Huning Highland in Albuquerque, NM

Huning Highland is Albuquerque's first residential subdivision, platted in April 1880 by Franz Huning as the railroad reached town, with a street grid laid out by civil engineer Walter G. Marmon. It sits just east of downtown, bounded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, Locust Street, Iron Avenue and the BNSF tracks, about a mile and a half from Old Town. Houses went up between the 1880s and the 1920s in Queen Anne, Italianate, Folk Victorian and Dutch Colonial Revival dress, many built from prefabricated parts in eclectic combinations. The district joined the National Register in 1978, and a city Historic Protection Overlay governs exterior work.

The neighborhood's fortunes turned more than once. It drew tuberculosis patients seeking the dry climate, shifted again during World War II, and saw renewed interest from the 1970s on. New Mexico added it to the State Register of Cultural Properties in 1976, and in 1980 it became the first part of Albuquerque covered by a Historic Overlay Zone.

That overlay, paired now with East Downtown, puts exterior alterations, additions, new construction, demolition, fences and business signs in front of the Landmarks Commission for a Certificate of Appropriateness. There is no homeowners association. The Huning Highlands Historic District Association is a resident group guided by a volunteer board; it meets the first Wednesday of the month at the Preservation Station and runs a garden program along with renovation guidance for people fixing up old houses.

Three buildings anchor the streetscape: Old Albuquerque High School from 1914, the Old Main Library from 1925, and the 1906 Highland Hotel. Highland Park lies inside the district as well. The neighborhood association draws its map wider than the historic district, running east to Interstate 25.