This was once the Bank of Magdalena, NM - failed 1929. I'm not sure that, in the current economy, that it looks as though it's doing a lot better in its incarnation as an ice-cream parlor. Magdalena is on Route 60 - a road that runs parallel with 1-40 some 70 miles further south, and which, in NM, is particularly remarkable for the pies of Pie Town. Alas, I should have checked - no pies on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. So we pressed on, through Magdalena - slowing down to an ostentatiously slow speed to avoid the omnipresent speed trap in its main street - in search of food and coffee at Martha's Black Dog Cafe in Soccoro. This too has closed - but it's been replaced by the Manzanares St. Coffee House (minus, unfortunately, the stuffed, sculpted fork and spoon, and all the pictures of black dogs, and general funkiness - but with two wonderful women who served us even though they were shutting up shop for the day). The (excellent) coffee there - I've just found out through checking them on the web - is supplied by Intelligentsia. Er... we have Intelligentsia coffee - wrong tense - HAD Intelligentsia - at the end of the road in Silver Lake... it was a long way to drive for the same brew...
Sadly, after many, many years, even the icecream parlor closed a few months ago. You took a nice photo, though. I always loved the funky signage.
ReplyDeleteFYI: not actually a speed trap! We walk place to place here and kids play in the street. You can slow down to 30 for less than 2 miles, can't you? I gotta go walk across the street to the bank now. Come back sometime and stay a while!
Hi, Vanessa - it's great to have your comment! I've driven (slowly) through Magdalena a good few times - the time before last a few weeks back, and I came back to take some pictures for a friend who's working on an exhibition on failed banks - now, and in the late '20s depression. I'm so sorry about the icecream parlor - I was afraid that the business didn't look flourishing.
ReplyDeleteNext time I'll stay longer, I promise.