Route 66 Centenial: An Iconic View: Route 66 in Downtown Albuquerque

About this event

Ruddy’s talk looks at the impact that Route 66 had on Albuquerque’s main street, Central Ave. The story begins forty-six years before Route 66 was founded and is told with an iconic seri es of photographs each coincidentally taken from the railroad tracks and looking west along the trail that would become Central Ave. We see downtown Albuquerque grew to an optimum size in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, a vibrant business district the Saturday Evening Post said had “a blazing main drag” which the Chamber of Commerce claimed to be the brightest main street in America. But there is a downside to “optimum” which the iconic photographs also show as Albuquerque today valiantly fights to find a new identity for its central business district.