Santa Fe Plaza
National Historic Landmark District; The Plaza Of The Oldest Capital City In The United States, Laid Out In 1610 And The Terminus Of Both The Camino Real And The Santa Fe Trail · Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe was laid out around this square in 1610, which makes it the oldest capital city in the United States and its plaza the oldest continuously used public space of its kind in the country. The Palace of the Governors on the north side has been in government use since 1610 and is the oldest continuously occupied public building in America; under its long portal, members of New Mexico pueblos and tribes sell jewellery and pottery they made themselves, sitting in a numbered spot allocated by lottery. The square was the end of the Camino Real from Mexico City and later the end of the Santa Fe Trail from Missouri. What surrounds it now is an entire district held to the Pueblo Revival building code adopted in 1957: flat roofs, projecting vigas, earth-toned stucco, almost nothing above three storeys. That code is why Santa Fe looks like nowhere else in the United States, and also why it is sometimes accused of looking like a set.
100 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 87501, United States
The plaza itself is open public space, day and night, all year. The museums and shops around it keep their own hours, commonly late morning to late afternoon, with several closed on Mondays. The Palace of the Governors portal, where Native artists sell under a centuries-old arrangement, is occupied most days in reasonable weather from mid-morning. Summer evenings bring free music on the bandstand.