ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – They’ve been an anchor in downtown Albuquerque for over two decades offering New Mexicans an important look at the history America’s vowed not to forget. Now, one of the state’s most unique museums is getting a new home. Having outgrown its space downtown, the Winrock Town Center will soon be the new home of the New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum. “It’s very critical to the world we’re living in now,” says Raye Cohen, Executive Director, New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum.
Cohen said preserving museums that remind us of hate crimes is important in order to stop it from happening again. That’s why she said they’re looking to move the New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum to a bigger space. “So that we can have much larger, at least five times more space for exhibits as well as have classrooms for students, office space which we do not have,” Cohen said.
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Cohen said they were offered space at Winrock in partnership with Goodman Realty and the City of Albuquerque. The new space will be in the former Montgomery Ward building, now anchored by New Mexico Orthopedics. The basement gives the museum 20,000 square feet of exhibit space compared to its current 1,600 square feet.
The space would also be located underground which would eliminate natural lighting that damages artifacts. Goodman Realty said having the museum at Winrock gives the location an educational component. “We really have a mission and a vision to improve the community and again the museum is a really good piece to that overall puzzle,” said Darin Sand, Executive Director for Goodman Realty Group.
No move in date has been set as of yet, but the museum said it’ll be a chance to offer more educational tours and exhibits. “Moving into an interim space allows us to really grow the dream that we’ve been putting in place slowly over the past five years,” said Cohen.
The museum said the location at Winrock will still be considered an interim space. Museum organizers still have the ultimate goal of raising enough money to one day build a stand-alone museum. The Holocaust Museum opened in 2001 and has only ever been in two locations on Central.
