The People and Land Along The American Road
Metropolitan in East El Paso, Texas, 2016
Photograph by ©Bruce Berman
1955 Nash* Metropolitan.
Ahead of its time
Austin Motor Company engine.
Body by Pininfarina.
The MSRP for Series III models (in 1955) was $1,527 (Hardtop).
Ahead of its time.
*Nash became Nash-Hudson which became American Motor Company (Ramblers) which became AMC, which was acquired by Renault which sold it to Chrysler which became extinct in 1987.
Just east of El Paso,on the edge of town, about 20 miles from downtown, not far from the Rio Grande river that separates the United States from Mexico, there’s only two roads out of town. One is Interstate 10 and the other is the old main highway, U.S. 80, a road that was the main southern link between San Augustine, Florida and San Diego, California.
Just outside of El Paso, the two great roads divide, I10 shooting straight east, like an arrow. U.S. 80 turns south and follows the river until it turn east at Esparanza and then wiggles on, ambling through Texas, heading to the bayous of Louisiana.
The road, now part of El Paso’s east side thins out, about 30 miles from El Paso’s central downtown, then dwindles into Fabens, a farm town, the last town of West Texas.
Vacancy at the Blue Swallow, Tucumcari, NM
©2012 Bruce Berman
The Blue Swallow Motel is on Historic Route 66 (The “Mother Road”) in Tucumcari, NM.
It has been open since 1939.
Yeso, New Mexico, 2010
Yeso is a small (7 people) ex railroad stop and repair yard on U.S. Highway 60 in east Central New Mexico.
It is all but abandoned.
It is silent and vast and ruined and worth stopping for, for the silence alone.
I did.