The cowboys had landed on Fremont Street.
Earlier this month, thousands of sons and daughters of the American West could be seen promenading through this city’s historic downtown gaming district in their Saturday-night-best Stetsons, boot-cut jeans, dusters, string ties and “exotic” footwear. The rodeo had come to town, and Las Vegas was throwing its annual Downtown Hoedown to welcome fans and participants.
This night’s party would be different from those in previous years, though. Between the fancy lassoing demonstrations, cowboy poetry readings, amateur singing contests and John Berry’s mainstage concert performance, a previously unthinkable event also was on tap.
The lights were to be turned off in Glitter Gulch.
In this Grand Canyon of color–perhaps the defining postcard image of the city–the waves of dancing lights fell idle, enveloping the street in darkness. For seasoned Vegas veterans, the scene was downright eerie.
“It’s a real shock,” one tourist official was overheard saying. “I wasn’t ready for it … didn’t even know they could do it.”
Just as suddenly, however, a canopy of bulbs sprang to life 90 feet above the massed cowpokes, and the sound of Willie Nelson singing “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” filled the air. Strollers craned their necks to enjoy a seven-minute light show, full of blazing pistols, mountain vistas, square dancers, bucking broncos, desert sunsets and a final 4-block-long buffalo stampede that drowned out Roy and Dale crooning “Happy Trails to You.”
Sort of made you proud to be an American.
As the whoops and hollers of the cowboys and cowgirls subsided on the spanking-new pedestrian mall, the neon was rekindled and the bright statuesque image of a bandannaed Vegas Vic was allowed once again to beckon suckers into the gaming halls below. Musicians plugged into the amplifiers and the usual cacophony of sounds, including promises of riches, were heard.
Developed at a cost of $70 million and illuminated by 2.1 million light bulbs, this is the Fremont Street Experience. It is almost too generic a name to describe an experiment in urban renewal that literally could save the most familiar of Las Vegas landmarks.
If nothing else, it already has become another eye-popping attraction in a town full of nearly unbelievable sights.
First, though, a little history.
Before the arrival of Bugsy Siegel, before gambling in Nevada was made illegal in 1909 and reinstituted in 1931, before the invention of video poker–even before the births of Wayne Newton and Jerry Tarkanian–the various commercial charms of Fremont Street were attracting visitors to Las Vegas. It already was an important destination on May 15, 1905, the day an auction of lots was held under a mesquite tree (where the Plaza Hotel now stands), establishing the transition of the area from Clark’s Townsite to Las Vegas.
According to historian Eugene Moehring in his authoritative “Resort City in the Sunbelt” (University of Nevada Press), “Almost immediately, `Clark’s Las Vegas Township’ bustled with activity as tents and tent-framed buildings were erected along the community’s main thoroughfare, Fremont Street (named for `The Pathfinder,’ John C. Fremont).
“While elegant in a western sense,” writes Moehring, “the El Rancho and Last Frontier were little more than opulent dude ranches. The crucial event that transformed Las Vegas from a recreational to a full-fledged resort city was Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingo Hotel built in 1947.”
Another oldie, the Stardust, is being celebrated in mythic fashion in Martin Scorsese’s “Casino.”
While these resort-casinos on the Strip began to prosper, there still was plenty of money to be made downtown.
In 1946, the Golden Nugget opened and the Eldorado Club was built. A year later, the Texas gambler Benny Binion arrived and went into business at the original site of the Las Vegas Club (he soon purchased the El Dorado and renamed it the Horseshoe).
In 1951, the iconic 48-foot-tall neon sculpture Vegas Vic was erected above the entrance to the Pioneer Club (his face appeared, as well, on top of the building next door, with an arrow pointing to doors below). The waving, winking cowboy greeted visitors to downtown with a “Howdy, pardnuh! Welcome to Las Vegas!” and a “Here it is!”
The growing competition among casinos downtown and on the Strip, plus the availability of electricity from nearby Boulder Dam, helped drive up utility revenue and create the pulsatingly beautiful and commercially magnetic area of downtown known as Glitter Gulch.
All of which certainly was enough to keep tourists returning to the downtown area, especially if they were arriving via the Greyhound or train. But, when the recession hit the marketplace in the mid-’80s and gaming was made available in venues outside of Nevada, aggressive executives in the major Strip hotels began to reinvent the casino-resort industry, in an effort to broaden its appeal beyond the realm of the hard-core gambler.
