Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1921-04-17
AS the People View It
small Town Horizons.


Last Sunday morning the journal
carried an alluring ad. 1t struck
home to spring yearning humans,
watering, thoughts wandering to-
ward companion spring delicacies
Said the ad: Fresh strawberry
ice cream.-first of the season,
Followed, the name of a local
dealer.
Lets have some" said friend
wife. The vote was unanimous
before even l could put my yea
into words. The phone was at
hand, and in a moment the local
dealer was on the line.
THAT ad of yours this morning,
We want some sent up-a freezer
of it, about quart or So"
address, please?"
university Heights
Sorry, we don't deliver outside
the city limits"
But"
Click!
That was all. No attempt to
make an arrangement for delivery
A sale passed up. A customer for
this time and the future lost. Plain
Hack of business sense. A small
town horizon.
This is not the first instance of
this kind. A few of the local mer-
chants have the bigger Albuquerque
| idea and cater to it, go to a-littla
expense to extend the city limits
beyond their present closely drawn
larbitrary paper boundaries. Some
of the others, however, fail to see
business in a compact home deVel-
opment already numbering fifty,
prosperous, middle class homes and
rapidly growing, lying less than
two miles from the center of the
city and connected by a continu
Gus line of homes between. 1t is
not a suburb even, although politi-
cally for the present, outside the
city limits,
AS | said, this Is not the first
instance. One bumps into the, small
horizon in buying coal, having a
trunk hauled, and in sundry other
Irritating ways. The tax for not
living inside the city limits is not
a financial burden to the one who
pays it, nor would it wreck the
business houses were they not to
collect it. 1t is the irritation of
that hesitating pause after giving
ones address, the half-doubting,
half hearted eXpostulation: but
that's outside the city limits"
While in this same vein, contem-
plate another phase of the small
town horizon-the lack of a side
walk, even pathway to one of AL
buquerque's chief assets-the I'M
iversity on the mesa. Which same
painless way now trudged by hun
dreds daily through an unbeliev-
ably rough and sandy road, at the
risk of being spread over the front
of a racing auto, leads past four
large sanitariums, more of the real
| tangible assets of Albuquerque
| The present condition existing in
this respect along East Central
avenue to the university are beyond
the comprehension, | imagine, If
those who do not travel that way
Regularly.
There ara folks who have not
reached the financial status OF
euto owners: and there are even
a few in these two great social
stratas in the United States-the
autoists and the autoless-who still
enjoy the novelty and mild eXhi.
leratiOn of a mile hike. But there's
no especial delight to be had walk.
ing that rutted speedway to the
university. --..-.
OF course, it's outside the "city
limits" One can't trudge far in
any direction from Second and
Central without getting outside the
limits. / can see no needed civic
improvement in Albuquerque more
pr essing than building a walk, not
necessarily paved but just graded
and out of the traffic would do the
trick, from the end of the present
paving on East Central to the uni,
Versty. Irrespective of city lines
1t is a city project to be pushed BY
the city and no reactionary prop
erty owners should be permitted t.
stand in the way.
EDWARD p. ANCONA,
1913 Columbia Avenue
1