Phil Parker

Santa Fe’s last full-service gas station has pumped its last drop of petrol. The Old Trail Garage, at 600 Old Santa Fe Trail, is closing today after 60 years of operation.

The station has already used up all its gas, but will offer maintenance services — and maybe a shoulder to cry on — to its customers in its final hours.

Santa Fe periodontist Bill Parker said he bought the property 25 years ago and decided it would remain a small-service, independent gas station.

“I always enjoyed going in and having special attention and I wanted to keep that feel,” he said. “There’s a good-old-days feel to the place.”

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Nussbaumer Fine Art Gallery and Southwest Spanish Craftsmen, at Guadalupe and Agua Fria, will be closed soon.

Owner R. Marc Nussbaumer admits the sagging economy has taken a toll, but he also points blame for his closing in another direction: at the day laborers who regularly gather nearby, hoping someone will pick them up for quick contractor work.

“I can say with absolute certainty that we have lost significant revenues because of this problem,” Nussbaumer wrote in a January letter to Simon Brackley, president of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce.

“I have been told time and time again by clients that have come in that they’re scared to walk by that area,�...

Is the city of Santa Fe killing the goose that laid the golden egg?

The metaphor came up twice Wednesday morning at the Santa Fe Convention Center, where Mayor David Coss hosted a “Coffee With Coss” to discuss the city’s economy.

“The economy is in dire straits,” Coss said at the start of the discussion. “It’s been catching up to Santa Fe the last few months.”

Renew able energy initiatives, education and parking were among the topics discussed by Santa Feans who took turns mak ing comments and asking questions, but a prevailing topic was the city’s need to improve the way it sells itself. Its art, in particular.

“Do you want Canyon Roa...

Sewing buttons over one’s eyelids would seem a nasty proposition, and in this way it’s perfect for the stop-motion fairy tale “Coraline.”

The title character is a little girl who discovers the doorway into a magical wonderland where her parents are more doting and cook much better food. Their backyard garden is filled with crazy plants that could come straight from Hunter S. Thompson’s worst acid flashbacks, and the mice wear colorful hats while doing funky dances for her entertainment.

Coraline loves it there. (Who wouldn’t? Cats can talk and no one gets her name wrong.) She can stay forever if, like every other person or animal she encounters in the Other World...

A resolution to finally complete donation of five acres of city-owned land to the Santa Fe National Cemetery is scheduled to begin its journey through the City Council committee process next week. But it remains to be seen whether the deal, as it’s written, stands a chance.

Joe Lucero, the constituent services director for the New Mexico Department of Veterans’ Affairs, said the resolution has been sent to the National Cemetery Administration’s legal counsel in Washington, D.C.

“The Department of Justice won’t support any donation of land that has strings attached to it,” Lucero said.

Santa Fe City Councilor Patti Bushee, who introduced the new resolutio...