Los Griegos Historic District

The Los Griegos Historic District is locally significant because it is the only 19th-century village in Albuquerque's north Valley which has retained its architectural continuity and cultural traditions. The buildings in Los Griegos are the embodiment of a unique culture that has its base in 18th-century Spanish custom.

In 1708 a grant of lands was given to Juan Griego, a direct descendant of one of the soldiers who served under Onate in the original Spanish conquest of New Mexico. (Los Griegos, when translated from the Spanish means "The Greeks" and refers to the nationality of the Griego who served as a mercenary in u Onate's army.) Juan Griego received a concession of lands just north of the Albuquerque grant. Since Los Griegos was a small Spanish subsistence farming community, it was not required to have a plaza. Rather, it took a linear form, stretching along the road between the river and the main irrigation ditch. Farmland stretched north and South from the houses to contra acequias (private ditches) which took irrigation water from the Griegos - Candelarias ditch. Even with recent infill and modern subdivision of property, this traditional settlement pattern is still evident in Los Griegos.

The census of 1790 listed 109 people in Los Griegos in 25 households. Six men were farmers, one was a day laborer and nine processed wool. The village had two tailors and one shoemaker. Only one family could afford a servant. By 1860 the population had grown considerably. Many were still farmers and day laborers (which may have included the wool workers) and Griegos had the distinction of having the only grocery storekeeper and schoolmaster in the north Valley. Most prominent among the residents were Juan Cristóbal Armijo. listed as a merchant, and his son Nestor, also a merchant. Juan Cristóbal was probably living near or in Los Poblanos, the old plaza just north of Los Griegos and subsequently absorbed into it. The Armijos were not typical of the population of Los Griegos, for the people of the village had a modest rural life until the coming of the railroad.

A building boom occured in Los Griegos after the railroad arrived when rural Hispanic immigrants came to the city to work on the railroad or for the newly-opened Breece Lumber Company located just to the northeast of old Albuquerque; many settled in Los Griegos, building their own adobe homes. These buildings have remained fairly intact architecturally. This is the primary reason why Los Griegos contains excellent examples of vernacular architecture dating from the late 19th and 20th centuries.

After statehood in 1912 several large farms immediately to the north of the village were developed which enabled the people of Los Griegos to supplement their income as day laborers on the dairy farms of Congressman Albert Simms' "Los Poblanos" and Robert Dietz' "Dietz Farm". Additionally, employment was found at the Rossiter Greenhouse on the outskirts of the village as well as at the sawmill and the railroad shops. With the growing number of jobs available. outside the village, the traditional patterns of community life which were based on subsistence farming began to break down.

While the patterns of modern life in Los Griegos are clearly different from those maintained during the village's days as a farming community, many customs and traditions are continued by long-time village residents. Cooperation in clearing the local ditches of overgrowth is demonstrated each spring among those still having irrigation rights. Villagers clear the smaller ditches, while responsibility for the main acequias is held by the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District.

While the ditches assured the economic salvation for the subsistence farmers of the village, the Catholic Church guaranteed their spiritual salvation. Los Griegos probably had a small chapel since the early 1800's to which a priest from San Felipe de Neri in Albuquerque would come to hear confessions and say mass. In 1876 construction began on a chapel dedicated to San Isidro - the patron saint of the fields. Later called Our Lady of Guadalupe, the chapel (now a private house at 1858 Griegos Road) was the center of village religious life until a new church was built to the south in 1955.

The people of Los Griegos have continued seventeenth-century traditions that were centered on the Catholic faith. The morality play called Los Pastores dates from the seventeenth-century methods of the Franciscan friar missionaries who would use plays to demonstrate precepts of the Catholic faith to the Indian population. Each village that performed Los Pastores developed a different version of the story of the Shepherds quest for the Christ Child on Christmas Eve. Archaic Spanish is evident in the Los Griegos version. Los Posadas precedes the play and entails actors playing the parts of Mary and Joseph knocking on the doors of nine houses requesting shelter for the night. They are refused until the ninth house admits them. In Los Griegos the ninth house was the meeting hall bridging the property between 1708 and 1714 Griegos Road. Los Pastores would then be performed in the meeting hall. All houses along the processional route would place luminarias - small pitch stick fires - outside to guide the Christ Child. Los Pastores in Los Griegos was televised in 1953. Because of the time consuming preparations, Los Pastores traditionally is not performed each year, but on an indefinite schedule.

The Penitente Brotherhood was also active in Los Griegos and its activities provoked many outraged editorials in Albuquerque's newspapers. The Penitentes are the self-flagellating lay third order outgrowth of the Franciscans. Although the men of the Brotherhood would care for the sick of the village, they were best known for their dramatic Good Friday rituals involving penitential flagellation.

The Penitentes were not a common phenomenon outside of northern New Mexico, but they had a stronghold in Los Griegos and moradas elsewhere in the north valley. In recent years, the LOS Griegos Penitentes have either disbanded or gone underground. Two locations for their moradas (meeting halls) in the village have been given - on the southeast corner of Griegos Road and Rio Grande Boulevard and at 5014 Guadalupe Trail NW.

The traditional New Mexican village crafts also continue in Los Griegos. Roland Dickey wrote his book New Mexico Village Arts while living in Los Griegos and based it on first person knowledge of the craftsmen of the village. TWO craftsmen presently living in the village are Atilano Tsutsumi and George Sandoval. Tsutsumi (of predominately Spanish blood with a Japanese surname) lives at 1850 Griegos Road and is a tinsmith who makes traditional New Mexican lighting fixtures and shrines. Sandoval, who owns the house at 1733 Griegos Road, is a well-known craftsman who hand manufactures traditional New Mexican furniture of pine as well as hand carved and paneled doors.

Little if any historical research on Los Griegos has been done before that done for this nomination. Bathtub and Silver Bullet and More Bathtubs and Fewer Bullets, two books by noted Tocal newspaper columnist Irene Fisher, are anecdotes based on her life in Los Griegos in the 1930's. In both these books the author attempts to convey the cultural traditions of the Spanish-speaking village. She discusses the centering of village life on the Church traditions and field work. During her residence in Los Griegos, the hub was the meeting hall between 1708 and 1714 Griegos Road (torn down when the street was paved in the 1960's) and the store across the street at 1717 Griegos Road that sold canned goods, gasoline and boot-legged liquor. The Society Hall at 1620 Griegos Road was also used as a community meeting place until 1977 when it was turned into a residence.

After annexation to Albuquerque in 1948 and 1951 and the extension of city services, an increasing number of people have sought residence in the Los Griegos area. The 500-acre Simms farm has been sold and partially subdivided. The Dietz farm was sold and subdivided in the early 1960's. As the older residents of Los Griegos die, their properties are not being Occupied by their children but, rather, sold to outsiders who find Los Griegos a charming and distinctive place to live.

The District is much like a rural New Mexico village within the city of Albuquerque. Vernacular architectural styles and traditional culture in Los Griegos clearly define the historic center, which, although now surrounded by modern subdivisions, still keeps its basic identity and integrity.