Get Your Kitsch on Route 66

With its fading marquee and rusting screen, the Azusa Foothill Drive-In Theatre plays the part perfectly of an aging relic of Route 66.

It was the last single-screen drive-in in Los Angeles County until it closed three years ago, apparently destined for the wrecking ball.

But an unlikely preservation campaign saved the theater’s imposing facade -- a movement that reflects the near-obsession in some communities along Old Route 66 with saving the kitschy past.

Along a stretch of the “mother road” at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, from Azusa east through Upland and into San Bernardino, officials have been slowly remaking the streetscape in honor of tail fins and diners.

The changes can be seen in places like Upland, where a major revitalization of Foothill Boulevard, nearly complete, includes giving 1950s touches to the facades of strip malls and adding retro street lamps. Among the new features are a neon-framed gas station with streamlined midcentury touches and a giant sculpture of a coffee mug with a “Route 66” sign.

At the same time, some of the actual relics from the Route 66 era are garnering new respect, such as the Azusa drive-in, the Aztec Hotel in Monrovia, the Magic Lamp restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga and the very first McDonald’s restaurant, in San Bernardino, which has been converted into a museum. There are now plans for a Route 66 Hall of Fame.

“Route 66 has a mystique about it that we’re trying to capture,” said Brad Buller, city planner for Rancho Cucamonga.

City planners said that many of the inland suburbs along the road don’t have the large variety of historic buildings claimed by urban cities, so Route 66 has become a way to celebrate their heritage.

Though Route 66 nostalgia has been popular across America for decades, Jim Conkle, executive director of the California Route 66 Preservation Foundation, said few places have gone as far as this region in celebrating the past.

“The road is already there. Cities don’t have to create it,” he said. “They are aware of the culture.”

In an age before interstate highways, Route 66 was considered the main route across the West, entering California through San Bernardino County, then proceeding into Los Angeles and running along Santa Monica Boulevard before ending at the ocean.

The highway, which ran from Chicago to Santa Monica, came to represent the romance of the open road. Today, it still rekindles fond memories of ’57 Chevys and family summer vacations.

But after World War II, freeways robbed the route of its traffic, and shopping malls began to steal customers from roadside stores. By the 1970s, many parts of the old Route 66 had fallen on hard times.

California cities were among the first to attempt to use the lore of Route 66 to try to revitalize their business districts.

Rancho Cucamonga began fixing up its stretch in the mid-1980s. Plaques were erected at historical sites such as the Magic Lamp restaurant, and stucco bus shelters took on curved, postmodern looks.

The additions blend in with historic sites such as the Sycamore Inn, whose rustic brown walls were first constructed in 1848 and which now functions as a steakhouse.

Down the road, shot glasses, scrap-metal art and toy cars are sold at Route 66 Memories Antiques and Rustic Furniture, a cramped trinket store that celebrates one of America’s most recognizable icons.

Rosa Ramos, owner of Route 66 Memories, fell in love with Route 66 as a teenager in El Salvador after a pen pal in Los Angeles sent her articles about the highway.

Soon after she immigrated to the United States in 1981, she bought herself a 1966 Chevy Nova. By 1998, she had opened her store. She said the reemergence of Route 66 architecture has added interest to her business.

“It’s history that makes Route 66 what it is,” Ramos said. “There is a past, present and future. It’s something really good to save for our kids.”

The effort has spread east from Upland and Rancho Cucamonga to Fontana and San Bernardino, where officials are trying to use the old-road nostalgia to boost sagging business districts.

Each year, thousands of vintage car buffs from around the nation converge on San Bernardino for the Route 66 Rendezvous. Owners of muscle cars, hot rods and trucks cruise the streets. In one contest, called the “burnout,” drivers try to produce as much smoke as possible from their cars.

San Bernardino is now searching for a home for a “Cruisin’ Hall of Fame.”

A few miles to the west, Fontana has its own Route 66 dreams.

“We’re raising the bar and changing the image of Fontana,” said Kevin Ryan, a senior planner for the city, which hopes to generate enough financial interest to remove some of its rundown motels and flophouses.

Ryan said city staff crowded into a van several months ago to take a tour of Route 66 from Pasadena back to Fontana to gather inspiration.

“There really wasn’t a lot of original buildings out there,” Ryan said.

So Fontana planners, bolstered by a booming housing market and the popularity of its nationally known speedway, decided to start from scratch. On the table are plans to promote a coordinated Art Deco look for new structures, a park that features a map of Route 66, and retro road signs that point out things like the distance to Chicago, where Route 66 officially begins (2,083 miles, if you’re wondering).

Conkle, of the California Route 66 Preservation Foundation, said it’s a shame there are so few of the original landmarks from the era left.

“Most of these communities have taken their landmarks and turned them into strip malls,” he said. “We’re such a young country, people don’t know what’s historic. It’s too bad we didn’t start trying to save these things 30 years ago.”

Azusa and its drive-in theater became the latest battle over Route 66 preservation. Conkle and the Los Angeles Conservancy wanted to save the entire drive-in, saying it was a historically significant structure.

But in a compromise, officials will keep the marquee and turn the rest into dorms and athletic facilities for Azusa Pacific University.

“We lost our original McDonald’s, we lost our A&W;,” said Mayor Cristina Cruz-Madrid. “These were things that distinguished us as part of the Route 66 phenomenon. Most of our car culture has passed away.”