Blowing Off Steam in Downtown Vegas
September 2, 2009
POP!
Hissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
These are not the sounds you want to hear while sitting in traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard in Downtown.
In retrospect, I should have seen it coming.
There are currently six fires burning about two hundred miles to our southwest, and they have laid down a layer of smoke across the Vegas Valley that has ranged anywhere from unnoticeable to nasty. Things got bad enough for a “poor air quality advisory” to be triggered yesterday.
It’s been so visible the past couple of nights that I have been unable to use my camera’s flash without illuminating larger pieces of nearby particulate matter.
Smoky Las Vegas Strip
Smoky Las Vegas Strip
Smoky Las Vegas Strip
Smoky Las Vegas Strip
When I drove around Vegas yesterday, I also noticed that there were an unusually large number of vehicle breakdowns. Apparently the combination of smoke and high heat puts additional strain on automobiles … as it did mine.
As my car sat broken down at the extra long stoplight at Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard, I surveyed the area and it looked like my car had taken a gigantic p*ss. There was water everywhere, and steam enshrouded the vehicle. I love the desert.
Downtown Las Vegas - Las Vegas Blvd and Fremont Street
While it is true that this is the most rude city in the USA and that an extraordinarily large number of people here are walking penile implants, every now and then folks will surprise you. A nearby visitor witnessed the entire debacle, and helped me push the car half a block to a mostly-empty parking lot.
He was a middle-American fellow with a rural accent to boot, but he was as nice a gentleman as I have run across. He also reminded me why I liked the NASCAR crowd. I joke about people from flyover country every now and then, but they’ve had my back more than once.
Of course, this is still Las Vegas.
As we were pushing my vapor-spewing car off of the road, the lot attendant ran out and told me that parking cost $10.
The lot was not even close to full, and I had only pushed it there to get it off of Las Vegas F’ing Boulevard. I explained this to the attendant, and he agreed to let it slide if I could get it out of the lot quickly.
Fortunately, I was across the street from the far eastern end of the Fremont Street Experience, and I knew a couple of people working in the adjacent bars. These folks helped me shuttle large containers of water back and forth to my radiator.
The water leaked out from under the bottom of the car with each pitcher of water added, but it didn’t come out as fast as we were putting it in.
“You have five miles, tops”, said some guy I didn’t know. Apparently he was a car-knowledgeable dude who was summoned from the bar.
Since I had never seen this guy in my life, and had no idea who he was, I obviously took his advice. I mean, what is the worst that could have happened other than death? It wasn’t like he was advising me to eat at the Imperial Palace Buffet.
We topped off the reservoir, and I quickly drove back down The Boulevard in a “beat the hourglass” kind of challenge, and in a miracle of miracles, I made it back with a stream of water trailing me the whole way.
I know what you are thinking.
“Golly gee willikers, Rex, you’ve got the Deuce and the Monorail, why are you driving the Boulevard at night?”
Even though you asked the question like a complete dork, I will tell you.
Las Vegas is taking 17 vintage signs out of the Neon Boneyard, and they are installing them in the Las Vegas Boulevard median, starting at Bonanza.
Neon Boneyard
Las Vegas Boulevard Neon Signs and Median Island Improvements
The Old Bow and Arrow Motel Sign
The Old Bow and Arrow Motel Sign
The Old Bow and Arrow Motel Sign
The first sign has gone up … The old Bow and Arrow Motel Sign … and I wanted to see it. I was disappointed to see that it had not yet been illuminated, but it is cool that they are putting them up. It’s another Fremont East kind of concept, except that the new neon will be running north and south instead of East to West.
I also noticed palm trees planted in the median which compliment the sign. It looks very nice.
The “Scenic Byways” project will cost $900,000, with about a quarter of the money coming from the sale of Las Vegas Centennial commemorative license plates.
While I was skeptical of Fremont East (I’m still not sure how much revenue it has brought in), in this economy I am glad to see that Downtown is once again doing something.
In my opinion, The City of Las Vegas makes far more of an effort than does Clark County.
At some point in the not-too-distant future, Sahara Ave. may become the line of douchebag demarcation.
Just about the only novel thing you can find on The Strip anymore is clubs and ultra-lounges, and if Downtown can continue to improve its offerings, it could very well become the center of knowledgeable gambling and working-class entertainment.
You know, what The Strip used to be.
Fremont East has grown on me somewhat, and while The Strip corporations sit on their ass and think of new fees, new marketing slogans, and palatable new ways to decrease gaming value … Downtown continues to try and improve their product.
Sure, the “Byways” project is merely cosmetic, but looks matter. If a place looks seedy, people avoid it. If it looks like it is being maintained, people are less afraid of it.
While I would in no way, shape, or form recommend that any tourist (or local for that matter), stroll to Las Vegas Boulevard and Bonanza … at least the drive won’t be so bad now.
Just don’t make the trip from June-September, and for god’s sake, check your radiator first.
The addition of seventeen vintage neon signs near Downtown is going to look very cool, and I am excited enough about it to kill my car documenting it.
