This documentary is the result of a collaborative student project undertaken by undergraduate and graduate students Erin Dorbin (M.A. History and Media), Eric LaGrange (M.A. Fine Arts), Dale Mattison and Greg Pruden at the University at Albany in the Spring of 2009.

The group set out to explore the histories of routes 20 & 9 in New York state as case studies to explain how America's changing travel patterns in the second half of the 20th century altered the landscapes along the country's two-lane highways. We were also interested in exploring how these changes in travel adversely impacted the small localized economies along these routes that were once dependent on tourism dollars to sustain themselves.

Erin Dorbin and Eric LaGrange are responsible for the completion of the Route 20 portion of the project, while Dale Mattison and Greg Pruden completed the Route 9/Frontier Town section of the documentary. Erin and Eric also have plans to continue the Route 20 portion of the documentary over the coming year.

This video is our first edit at 22 minutes for the purposes of our final class assignment. Three of us in the group had never worked with Final Cut Pro before and one of us had no idea how to use a video camera, but we figured it out (for the most part) and made it happen! Enjoy!