Vegas Vacation
Gateway to the Fremont East neighborhood in Downtown Las Vegas
Taking a break from some Wildwood renovations to take a vacation in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is one of my favorite destinations because it has such a unique energy and character. From a preservation point of view, the city is a mixed bag because it re-invents itself every few years. When I started going to Vegas, it was at the tail end of the themed resort era. Now we are in the upscale era so no longer are we seeing emulations of Paris, New York or King Arthur’s castle, but instead we are getting uncompromising luxury. The Monte Carlo was rebranded as MGM Park to replace the kitschy theme with just plain upscale. The other newer hotels like the SLS, Cosmopolitan and LINQ are a bit boring. But in downtown Vegas, you can still get a throwback experience.
When I visit Vegas, I usually split my time between the strip and downtown. Where the strip is moving to all upscale and leans heavily on corporate chains. All of the hotels are moving to basically have either celebrity chef restaurants or some corporate chain’s restaurant. It’s not appealing to me to travel across the country to grab coffee at Starbucks and then have a meal at Nathan’s hot dogs. Downtown still seems to keep it’s quirky feel that makes the area feel a bit more alive.
The hotels downtown are all older and smaller and their facades are adorned with tones of blinking lights and neon. The bulk are along Fremont street and there’s a bunch of sketchy street artists along the street. There’s also lots of bandstands with DJs, dancers and rock bands all performing. The casino area always felt a little more low rent compared to the strip, but there’s a large police presence and lots of tourists, so it wasn’t dangerous. But as you walked towards East Fremont, it seemed like the neighborhood dropped off quickly.
There were a few places like the El Cortez but there were lots of empty buildings and the neighborhood got sketchy quickly. Over the last 10 years, things have gentifried East Fremont with more and more hipster American, New restaurants opening. On our last visit it looked like a good chunk of East Fremont had been restored and I was happy to see that the restoration kept the character of Vegas in the restoration.
El Cortez exterior
First it looked like they re-used all of the existing buildings rather than tearing things down. Also, the area stayed zoned for commercial use rather than changing to luxury condos, so the new tenants are all restaurants and businesses. All of the facades of the buildings were restored using neon for their signage. I’m not sure if this was a mandate or if the business owners did this on their own, but it made for a beautiful streetscape and also captured the glory days of Vegas to see all the neon lit up. Finally, the new development portion of the neighborhood - the container park, worked well with the neighborhood. It’s a quirky idea that fits into the flow of the artsy, kitshy area rather than trying to be some lame, bland upscale shopping area.
Overall, it was impressive to see how the area revitalized using their existing infrastructure rather than blowing everything up and starting over.