As an incidental consequence of this excursion, I also grabbed a shot of the Gold Spike’s new sign.
Gold Spike Casino
Now if you will excuse me, I have to summon my mechanic. I’ve already put his entire family through college, and if I’m not mistaken, he now owns a fleet of 747’s.
Remember kids, always buy American.
It’s great for the economy.
Written by mike_ch on September 2, 2009 at 9:53 am
What I’d like to see is the idea of Fremont East stretched waaaay out. That stretch of Fremont on the east side of town you called “The Other Fremont” is lined with beautiful roadside motel signs like it’s still 1961. However, the area itself is a cesspool. If the city would spend money improving the area it would drive some of that element away and they could eventually replace the drug dens, prostitution hideaways, and (inevitable) arson traps with small businesses and stores and residences around and above them.
Essentially the same New Urbanism philosophy behind The District, but actually based around a location of some significance to the city other than a CEO pointing to an empty plot of land and saying, “We’ll build a Fake Downtown over there.” And unlike the Distict, it wouldn’t be so hoity-toity that a local business couldn’t afford to open shop there. Buildings should be mixed use but not too tall. Let’s say four floors is the max without a special permit.
And for god sakes keep the signs. Let the Neon Museum people care for them where they are, not drag them away to a junkyard to not be seen again for years. They’ll look pretty all working and clean, leading the way to the canopy in the far distance.
Some of the more bohemian types with a bone for urban planning would bitch that this would be displacing a lot of poverty and drug addicts by raising the rent and forcing them out, but they will always exist and will just settle down somewhere else. It would bring a sort of downtown community to what has been a doughnut city (not in the typical ‘white flight’ mold, but the results are similar nonetheless) and would give the city proper something worth seeing.
Written by FoolsGold on September 2, 2009 at 10:40 am
Crime Enforcement, Code Enforcement and Bail Rates are the new “Blockbusting” tools.
In the sixties speculators would buy up houses and turn a neighborhood, often with the assistance of a few c-notes going to women to walk up and down the sidewalk carrying a bottle of gin and dragging six kids behind them or phone calls to homeowners telling them to sell out now because the dreaded “they” are coming.
Now, jaywalking, parking and liquor-law enforcement helps. Drug and vagrancy arrests work okay. High bail and rapid bail enforcement works wonders. If the guy skips, the house gets forfeited. If he doesn’t skip, the high bail fees will cost him any legit job that he had and his non-payment of bills will get him into later trouble. Ofcourse the old stand-by, intense enforcement of building code regulations, works wonders on those who fail to maintain the property or who have fixed things up without “benefit” of building permits. Motels that are crime scenes or have hookers living there are easy to get forfeited. One lousy meth cooker in one night can bankrupt the motel owner, but the actual forfeiture will take weeks of paperwork.
In many ways, urban renewal is easier these days, it just takes more time because instead of entrepreneurial Block Busters turning a neighborhood in a week you’ve got to deal with these lousy civil servant types and judges! They move as slow as molasses and are the greediest jerks ever.
Written by blueboar on September 2, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Sorry to hear about the radiator.
Looking forward to seeing the signs whenever my next trip happens to be.
The signs they’ve already put up on Third and down along Fremont East are great. They really change the character of the place for the good.
I like Fremont East. I always stop in to the Griffin for a drink, and I’ve been meaning to check out the other places. I think FE just needs a few more businesses in there before it really takes off. Well that, and do something, anything, with Neonopolis because that drags things down.
I’ve noticed that parking lot there before. They get $10? Wow.
Written by blueboar on September 2, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Hey is that a drug deal going down in that one picture?
You don’t have bullet hole in your radiator do you?
Written by Rex on September 2, 2009 at 2:44 pm
“Hey is that a drug deal going down in that one picture?”
You didn’t really think I went all the way up to Bonanza to take a picture of a damn sign did you?
Written by tully on September 2, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Mike_ch’s comments reminded me, that when Rex did the feature on Fremont East, there were a lot of photos, many of them of the old signage. Pretty cool old signs, and would be great to see them restored.
Because LV is such a young city, these areas built in the 40s, 50s and early 60s are the city’s “historic districts.” The style of building and signage now called retro, mid century modern, atomic age design, etc, is what the city has a fair amount of, and they could do something great with it. It exists in places like the affluent Alta Dr, the downtown neighborhoods between Fremont and the Strat, and believe an area called Paradise Palms is between the Strip and Boulevard Mall. But the planners and decision makers have to get past their love affair with high end “grand plans” and look at what is already there with fresh eyes. They could do something unique, but instead seem to want the sort of developments that could be dropped into any other city in the US.
At least they are making a few steps in the right direction. Vintage signs are also being incorporated into the new ACE bus stops, as well.
Written by gette on September 4, 2009 at 11:32 am
Those radiators are problems, I’ve had 3 RED cars and all had Raidiator problems:
Moral to my story, I no longer drive red cars.
It was nice of that man to help you push the car, you don’t find too many people who are willing to help out anymore.