Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538080
was an amazing collaborator. Albuquerque is a city that hides its history in plain sight—strip malls built over motor courts, mid-century signage swallowed in beige stucco. She helped peel it back, not only by finding practical locations but by intuitively understanding the feeling I was chasing. I didn't want postcard-perfect spaces. I wanted environments that felt lived-in, forgotten, ghosted by time. Her work wasn't just logistical—it was emotional too. Route 66, Albuquerque's long-forgotten commercial corridor, became the show's backlot. Once a radiant artery of mid-century Americana, it had been weathered by decades of decline, of mid-'90s sprayed faux stucco covering true architectural gems—lunch counters with steel awnings, neon-lit motor inns, curbside gas stations. We found many locations that the supremely talented James V. Kent and his team raised from ruins and transformed into sets that shined. A shuttered 1950s diner—a cannabis dispensary and barbecue joint in its more recent incarnations, was restored it to its former glory and became the Can't Miss Diner. The crew sourced original booths, uncovered photographs from a 1920s owner, and staged hot rods to glint through every window. A defunct gas station swallowed by weeds and graffiti became a charged junction where storylines collided. A '60s modernist building, now a gaudy pawn shop, became a backdrop for Jim's pickups and drop-offs. But Duster wasn't confined to Albuquerque. As the show's emotional and narrative scope widened, so did our geography. Over eight episodes, the series traveled across the country to create and recreate iconic American locations: Howard Hughes' suite at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, Elvis's honeymoon home in Palm Springs, a South Philadelphia street frozen in Nina's 1950s childhood memory, and even Nixon's Oval Office. D. CAN'T MISS DINER. GRAPHIC LAYOUT BY ALAN CHAO. E-F. CAN'T MISS DINER INTERIOR. SET SHOT ON HISTORIC ROUTE 66, ALBUQUERQUE, NM. SET PHOTOS. G. SOUTHWESTERN LODGE EXTERIOR. SET SHOT ON HISTORIC ROUTE 66, ALBUQUERQUE, NM. SET PHOTO. D F E G