Ask a Native
Ask a Native
Why does Carson Avenue end at Casino Center Boulevard?
February 16th, 2012
Opened in 1946 as a small “sawdust joint,” the Golden Nugget eventually swallowed the entire downtown block bounded by Fremont Street, Casino Center Drive, Carson Avenue, and First Street. That wasn’t enough for Wynn, who in 1973 acquired his first controlling interest in a Vegas casino at the Nugget. Ten years later, he convinced the city of Las Vegas to vacate a portion of Carson to accommodate an expansion. Read more »
Ask a Native
Why is the public radio show Marketplace so down on Las Vegas?
February 9th, 2012
The Marketplace folks seemingly knew what they wanted to say before they arrived, something I find unfortunate given that I (and several other longtime Las Vegans) spent time with a reporter for this series, offering some balanced and positive perspectives. Read more »
Ask a Native
Do you think casinos will ever start using neon signage again?
February 2nd, 2012
Technology is a relentless mistress, and lighting technology even more so. Signage and lighting tech is driven by energy-efficiency codes and cost, as well as ease of use, installation and maintenance. Nostalgia rarely factors in. Read more »
Ask a Native
Why can’t we get a University District going?
January 26th, 2012
We did, in the 1990s. Maryland Parkway was then a bustling boulevard of campus culture from Flamingo to Tropicana. It housed two music stores, several bars with live music, inexpensive ethnic eats, comic book shops, vintage clothing stores, pizza joints, and two (!) independent coffeehouses—Cafe Copioh and Cafe Espresso Roma—the latter of which is said to have helped birth the Killers. Read more »
Ask a Native
What’s so Scotch about Scotch 80s?
January 19th, 2012
Whenever some greenhorn spouts off about Old Vegas being “ghetto,” Scotch 80s is my trump card. Refreshingly ungated (unlike Rancho Circle, Rancho Nevada and Rancho Bel Air), and featuring acre-plus ranch estates just a skip from downtown, Scotch 80s is one of the few old-money urban ‘hoods open to Sunday drivers. Read more »
Ask a Native
What is the soul of Las Vegas?
January 12th, 2012
Las Vegas begins and ends with freedom. Yes, change and opportunity are contenders, but both stem (or, perhaps, stemmed) from our physical isolation from Washington, D.C., and that isolation’s attendant privileges. Vegas’ libertarian roots and libertine business model (one based upon legitimizing the criminal activities, and thereby the criminals, of other states) long provided us a big-city lifestyle with Wild West liberties. Read more »
Ask a Native
What will be the biggest Vegas stories of 2012?
January 5th, 2012
The Smith Center is scheduled to be turned over by the contractor the first week of January. We’ve been promised a world-class facility, but can the project deliver on the hype and expectation? While much effort went into isolating the center—acoustically, that is, from helicopters and railroad noise externally, plumbing and HVAC noise internally—I’m more concerned with its social connection. Television advertising portrays The Smith Center as the “heart of the arts” for us, but it takes more than a city-centric location and a line drawn in the desert sand to morph a building into a social cornerstone. It takes a community that shares the vision. Read more »
Ask a Native
I’ve heard New Year’s on the Strip is a nightmare, but I’m going anyway. How do I survive?
December 22nd, 2011
Comfort and safety are your primary objectives, because without both there is no fun. Leave the Louboutins and Ferragamos to those staying indoors, and dust off your Docs. Follow basic crowd safety precautions. Metro frowns on large bags, and carrying less is easier on your back anyway. Read more »
Ask a Native
Why do natives hate the suburbs so much?
December 15th, 2011
It’s easy to see how that happened: Many transplants were lured by affordable but far-flung developments. These newcomers found themselves surrounded primarily by other newcomers—and isolated from old-timers. So they never really got to know us. Plus, the pre-recession possibility that one could score a shiny new “move-up” house every five years contributed to a snobbish attitude toward older neighborhoods. Where else but a boomtown would one refer to an existing home as “used”? Read more »
Ask a Native
I’m tired of paying “Strip prices” at places like the coffee shop at Town Square. Clarify, please: Where is “The Strip”?
December 8th, 2011
The Strip begins at Sahara Avenue in the north, and ends at the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign 4.5 miles to the south—still plenty north of Town Square. And while, in the go-go ’90s, I imagined the sign being shuffled farther south (again) to accommodate expansion, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. So, technically, that latte was not a Strip latte, just a Las Vegas Boulevard latte. Read more »
