Reactions

For 20th century Americans, Route 66 symbolized the road to hope, to a better life… “manifest destiny” mobilized.

Steve’s images capture the bittersweet collision between those hopes and reality, between dreams and the long hard pavement.

One by one hope decayed, and they settled for something less. Decades later, Steve makes tangible the faded optimism of their new lives — all couched in brilliant blue skies, bright colors, and precise angles, redolent of each traveler’s uncompromised hope for a better life in the west.

— David Alexander, St. Louis, Missouri