THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT
What’s the best way to convey up-to-date information about a city’s register of historic properties? It’s an app with a built-in map. The Historic Santa Fe Foundation is boldly moving into the future this fall, when it hopes to introduce an app that will complement the fifth edition of Old Santa Fe Today (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2022). The book succinctly summarizes the development of architecture in Santa Fe and chronicles the histories of some of the most distinctive properties in town.
But time waits for no one, and it doesn’t wait to publish a book, either.
“The book was kind of a special thing in the sense that it’s finite,” says Audra Bellmore, the author of the latest edition of the publication. “An app ... will be a way that we can continually add properties without going through the book writing.”
Bellmore’s version of Old Santa Fe Today took four years to research and write and includes 96 houses and properties that have been deemed historically significant. But Melanie Mcwhorter, the deputy director of the Historic Santa Fe Foundation, says that five more properties have already been added to the register since the book was released.
The app — which is also expected to be titled Old Santa Fe Today —is currently in its second phase of development and includes a translation of text excerpts from English to Spanish as well as the development of audio in both languages to assist visually impaired readers.
Mcwhorter says the app will be used in conjunction with the book and with an accordion-style folding map that details all the properties on the register.
“I figure that you can reflect on the book when you get back home instead of carrying it with you,” she says. “You could mark things on the paper map if you chose; they’re three complementary pieces that can be used on their own but also go really well together.”
Mcwhorter says the entries for each property will be limited to 50- to 150-word summaries and adds that there will be an element of geolocation that will allow the app’s users to navigate from point to point.
The app — like the book — also will tell consumers which homes on the register are privately owned and which are not viewable from the street. App users will be able to place a “favorite” tag on properties that they hope to return to and learn more about in the future.
“The groundwork has already been laid for all of this, and we’ve tested it as a staff,” she says. “But we need to beta test it once the English and Spanish text is in there. We may just beta test with a couple neighborhoods, but we’re hoping by the end of the year we’ll have it ready to go.” — Spencer Fordin