In its earliest days, the neon zig-zagging the top of the Grandview Motel was an eastbound Route 66 motorist's first sign of roadside lodging in Albuquerque, N.M.

Today, the more-than-60-year-old motel has only two red letters alight.

It's the "no" in "no vacancy."

"I haven't turned them on for about a year," owner Leroy Moya says of the neon that drapes his motel.

Even though the motel is typically filled with weekly tenants, Moya admits it might be gone if he had the money to invest.

"The building's so old, I'd probably end up demolishing it and building something new," he said.

That's exactly what has some Route 66 preservationists concerned _ a big worry in a city that actively promotes the road as a primary attraction.

But is there really anything left of the Mother Road, which was decommissioned in 1985 and this year celebrates its 80th birthday?

Each set of eyes sees history in its own way.

 

The historian

 

David Kammer slows his Toyota Prius as it arrives at Aztec Motel, an adobe-style building adorned with pottery and wall hangings. Built in 1931, it's one of 25 Route 66-era properties on state and national historic registers.

"I lived in this the first year I lived in Albuquerque," Kammer said, remembering back to 1975.

Today, Kammer is a historian who helped draft the National Register of Historic Places nomination for New Mexico's Route 66.

Kammer's giving a tour of what remains of Route 66 in Albuquerque.

It's a variety, he points out: an old gas station renovated into a popular restaurant, a barbecue joint turned laundromat and motels _ some shuttered, some not _ along with neon signs that hang in front of empty lots like ghosts of motels past.

Look in a 1955 city directory under motels or "tourist courts" and it would show more than 100 listings along Central Avenue, Kammer says. On this drive, the count ends near 30, about two-thirds of which are still in operation.

"This number's going to be lower than I thought it was," he says, as the tour nears an end. "But I think in some ways maybe that makes the case all the more compelling for holding onto some of the ones that do remain."

Economics make it difficult _ if not impossible _ for every historic motel to stay.

A recent battle to declare El Vado Motel a city landmark arose out of fears that its owner would turn it into condominiums.

"The economics of redevelopment will continue to shake out more," Kammer said. "How much more can we afford to let go and say Albuquerque's a great town to see the Route 66 cultural landscape?"

 

The tourist

 

It's not hard to find something emblazoned with the famous black-and-white Route 66 sign at the Covered Wagon.

Inside the gift shop, Shaun Weston picks up two Route 66 shot glasses from shelves filled with Route 66 coffee mugs, golf balls, and salt and pepper shakers.

"I've always heard of it," said Weston, 23, a Missouri resident in town visiting relatives after serving in Iraq.

Weston's aware that the road is historic. You can sense the history when you're in Albuquerque, he said, though he couldn't describe it.

"I really don't know," he said. "I really can't tell you."

While the store gets plenty of Route 66 enthusiasts and people who used to travel the road, reactions like Weston's aren't unusual, said Melinda Placencia, the store's assistant manager.

"We get a lot of people that say 'What is Route 66?,' " Placencia said.

Once they hear about the road, "they get excited about it. 'Now I can say I drove on old Route 66,' " she said.

 

The traveling musician

 

Tim Robb stands next to a marker showing where the original north-south route crosses the 1937 east-west realignment.

Carrying a wooden box that says "Roots Music CDs $10," the Angel Fire musician and his guitar have just finished an impromptu set in front of the KiMo Theater.

"I'm aware of Route 66," Robb, 37, says as he looks around the downtown business district, which is adorned with reminders.

Albuquerque has a 1950s feel, a nostalgia to it, he said.

"As a musician, I like to play places like that," he said.

He looks around the busy corridor.

"Man, that's the song. 'Get your kicks on Route 66,' " he said. "I can hear that song in my head. I think of the Rolling Stones version."

 

The diner

 

The back of the menu at the 66 Diner reads:

"Today, Route 66 has all but vanished ... The disappearance of the old road has stirred a sense of what Route 66 meant and still means to many Americans."

It should add Germans and Japanese, based on the stories owner Tom Willis tells.

"Great following among Europeans, Japanese," he says while sitting at the restaurant's 1950s-style lunch counter. "Some Europeans came here with their (Route 66) books and want you to sign it to prove that they were here."

The diner itself is only 18 years old. But 60 years ago its foundation was part of Sam's 66 Service Center, Willis says.

And while the menu contends that Route 66 has all but vanished, Willis says "we try to remind them."

Up at the cash register, waitress Creighton Burson talks about Route 66 as "America's Main Street."

She wishes she knew more about its history, and recalls a conversation she had a few months back with some inquiring customers.

"They asked me what's so special about Route 66," said Burson, 24, who moved here recently from Denver. "I honestly couldn't tell them. I felt kind of sad I couldn't tell them."

 

The former hitchhiker

 

In 1965, 18-year-old Malachy Kennedy decided he wanted to see California.

He left his hometown of Chicago with $11 and hitchhiked the length of Route 66.

"It was dark," Kennedy, now 59, remembers. "It's not lit-up like the interstates are."

Kennedy's now a temporary resident at the Luna Lodge, one of the Route 66 sites on historic registers.

He decided to leave Chicago again five months ago for a nicer climate and to escape memories, he said.

His three days in Albuquerque on that long-ago road trip stuck in his mind.

"When you were on Route 66, you came through all these towns, right through the middle of them," the retired welder says, standing in the entryway of a room with plum-colored walls. "Just like here, Central Avenue."

He's smiling like a man with a good memory on his mind.

"I got to San Francisco and still had $11. People fed me along the way," he says. "It was a different time."

Today, Suresh A. Patel, owner of the 1940 motel, says he realizes that old motels on Central have a bad reputation for their clientele.

But he's tried to do something different: his tenants are mostly veterans paying $500 a month, or people like Kennedy looking for a cheap place to stay until they find an apartment.

Patel keeps a few rooms available for the occasional photo-snapping tourist. Just in case.

"Once upon a time I used to get a lot of tourists," Patel says. "But now, we're lucky to get one."

 

The preservationists

 

Bob Audette and Route 66 were born the same year: 1926.

Audette lives on Route 66 in the ghost town of Barton, 22 miles east of Albuquerque.

And today he's fighting to keep the old road from losing its identity.

"Yeah, it's even renamed State Highway 333, which is a shame," Audette said.

Audette is part of the Route 66 Chamber of Commerce, a national group based in New Mexico that's working to "be the thread that ties all of the pockets of Route 66 activity together from Chicago to L.A.," said Jerry Ueckert of Edgewood, another member of the group.

As soon as the highway was decommissioned, Ueckert said, "Bob was out there thumping the restoration bible before most people knew it was even gone."

Today that includes a plan _ with state blessing _ to paint stencils of the Route 66 sign on the old road, Audette said. So far, stencils mark the road just west of Moriarty to where Audette lives.

"We're trying to stencil the highway where people can find it," Audette said.

Route 66 connects people to the land, Audette said. The new highways don't give you that feeling.

"I've got a poem, if I could remember it, it goes something like this:

"'Route 66 is like being part of the countryside and it should always be forever saved and signed for you and all to see.'

"I'm not a poet, but I just happened to write that one."

 

(Contact Erik Siemers of the Albuquerque Tribune at esiemersabqtrib.com.)

 

 

 

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com)