The Historic County Courthouse
This week on Wednesday, July 22, at 6 pm, the Taos County Commissioners will host an open workshop on future plans for the Historic County Courthouse, built in 1932, upstairs in the Mural Room. During the last couple of years the Commissioners have operated the historic building as a host for a few shops downstairs and non-profit offices upstairs as well as public events, including plays, concerts, meetings, exhibitions, lectures, readings, and banquets upstairs in what is called the “Mural Room.”
The Mural Room or courtroom features ten stunning historic WPA era frescoes, which Federico Vigil restored in the early 90s along with executing an eleventh fresco on the west wall. The high ceilings, wooden floor, and especially the “feeling” of the room contribute to an outstanding public space, welcoming performers and audience members alike. The building itself a kind of classic in its own way but suffers from a lack of ADA access upstairs and accessible bathrooms, as well as poor heating, air-conditioning, and electrical services.
More compelling, the northeast corner of the building in the east alley has been breached at or near ground level, where rain and water can leak in and affect the walls and floors. That particular breach is in dire need of repair. While an architectural study has been prepared, the County, which claims to have $500,000 to $700,000 available for ADA access and temporary fixes, will need to hire an architect and search for more funds in a phased process to restore the building, a restoration which could cost just this side of two million dollars if done properly—unlike the jury-rigged spaces on the east and west sides in what were once open spaces or alleys.
Indeed, a superficial tour of the building with a contractor recently revealed the necessity of tearing down the structures in the alley in order to preserve the building as a whole. Suggestions include moving the “Easy Rider” cellblock into the interior, constructing an elevator shaft next to the current stairwell and installing modern bathrooms in the building. Some folks would like to open up one or both alleys to foot traffic and the concept of “pocket parks.” Other architects think the elevator and bathrooms could be located in the alley itself.
Despite the myriad of museums in the community, none of them focus on the daily or historical culture, the culture depicted say in the WPA photos, exhibited during last year’s Fall Arts extravaganza and now on display at the County Complex. Tourists and locals frequently visit the building just to look at the Frescoes in the “Mural Room” and the downstairs “jail.” There seems to be a thirst for cultural experience so a “living history or interpretive museum” and/or “Cultural Institution” focused on Taos history, current and past, seems a natural for the space. The Commissioners are poised to move ahead, we hope, with public response as a guide.
The Town recently began the rather painful process of considering a “Mainstreet/Arts and Cultural District.” Due to politics and procrastination and a lack of technical assistance, the Town has made little progress during the last five years or five weeks in terms of the aforementioned project. Though government operates slowly at the county, the county provides citizens’ groups with county employees, technicians in finance and construction, who can help move the project forward as has been the case with the art and artifacts committee, which has installed the historic photos, commissioned a public sculpture and started, however slowly, the process of installing public art. We applaud the commissioners for adhering to the letter and spirit of the “procurement code,” no matter how painful the process.
In other Plaza news, Hotel La Fonda’s Bobby Sahd told me he has made an offer, full of contingencies, for the Plaza Theatre Building, a muddled architectural/engineering mess, which only Bobby, of all people, could probably fix. The Sahd family inherited and remodeled Hotel La Fonda, while both honoring and working to memorialize the legendary Greek, Saki Karavas. If Bobby’s deal goes through, there might be some hope for the Southwest Corner of the Plaza.
While the Historic Courthouse can be seen as an element of the Town’s omnipresent proposal, which remains a kind of “pie in the sky” re: Mainstreet/ACD, commissioners shouldn’t wait to act while their primos on Camino de la Placita dither. Too, Commissioners generally seek consensus while the Town, given recent controversies seems more engaged in the act of picking fights with their own citizens: see the Farmer’s Market on the Plaza, slow response to the marketing-tourism sector(s), and the continuing failure of the Public Works Department to maintain the streets. Part of the Mainstreet/ACD’s mission includes an “improvement district tax” but we don’t think this council, mayor, and manager would have much success drumming up support for more taxes, given their poor record on potholes and divisive politics.
By nature, nurture, and due to nostalgia, I am a Plaza rat and care more, for instance, about the Historic County Courthouse, where history, present and past meet than about matters like the airport. Only yesterday Jim Wagner, Gene Sanchez, Gil Archuleta, Richard Trujillo, Dave Nesbitt and I shared a drink at La Cocina. Cal Loving told Wagner he better pay his bar bill or else. Ruthie laughed and asked, “What’ll you have hon?” Somebody said Saki had a new lady friend. Back then you knew all the landlords and all the merchants on the Plaza.
Life surged in and out and around the central park as pick-ups and low riders, high riders and cops stopped to talk to friends and nobody honked very much. You could see the mayor and council members just about everyday having coffee or dining in one of the Plaza joints like La Cocina. Now, like the public, los politicos just show up for “special events.” Everyday seems like the off-season on the Plaza now.