Route 66 (Central Avenue, Albuquerque)

Central Avenue in Albuquerque is Route 66 as it exists today — the post-1937 realignment that cut a more direct east–west path through the city, significantly reducing travel time. The older alignment ran north through Santa Fe for about 11 years before the highway straightened its course. What Central Avenue holds now are the mid-20th-century motels, diners, and neon signs that accumulated after that rerouting, the physical record of the highway's heyday as the primary route from Chicago to Los Angeles.