Adobe portals and a Territorial brick corner frame a four hundred year old square, and the La Fonda lobby where Ride the Pink Horse shot in 1947.
What Santa Fe Plaza looks like
The plaza is a two acre square bordered by San Francisco Street, Washington Avenue, Palace Avenue and Lincoln Avenue. Low adobe and stuccoed buildings frame it on every side, under flat rooflines.
The runs the length of the north side, a single storey adobe building. Its covered portal, on round wood posts, opens directly onto the sidewalk.
On the plaza's east side, the two storey breaks from the adobe with pressed brick, arched window heads and a cast iron balcony. Its name is still carved into the cornice above the street level portal. stands at the south end of Old Santa Fe Trail, its stepped, multi storey massing rebuilt in the 1920s in the same tan stucco and dark wood trim as the rest of the square.
On the west side, the building at has a Spanish Pueblo style facade, its parapet stepped to match the roofline next door. The interior of the square is laid out as a shaded park, with wrought iron benches, mature cottonwoods and a covered bandstand at its center.
Native American vendors set out jewelry and crafts on blankets along the Palace of the Governors portal every day, narrowing that sidewalk to a single file of foot traffic. The stands one block east on Cathedral Place, its twin stone towers visible above the rooftops at the end of San Francisco Street. Narrow one way streets wrap the square on all four sides, with parked cars and slow pedestrian crossings rather than through traffic.
Shot in Santa Fe Plaza
Ride the Pink Horse used La Fonda's lobby and dining room for its 1947 dark noir plot. The hotel's stepped adobe corner at the south end of Old Santa Fe Trail has kept the same tan stucco and dark wood trim since its 1920s rebuild.
Ride the Pink Horse, 1947
La Fonda's lobby and dining room
Robert Montgomery directed and starred in the film noir, and filmed its lobby and dining room scenes here. The hotel's current building had gone up in a 1920s rebuild, the same stepped massing and tan stucco still standing at the corner. Street View
What Santa Fe Plaza can double for
Old Town Albuquerque in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Old Town Albuquerque is built around its own plaza in the same one and two storey adobe style, with covered portals on wood posts and native vendors selling under them. San Felipe de Neri church stands along one side of its square, much as the Palace of the Governors stands along the north side of the Santa Fe plaza. Old Town's plaza is smaller and its portal posts are squarer than Santa Fe's rounded vigas, which shows in a tight column shot. Modern restaurant patios and string lighting need dressing out for any earlier decade. Try searching adobe plaza with portals now.
Olvera Street in Los Angeles, California
Olvera Street runs off its own historic plaza with the same mix of one and two storey adobe buildings, covered portals and market stalls set up by vendors each day. Avila Adobe and the surrounding block give it a similarly low, earth toned skyline. Olvera Street is a narrower pedestrian lane than Santa Fe's open square, and its market stalls are fixed rather than blankets laid on the paving. A wide shot reads differently from the plaza as a result, and palm trees at the edges of frame give away the state. Try searching adobe market street portals now.
El Presidio Historic District in Tucson, Arizona
Tucson's Presidio neighborhood has the same low adobe and Territorial brick mix on narrow streets close to its own historic plaza. Several of its buildings have covered portals and cast iron balconies comparable to the Catron Block. The district is mostly residential and lacks Santa Fe's storefronts and daily vendor activity, so it works better for a side street than for the square itself. Saguaro cacti in a wide shot would give away the state. Try searching adobe territorial brick street now.
.JPG)
