Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Edward Keating documented Route 66 beginning about 15 years ago in black-and-white images that often recalled the bleak Depression-era images of Dorothea Lange.
Keating won the Pulitzer in 2002 for his photo coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City. He also spent 11 years on the Mother Road, documenting everyday people’s struggles to survive on a highway that declined after the interstates bypassed it and it losing its federal certification.
This interview by David Geffin covers a wide range of Keating’s career, but a few minutes are devoted to his Route 66 work as well. The Route 66 musings start at the 5:40 mark, with especially interesting musings about the long-gone Shady Rest motel in Tulsa:
Ed Keating interview from David Geffin on Vimeo.
Keating wrote an essay about Route 66 in New York Times Magazine in 2000 and how a road trip on it indirectly led to his kicking a nasty drinking problem. An excerpt:
It’s a traveling road but more than anything people just live their lives there. A baby waits on the restaurant floor in his car seat for his mother to get off work. A middle-aged stripper on her break sits at the bar with her customers. A salesman delivers Gideon Bibles to a hotel. A homeless man in his two-tone tuxedo finishes up a doughnut late at night. People who live and work here feel some pride, but it’s the pride of the underdog and the loser. Since the interstate displaced Route 66 some year’s back, the better businesses moved, taking along the jobs and the money. What’s left is there because things were well built back then. Besides, it would cost too much to tear things down. The nostalgia craze sweeping cash-and-credit-rich America plays a part in it, but not much.
A related multimedia presentation may be viewed here.
Alas, I’ve been unable to find any books of Keating’s Route 66 material. And the last scheduled exhibition of his Route 66 images was at Bursa Fotofest in Bursa, Turkey, in 2011.
About 25 of Keating’s Route 66 images may be seen in a slideshow here. More may be seen in a slideshow on Keating’s website.
(Image of Ed Keating’s Route 66 booklet by Decker Design via Flickr)