A sad Thanksgiving at the Boo Radley house

As my colleague Leslie Linthicum explained last September, the old house on the corner of Cornell and Silver in the University neighborhood has been doomed for a while. Known more formally as the Werner-Gilchrist House, it’s a classic case of a historic structure fallen into a common economic limbo – too old for us to let go of, but maybe too old and expensive to save:

Ending a seven-year stay of execution, during which the Albuquerque home was sold, sat vacant, obtained historic landmark status and became a magnet for vandals, Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry has effectively signed its death warrant.

In a letter to the city’s Landmarks & Urban Conservation Commission, Berry said the city would not pony up funds to make basic renovations to the house that would protect it from further damage. That clears the way for the city’s Planning Department to approve the home’s demolition, and it means the end for a home that has become one of the most recognized in the University of New Mexico neighborhood.

When the bulldozers come in, they’ll take away some history.

I rode over after seeing a picture by Roberto Rosales in this morning’s paper showing that the demolition was finally underway.

We called it the Boo Radley house after the reclusive character in To Kill a Mockingbird. The old house, the first built in the neighborhood, always had a mysterious air, like the Radley character in Harper Lee’s novel, especially in years past when it was overgrown with trees. The trees have been gone for years as the building went through its death throes, robbing the house of much of its charm.

But it was still sad to see it sitting there this afternoon, with the second floor already lopped off. I ran into Danny Hernandez, a long time denizen of the neighborhood, and we stopped and talked about the long time efforts to find a way to save the place. As we stood there looking through the chain link fence, more people past by, stopped to look and share the sadness. A landmark gone.