La Mesa in Albuquerque, NM

La Mesa is an established urban neighborhood in Albuquerque's International District, set along the Central Avenue stretch of historic Route 66 east of Louisiana Boulevard. It was platted in stages, starting with the original La Mesa filing in 1933 and continuing through La Mesa No. 2, the Extension, and No. 3 in 1942, so the grid of Copper and Marquette avenues NE goes back to the middle of the last century. The Mesa Verde Community Center sits in the heart of the neighborhood, La Mesa Elementary runs as a community school, and the La Mesa Community Improvement Association speaks for residents.

The name traces through a run of plats filed between 1933 and 1942, all on the zone atlas page city records index as K-19-Z. Title work in the area reaches back further, to an 1895 claim by Zenas H. Bliss, and the War Mothers' National Memorial Hospital Association turns up in the later abstracts. The city adopted a La Mesa Sector Development Plan in 1978; the public library keeps a copy along with abstracts of title for the original tracts.

Central Avenue carries historic Route 66 through this part of the city, and the branch library stands on it at San Pablo Street. The park built beside that library, on ground where the Caravan East nightclub used to be, holds a turf field, tree-lined walkways, a community food forest, a performance stage, and a promenade for vendors. Its schematic design went to the La Mesa Community Improvement Association at a joint meeting with the Trumbull Village Association.

Membership in a homeowners association is not part of life here. The improvement association is a voluntary neighborhood group, and the city community center it meets in offers free membership that carries across every municipal center in Albuquerque.