Redforkhippiechick received an interesting comment a few days ago from Karim Hakam about her post in February about the endangered El Vado Motel on Route 66 in Albuquerque.
Hakam’s father ran El Vado for a number of years. Here’s what he had to say:
… It never ceases to amaze me how passionate the Route 66 aficionados are about the Mother Road. When my family ran the El Vado during the 80’s and early 90’s, it was my father’s passion (and that of his predecessor and mentor Patrick O’Neil) for the old motor court that brought global fame to the El Vado.
While my schoolmates were playing Little League baseball and earning their merit badges in the Boy Scouts, the El Vado created a unique learning experience for me as a classroom of life. In this classroom there were two very different experiences, one was associated with the constant media blitz, the other with maintaining an aging adobe motor court on Albuquerque’s Central Avenue. The media blitz included such experiences as meeting authors like Michael Wallis on his tour of the Mother Road as part of his book promotion, Good Morning America doing a segment on the El Vado and of course all of the national and international press (special sections in the local paper dedicated to the El Vado, magazines as far as Japan had articles about “Ali Hakam-san”).
The other experience of the constant repair such as the highly manually-intensive swamp cooled air conditioners, flying golf ball damage from the near-by country club, and the numerous other tasks associated with maintaing the property made this a constantly eventful and challenging time.
However, the real lessons were learned by seeing the reactions of families and business travelers that were in awe that such a historic architectural structure had not only been preserved, but had the professionalism, hygiene and efficiency to be expected from Ali Hakam and his predecessor Patrick O’Neil (Patrick’s father in law, Dan Murphy built the El Vado).
As a professional, many of the lessons I learned in my childhood I practice everyday and I thank you Route 66 fans for creating the environment for me to able to earn my own merit badge.
I wish you good luck and am proud to have had the exposure I did.
Karim Hakam
Tokyo, Japan
I asked Hakam permission to use those comments on this site, which he granted. I also informed him about Richard L. Gonzales’ desire to tear down El Vado Motel to make way for luxury townhouses. Hakam said this about the situation:
I think what Richard is doing is horrible, as he is destroying a very important relic of American history for the sole sake of amassing personal wealth.
I couldn’t have said it better.
The city is holding the second half of a hearing about an application to demolish El Vado on Jan. 10. We’ll keep you posted.
I have not heard mention of Mr. Gonzales consulting anyone from the hospitality industry regarding the motels financial potential from a sales and marketing standpoint.
I might just attend the January 10 hearing and make a fool of myself in order to point that out, as I do have such experience in the hotel business.
He seems to be making a fuss about the money he doesn’t want to spend to make it a viable and profitable addition to the economy of Albuquerque. I wonder if he has even the slightest idea of its real potential.
He also doesnt seem to be taking care to preserve the property as it is, looking at it from the street you’ll notice that doors are standing open, exposing the interior to the elements.
Of course, it would benefit his agenda at this point for it to decay further and quickly, wouldn’t it?