Vanishing America: A Journey Through the Forgotten Relics of Route 66
NEON DREAMS AND FADED SIGNS: THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICANA
You enter a high-rise in New York City, meet with one of the nation’s top advertising agencies, and look for the next big advertisement for your business. You are huddled around a large, mid-century, modern conference table, and cigarette smoke fills the air. You’re talking about this new idea. A gentleman in a three-piece suit looks at you and says, “Nostalgia. It’s delicate but potent.” This line is from the 2007 hit series Mad Men, which aired on AMC. One of the big draws of Route 66 is that it is nostalgic and transports you back in time to the smoke-filled boardrooms of the golden era of advertising agencies in the 1960s. It was a time when advertising was analog, and ideas from start to finish were competitive, creative, unique, colorful, had character, and were eye-grabbing. Route 66 has no shortage of these advertisements that have survived until today from this period in American advertising.
You find these in the neon signs towering over motels and hand-painted graphics on buildings and museums. They have stood the test of time, drawing the road trippers’ attention today as they did back in the day. Though they’ve stood the test of time, many disappear yearly—especially neon signs. The cost of neon signs creeps higher yearly to maintain, repair, and operate, and with the lack of skilled tradespeople to repair these signs, many fall into the hands of private collections across the United States to never be seen again in the public eye. The advertisements and signs are an intricate part of Route 66, providing a bit of Americana and soul and taking current and future generations back to when ideas were created in smoke-filled conference rooms.
