Landscape Information
A significant example of New Deal-era landscape design, Roosevelt Park was completed in 1935 under the leadership of Albuquerque Mayor Clyde Tingley. The project was accomplished with Federal Emergency Relief Administration funding that employed over 200 men to shape the former dry arroyo. The “Frontier Pastoral” design was created by local landscape architect and greenhouse operator Clarence Edmund “Bud” Hollied. It included over 2,250 trees and shrubs (arborvitae, Pfitzer juniper, blue spruce, Siberian elms and umbrella catalpas), rolling green hillsides, unpaved meandering paths, and stone terracing. The perimeter of the 14-acre park was defined by a row of elms and encircled by a continuous drive, now only partially accessible. The park also contains Works Project Administration stonework in the retaining walls and picnic area abutments.
The park remains largely unchanged today, and was the focus of a rehabilitation project circa 2005 under then-Mayor Martin Chavez that added picnic amenities and a small children’s playground, as well as restoring the sandstone and granite terracing at the south end of the park. Roosevelt Park is an Albuquerque City Landmark, and was also listed in 1996 on the New Mexico and National Registers as part of a multiple property submission that documents the New Deal in New Mexico.
