens and I are finishing up for publication next year by UNM Press. The current task, putting together the final package of art, is a blast. There’s more than a little tedious technical work (sorting out copyright permissions and getting tech formatting right), but mostly it’s just fun to look at all the old pictures.

The picture above is from 1949, capturing a moment in the endless on-again, off-again history of what we now call “Tingley Beach,” a riverside park along the Rio Grande close to Albuquerque’s Central Avenue Bridge – Route 66.

The park is a fascinating piece of the history of Albuquerque’s relationship with the river at its heart. Originally called “Conservancy Beach,” it was built in the 1930s as a sort of replacement for the vernacular swimming holes then being foreclosed by the construction of drains and levees disconnecting the community from the river. It was by all accounts a hit, pretty quickly renamed after then-mayor Clyde Tingley.

Fishing derby, Tingley Beach, April 2018. Photo by John Fleck

In 1949, the city council renamed it “Ernie Pyle Beach,” after the war hero/correspondent who made his home in Albuquerque. (The old house is now a cute little community library.) Other names offered up at the March 15, 1949 meeting of the Albuquerque City Commission by city recreation director Irene Teakell: Zia Agua Beach, Cactus Beach, and Albuquerque Beach.

Every Sunday back then, the Albuquerque Game Protection Association taught “plug and fly casting,” and the Red Cross taught life saving classes.

Fears of unsanitary conditions dogged the swimming area – this was the time of polio – with the swimming areas closed and opened and closed again, and fishing coming to dominate its use. The name seems to have reverted from Ernie Pyle Beach to Conservancy Beach in 1966, though my research here is thin. When we moved to Albuquerque in 1990, it was pretty ratty, but two decades ago the city of Albuquerque under mayor Martin Chavez re-dug the ponds, cleaned it up, and now it’s a lovely and very popular spot to go fishing on a spring day.

One pond now is devoted to remote control boats, one is for kids fishing, one is for regular fishing, and one is for fancy fishing. Over the years since its construction, the island in the middle of the largest fishing pond has attracted a bunch of cormorants, which makes sense – we fill it with cormorant food. It’s got the best parking spot for river access, with a platform out by the river suitable for yoga classes and weddings and for John to stop and take another picture of the river. Our paved riverside bike trail, which runs (fully grade separated, no traffic crossings) the entire length of the river through town slips between Tingley Beach and the river.

Viewed across the span of the last century, it’s a great spot to take stock of Albuquerque’s relationship with the Rio Grande.