In the late ’80s and into the ’90s, with the advent of the mega-resorts–the Mirage and Treasure Island, a retrofitted Caesars, and the gigantic MGM Grand, Excalibur and Luxor–and the theme-park atmosphere along the Strip, it clearly wasn’t enough merely to provide a grand and stimulating light show on Fremont Street.
Local residents began migrating in increasing numbers to large casinos in fringe locations–losing city traffic and enjoying lower table minimums and penny slot machines. These include such complexes as Sam’s Town, Rio (regarded as having the best buffet in the area) and Palace Station–and casinos could be found, as well, in nearby Laughlin and Stateline.
Despite the generally friendly atmosphere downtown, hotels there also were at a disadvantage when it came to basic security. Crime in the densely urban setting was up and panhandlers were irritating visitors more interested in giving their pocket change to slot machines.
Still, there are compelling reasons–beyond the neon–for tourists to be attracted to Fremont Street.
Like the fringe casinos, downtown has been a place where low-rollers can find a table with affordable minimums and slots that even take pennies. Dealers, many of whom are just starting their way up the ladder, tend to be less intimidating and there’s a more leisurely pace to the gaming.
A recent study showed that, while travelers spend significantly less on a room in Las Vegas than they would in other major cities ($52.16 a night, compared with $104 in Miami and $81.77 in Chicago, for example), it’s also cheaper to stay in a downtown hotel, with the difference being $61.41 on the Strip to $40.39 on Fremont Street.
Still, while gaming revenue is substantial in both places, the pace of growth wasn’t up to par in Glitter Gulch.
According to statistics provided by the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, the annual occupancy percentage at Strip hotels and motels has risen in the last four years from 81.4 percent to 91 percent, compared with 80.4 percent to 84 percent in downtown establishments. More to the point, though, while annual gaming revenue along the Strip has risen from $2.6 billion in 1991 to $3.2 billion in 1994, revenue in downtown clubs has actually dropped from $669 million to $657 million in the same period.
To lure more travelers to the downtown area, the 8 owners of the 10 major downtown hotel-casinos banded together in October 1993 to form the Fremont Street Experience Co. It is partnered in the venture with the City of Las Vegas, whose city council in 1986 formed a downtown redevelopment agency, and the Convention and Visitors Authority, which also has contributed to the project.
“Being on Fremont Street was like living in a house for 30 or 40 years and not doing anything with it–the plumbing and painting–we just let it run down,” said Mel Exber, who has been a co-owner of the sports-oriented Las Vegas Club since 1961 and also is a partner in the El Cortez. “A lot of these places were doing well, but others weren’t. If you let it slide, it will decay like other big cities.
“I’m probably the most enthusiastic booster of the Experience. It’s the 8th Wonder of the World. Who else would spend $70 million on this kind of thing, except Las Vegas?”
Central to the successful launching of the Fremont Street Experience was the creation of a pedestrian mall, between Main and 4th Streets, and agreement to build a unique “space frame” over the entire four-acre area. The canopy of lights–basically a graphic display system held aloft by 16 columns–unified the project in a physical and symbolic way, while the mall allowed pedestrians to walk freely between their hotels and nearby shops, restaurants and parking structures.
One local businessman said, “Before this, people would be watching the lights and walk directly into traffic, as if they were hypnotized.”
The Golden Nugget’s Steve Wynn, who brought a volcano and naval battle to the Strip as owner of the Mirage and Treasure Island, devised a plan early on to create a system of Venetian-style canals along Fremont Street. The concept was widely admired but deemed too difficult to control.
The Experience proposal seemed to capture best the existing atmosphere of the landmark location and could be financed, in part, by contributions from casino owners, city grants and new room taxes.
The light shows, scheduled on regular basis several times a night, are controlled by a single master computer and 31 others scattered within the space frame. A library of programs eventually will be built up, permitting organizers to pick and choose their presentations to suit special events or holidays.
According to Steven Weeks, an executive with the Young Electric Sign Co., “Each of the 2.1 million bulbs is equal to single pixel in a television picture tube and, like a TV pixel, each bulb contains red, blue, green and clear lamps. Combined with 8 shades of dimming, the entire display is capable of producing 65,536 color combinations.”
The Experience also features a sound system that includes 208 speakers, powered by as much as 540,000 watts of electricity.
Yup, it gets one’s attention.
Now, as amazing as all this technology is, the overall effect of the Experience can be more than a little off-putting to those who fell in love with an unfettered Glitter Gulch–or enjoyed driving right down its neon heart in a convertible, for instance. Neon-art purists also are likely to argue that the visual impact of the traditional light show has been diluted and neutralized by sticking it under a canopy and, thus, redefining its context.
