At last count, Los Angeles County incorporates 88 towns and cities. Yet on a sleepy Sunday morning its heart, the old Hispanic town square downtown, reveals a quiet neighborhood, one little dreamt of by watchers of "Melrose Place."

I last visited here on Mexican Independence Day, celebrating independence from Spain. I paused near El Pueblo Historical Park, a block off Route 66 on Broadway. The local Latin community has gathered to listen to music, eat ice cream, and mingle.

I meet a very young black woman at the L.A. Green booth. Though she doesn’t realize she’s a block off 66, she has an agenda for it. "We need more electric buses here. The best thing that could happen to Route 66 in L.A. would be to have it set aside for electric transit."

Next, sitting among the information booths, is Olin Tezcatlipoca, the author of "Not Hispanic, Not Latino, the Mexican Handbook." He has doubts about the Anglo settlement of Los Angeles, and Route 66, from a Chicano nationalist perspective:

"Route 66 should not have been brought out here at all. This land belongs to the native Mexica, the indigenous Indian communities of Califa. We Mexican Indians should have kept Route 66 out of here, and the rest of the Anglos."