City On The Edge Podcast

On our first episode of Cult Season 2021, Nora tells us the strange story of New Mexico's druids. .

A bit of a departure from our normal, historical fare, this episode focuses on cohost Mike Smith's tenure at the scandal plagued (and ultimately shuttered) Brown Mackie for-profit college.

Once upon a time, there was a fast food restaurant with a really weird name.

In 1947, the villainous New Mexico Highway Department knocked a 3 million year old landmark and Route 66 icon off of its pedestal. 73 years later, we're upset about it!

We all have bad days, but most of the time they don't involve nuclear weapons. Our guest Roland Pentilla tells about the day Albuquerque came awfully close to nuclear Armageddon, as well as other military aircraft accidents that have been mostly forgotten. This is a long one, but jam packed with fascinating information!

Okay, so we won't be able to show you the interior of this infamous UNM landmark, but we'll delve into its origins, the time it was set on fire 4 times in a single year, and how it served as the home base for a racist reign of terror in the 1960s.

In this first part of our new series, we look back to different protests and periods of activism in Albuquerque's past. This episode features the anti-fascism demonstrations of the 30s and the, uh... anti-gray hat movement at UNM?

I was lucky enough to have a chance to chat with local journalist and author Ashley M. Biggers about her new book, Secret Albuquerque, which details 90 "weird, wonderful and obscure" Albuquerque sites and stories.

We’ve never covered the Westside mass grave in detail at City on the Edge, mainly out of a desire to give it the time and attention it deserves and to do so in a way that doesn’t minimize the victims. In February of this year, however, local journalist Tierna Unruh-Enos launched The Mesa podcast, a series that focuses on the West Side crime site in a way that we never could, with interviews and investigations featuring family members of the victims, police officers who worked on (and are still working on) the case, as well as Tierna’s own experiences as a member of the media during in the time period covering the mass grave’s discovery. I recently spoke to Tierna about the podcast, as well as what drew her to covering the case in the first place, and how her investigations have changed her view of Albuquerque’s most notorious crime scene.

Hey! It's a global pandemic! City on the Edge checks in.

Well, we're all stuck inside due to coronavirus, so why not take a look back at the 1918 flu and how it affected Albuquerque and New Mexico?

We take a trip down one of the most beautiful and historic roads near Albuquerque.

One of the most well-preserved ghost towns near Albuquerque is the coal-mining village of Hagan.

One of the most iconic images of the American west is the ghost town, and New Mexico has more than it's fair share of these collections of abandoned buildings and dusty reminders of lives long gone. If you do any research on New Mexico ghost towns, you're bound to find yourself checking out the City of Dust blog (at cityofdust.blogspot.com)--and facebook page, where explorer and author John Mulhouse chronicles his many expeditions to these mostly forgotten sites. I spoke with John by phone recently, and delved into where his love for ghost towns comes from, strange encounters he's had while exploring them, and his upcoming book, Abandoned New Mexico: Ghost Towns, Endangered Architecture and Hidden History, due to be released in June of this year.

Nora is leaving! Why? Because of football, dammit. So we hang out with her for a while and reminiscence about her favorite episodes and how much we're going to miss her. :( :( :(

New Mexico is filled with places you can't go. Our pal, Regis Lacher, talks about a few of them.

It's a very merry City on the Edgemas as we talk about luminarias and whether or not they are actually farolitos. Also, the Bugg Lights and biscochitos (which ARE interesting, MIKE.)

In an Anytown, USA/City on the Edge mashup, we check out Cedar Crest New Mexico with Ty Bannerman, Courtney FitzGerald and Mike Smith.

CoE talks to storyteller Joe Hayes, whose retelling of New Mexico legends and folktales has delighted audiences for nearly four decades.

We travel back in time to the Albuquerque of 110 years ago and find a world of mail scams, abortion pills and quack treatment for hemorrhoids.