Route 66 Turns 100 - And These American Destinations Are Having Comebacks of Their Own

Route 66 turns 100 this year, and the longest continuous urban stretch of it runs 18 miles through Albuquerque. The city calls it “18 miles of magic.”

It is not waiting for the anniversary to do something with it. Route 66 Remixed is already live: 18 large-scale public art installations and site-specific digital activations along Central Avenue, built with Meow Wolf and Refract Studio. The Route 66 Visitor Center has reopened with a photography exhibition marking the centennial.

Across several of AFAR’s U.S. picks for 2026, the draw is not a brand-new attraction. It is the return or reinvention of places travelers already know.

Eighteen Miles of the Mother Road

Albuquerque’s stretch is the longest continuous urban run of Route 66 in the country, which makes it the one place the centennial can be experienced as a drive rather than a monument.

The city’s older landmarks anchor the ends of it. The KiMo Theatre and the Albuquerque Museum are both walkable from Central Avenue, and Arrive Albuquerque occupies a renovated Route 66 motor inn.

The Apollo Goes Dark for Thirteen Months

The Apollo Theater broke ground on the largest restoration in its 90-plus year history in the summer of 2025, closing the Historic Theater for approximately 13 months, with the work scheduled to run through summer 2026.

The project doubles the lobby, adds a new entryway onto 125th Street, installs an interactive digital Wall of Fame, and restores the plasterwork, the seating, and the historic marquee and blade. Michelle Ebanks, the Apollo’s President and CEO, said at the groundbreaking that the project marks “the beginning of a new chapter.”

Harlem has more than the Apollo in motion. The Studio Museum in Harlem opened its new seven-floor building in November 2025, and the Davis Center at Harlem Meer opened in April 2025 as a $160 million project with a pool, a skating rink, and a turf field.

A Jazz Club That Outlasted Everyone Who Played There

Buffalo’s Colored Musicians Club was founded in 1918 and is, according to New York State, the only remaining African American musicians’ club of its kind in the United States. Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Miles Davis, and Cab Calloway all played there.

The renovation project was designed to add an ADA-compliant entrance at 145 Broadway, restore the facade, and renovate and expand the historic performance space. State funding covered most of it, including a $2 million Empire State Development grant.

The club sits on Buffalo’s Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor, near the Michigan Street Baptist Church, which had its interior restored in January 2025.

What Opens Between Now and November

St. Louis brought back Powell Hall in September 2025 after a $140 million renovation of the century-old home of the St. Louis Symphony, and reopened the Old Courthouse in May 2025 as the final phase of CityArchRiver.

Fort Worth has the clearest date on the calendar. The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame opens a $19 million, 16,000-square-foot expansion on November 7, 2026, with members admitted at 10 a.m. and the public at noon. It adds a new entrance facing Dickies Arena, exterior bas-reliefs of running horses, a fashion gallery tracing the evolution of Western wear, a photo gallery, an event space for 250, and a one-of-a-kind carousel built by Barrango of San Francisco.

The through line is that none of these are new places. They are familiar American landmarks and neighborhoods being restored, expanded, or reintroduced at the same moment Route 66 is turning 100, a travel year built as much around rediscovery as discovery.

References: City of Albuquerque, Arts and Culture | Apollo Theater | Office of the Governor of New York | National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame | AFAR