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It isn't the most eye-catching headline, but it has a morbidly curious appeal.

"The homicides of 2006."

Most news organizations run the statistics this time of year - often, a roundup of the murders that a city endured during the previous year.

The Albuquerque Tribune lists by date the homicides of 53 of men, women and children. While I won't embellish on how this city compares others, I do know that my old neighborhood in Albuquerque's South Valley was hard hit. Sadly, I'm not surprised.

I spent my formative years growing up in a comfortable house that my parents built with their own hands. Without a doubt, we had a better view of the Sandia Mountains than anyone in the city. Breathtaking, actually. We had hills and dirt roads to ride our mini-bike and there was a lot of open space to run around and play from morning to night.

Like most parents, mine had to try to shield their kids from the not-so-positive attributes of the neighborhood. The polar opposite of a real estate agent mantra - location, location, location - our house sat directly across the highway of perhaps the most notorious bar in the city. (So much for that unblemished view of the mountains).

Some of you may remember the A-Mi-Gusto bar on South Coors Boulevard, often known as Old Coors Road. You may recall the reputation of the raucous, bawdy bar that had a history of fights, shootings and even killings. It sometimes seemed like a place that the law forgot.

The bar took its cue from the wild, wild, West, where anything goes.

Each of my sisters and my brother has their own memories of growing up near the infamous A-Mi-Gusto. In my experience, except for one occasion, I never had any shame about where I grew up.

Shortly before our family moved away, I was in a car, being dropped off by the parent of some seventh-grade friends. I heard laughing and whispers about my house being so close to the bar. No matter, a few months later, I left the neighborhood and those friends behind.

It was back in 1950 when my dad and his brothers purchased about 15 acres of land and property on South Coors. The area was rural, Albuquerque was minutes away, and it looked like a great place to raise a family. My Dad and uncles built houses and apartments that they planned to live in and rent out.

Between 1953 and 1963 my parents grew their family of five children. My younger sister arrived six years later. While all the child-rearing was going on, the neighborhood was slowly turning commercial. Mom and Pop businesses, then larger industrial businesses outlets, popped up. Coors Road grew into an undivided four lane highway and cars took to it faster. Three blocks away, a junkyard opened shop.

Sometime around 1967, a small tavern was opened across the way. Every weekend, dozens of cars pulled into the dirt lot. We could sometimes hear the music from across the highway.

One night, the A-Mi-Gusto crowd came to our door, chasing a man who was running for his life. It's the first and only time I saw my Dad pull out his shotgun, with intention of using it to protect his family.

Pretty scary stuff for little girls to handle. Even before that night, my parents often talked about moving. Money was the main problem; there wasn't enough of it. In 1974, though my brother was off at college, and my oldest sister had just joined him, they helped my parents find the right timing and motivation to finally leave.

In early 1976, we moved out and moved up. Albuquerque's Northeast Heights was a world away. The culture from one end of Albuquerque to the other was so different, we might as well have moved to the moon. Leaving Coors Southwest was a good thing for our family, but it took some time to get over what we lost: good neighbors, the brand-new Truman Middle School, West Mesa High School, our church, acres of land and our first family home.

Today, 1211 Coors Boulevard S.W. is no more. The rental house that was situated in front of our home still stands but today it is a Mexican restaurant. According to a newspaper account, the bar was shut more than a decade ago after a drug raid. Certainly, it was the site of too many fights, too much violence.

According the recent article, 11 of the 53 murders in the city took place within the boundaries of the community I grew up in. A quick overview of the area shows a sorrowful lack of parks, recreation centers, schools, and even small shopping centers. Gangs, once just a blip on the radar in any Albuquerque community, now infest the area where I spent my childhood. A neighborhood like that has a killer of a time trying to nurture positive growth.

If I had a million dollars - make that a few hundred million dollars - I'd finish off the job my parents and uncles started over 50 years ago. I'd raze the stretch of land on Old Coors Road between Arenal and Bridge and build a community where people could live safely and raise families. At least one thing about my fantasy plan would remain real: the neighborhoods would enjoy the best view of the Sandia Mountains of any in the city.