Sep. 23—The 1950 census showed Albuquerque to be a city of some 97,000 souls, the population located predominantly in the north and south valleys, the University of New Mexico area and the military bases.
At the time, Lincoln Junior High School, at 912 Locust SE, and Jefferson, at Lomas and Girard NE, were the only Albuquerque Public Schools junior highs east of Broadway.
But, as the city gradually expanded toward the Sandias, APS opened Monroe and Wilson junior highs in the fall of 1953.
Monroe sat at 2120 Louisiana NE, on the southeast corner of Louisiana and Indian School. At the time, the stretch of Louisiana between Constitution and Menaul was almost bucolic — a safe, practical and convenient location for a public school.
But then:
In the spring of 1961, the Winrock shopping center opened right next door. Shelley Fabares, a star of the TV series “The Donna Reed Show,” was brought in for the grand opening and signed autographed photos one afternoon for starstruck Monroe students.
On the other side of the street, less than half a mile to the north, the even more expansive Coronado Center opened in 1964.
In relatively the same time frame — the exact date could not be pinpointed — the I-40 exit and entrance ramps at Louisiana opened just north of Constitution.
Virtually in the blink of an eye, those once-pastoral few blocks had become one of the busiest stretches in Albuquerque.
In the meantime, junior highs had sprouted in the Heights like blades of grass. That migration to the east had become a stampede. McKinley, 1954; Jackson, 1957; Madison, 1959; Van Buren, 1960; Grant, 1961; Hayes, 1964.
It should have come as no surprise, then, when in 1972 APS announced plans to close Monroe in the next couple of years.
APS cited declining enrollment — clearly a function of Jackson, Madison, Grant and Hayes having opened nearby — and an above-average cost per student as well as safety concerns due to high traffic volume.
Not expressed, at least not directly, was that APS clearly viewed the Monroe property as prime real estate.
“The recommendation is to sell the property,” APS stated.
As the axe began to fall, Monroe students began to mourn. Monroe parents, on behalf of their children, protested — concerned not only about the closing, but about where their younger kids would end up.
APS was in the process of shifting from an elementary-junior high-high school model (6-3-3) to a 5-3-4 middle-school model. Monroe’s 1973-74 ninth-graders, almost en masse, would be ticketed for Del Norte High School. But for seventh- and eight-graders, the situation was fluid.
“Every single student and every single parent was extremely upset,” Marita Eckert, Monroe Class of ’73, said in a phone interview. “We had wonderful teachers and administration, we had intramural sports, we had orchestra, we had shop and art, and we were just a small ‘Mayberry’ community.”
But APS held firm, and the last day of classes at Monroe, June 7, 1974, came and went.
Almost immediately, APS put the property at 2120 Louisiana NE out for bid.
Prime real estate that it appeared to be, it didn’t sell.
Developers, seeking to build hotels, grocery stores, office buildings etc., blamed APS when negotiations kept falling through; APS blamed the developers.
In 1987, APS did sell the Monroe property to a development company. The company went bankrupt, and the property redounded to APS. Over the next 15 years, the property would be sold twice more, with a similar result.
The building hadn’t gone completely unused.
In the fall of 1974, Monroe was host to Arroyo Del Oso Elementary School students and faculty while construction of their own building was completed. From 1975-79, APS used the property as office and storage space.
From 1979-88, the Monroe property was the home of New Futures School, an APS-administrated school for teenage unwed mothers.
The building itself was finally razed in 1988.
In 2002, APS completed a sale of the Monroe property to Hunt Development of El Paso. Yet, in newspaper archives, the trail went cold. Whatever happened to 2120 Louisiana NE?
Finally in 2013, Target, the budget department-store giant, opened a mega-store where Monroe faculty and students had thrived for 22 short years.
Go Mustangs.
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