Since the official opening was only last week, critics and historians have yet to weigh in on the subject.
The rodeo fans who gathered on the mall were suitably impressed, though, offering ovations, and uttering such familiar superlatives as “awesome,” “cool” and “wow”–with a twang, of course.
Some locals, however, seemed to be reserving judgment–acknowledging the economic need for such a project, while also bemoaning the fact that Vegas Vic didn’t seem quite as tall as he had before he was covered. Indeed, he looked like one very fenced-in buckeroo.
The Las Vegas Club’s Exber was positive about this dramatic strategy.
“Everybody’s sign is still exposed,” he reasoned. “The only difference is that, instead of driving down the street to see the lights, people can walk down the middle of it. It’s wide open.
“I was impressed. All the places look different to me (with the lights out). . . . Each place has a different face.”
One aspect of the Experience that won applause from most parties was the visible increase in security, as represented by police officers on bicycles and Metro units patrolling on foot.
“You had a lot of street people here before and crime . . . people feel safer now,” said a bartender and musician named Najja, in the Fremont Street Reggae & Blues club at the 4th Street end of the mall. “This could change the image of downtown and give the Strip some competition.”
Najja said that one difference between this location and the Strip is, “People greet you with sincerity . . . they’re glad you’re down here.”
Besides all the cowcouples on the mall this night, there were many elderly tourists.
“Older people like it downtown because they can park in one place and hit 10 or 15 casinos . . . if their luck isn’t good at Binion’s, they can walk across the street to the Nugget,” said Tom Zavislak, manager of the Fremont Street Experience store. “On the Strip, you can walk the same distance–from Caesars to the Treasure Island-and cover only three hotels,” which also are set well in from the street.
Of course, as in any major city, the best way to find an opinion is to ask a cab driver.
“You have to have known this place beforehand to see how this will help,” said Richard Gordon, after dropping off a passenger at the Golden Nugget. “It was really seedy down here and hotels were in danger of going out of business. This is a way to get tourists back.”
In addition to the money already spent on the revitalization, an additional $200 million is expected to be spent on renovating existing hotel rooms, parking facilities and casino expansion.
Exber, for example, said that he is adding a new hotel tower, two restaurants and conference and meeting rooms to his facility.
“We already have a base of 30 million people coming to Las Vegas each year, so it’s not like we’re starting something new,” said the 49-year resident of the city. “If we can get just 10 percent of them to come downtown to see the Experience, then it will be up to the individual property owner to sell their wares.”
Kim Daskas, sales manager for the Experience, is especially enthusiastic about the growth of “entertainment-style retail” facilities, patterned on similar Riverwalk projects in San Antonio and New Orleans and the Universal Citywalk in Los Angeles. She also said that various commercial kiosks soon will sprout up along this “destination within a destination” and, in addition to country-western events, people will be drawn to classical music shows and such seasonal attractions as the current Holiday Festival and ice show.
A stroll along the mall reveals some interesting juxtapositions, including a blend of the tawdry alongside the squeaky clean veneer of the mall. Pawn shops and clip joints can be found right around the corner from the big hotels, while Vegas Vic has outlasted the club on whose marquee he now stands–the Pioneer having become a victim of construction-depleted business. Vagrants, while decidedly in the minority, still shuffle aimlessly among jackpot-seeking tourists and just-planted palm trees.
In the blistering summer months, the 90-foot-high canopy also provides shade for an entire four-block area. It might even create its own eco-system . . . nobody knows.
Then there’s the family-friendly group of fast-food restaurants being built between Sassy Sally’s casino and the Golden Goose girlie show. There isn’t another block in the world where the likes of Baskin-Robbin, Dunkin Donuts and Blimpie get second billing to Topless Girls of Glitter Gulch, featuring “world class topless girls.”
But this is Las Vegas, where–for the time being anyway–almost anything goes.
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The Fremont Street Experience is free and open to the public, except on New Year’s Eve when special events are planned and an admission may be charged. It is wheelchair accessible.
The canopy cuts down on the number of hotel rooms that have clear views of the light show. The Plaza Hotel has several rooms that offer unimpeded visibility, but only in a portion of the facility. It would be best to call ahead to determine visual access to the Experience.
The hotel-casinos involved in the project are Binion’s Horseshoe, California Hotel, El Cortez, Fitzgerald’s, Four Queens, Fremont, Golden Nugget, Golden Gate, the Plaza and Las Vegas Club.
For more information about Las Vegas, contact the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, 2 Prudential Plaza, 180 N. Stetson, Chicago, Ill 60601; 312-861-0711.
