After reading yesterday’s post about Route 66, a good friend of mine sent me an email that basically said, “If you like Route 66, go to Tucumcari. “
She’s right in a way.
Tucumcari, New Mexico has the highest density of classic 1940s and 1950s motels and motor courts along what is left of Route 66. Most of these buildings have well maintained neon signs and a hard working photographer can make a lot of Ruote 66 pictures very quickly.
But — you knew this was coming — it is one smallish town along what is now Interstate 40. Route 66 is Tucumcari’s Main Street. In order to make enough pictures of the “Route 66 stuff,” you’d probably have to stay there for parts of two nights. It might be worth it, if you are a true Route 66 aficionado. I’m not sure what a day in Tucumcari would bring. But, for most people, it’s a gateway town to New Mexico if you are coming from the east, or a final stop before you head into Texas if you are coming from the west.
If I were photographing Route 66 seriously, but didn’t want to make a huge project of it, I’d pick Albuquerque because Route 66 runs east and west, as well as north and south. No, it’s not magic. Prior to 1937, Route 66 ran north to Santa Fe from just west of Santa Rosa and then south down to Albuquerque all the way to Los Lunas, along what is now 4th Street, and then west through Rio Puerco and Suwanee where it headed west in the same general direction as we know it today. After 1937 it ran east and west through Albuquerque along Central Avenue.
All of that is the long way of saying that there is a lot of area to make pictures in less then a short day’s drive. Of course, a lot of the truly nostalgic buildings are gone. For a long time the City of Albuquerque demolished those old buildings without regard to any sort of historical significance. In some cases, it might have been just as well. Boarded up old motels gave rise to other kinds of business on their premises. On the other hand, there are a lot of slabs and over grown weeds where those buildings used to be.
This picture was made on Central Avenue in Albuquerque in the late afternoon sun.
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