Join us as we separate myth from fact, share stories of the men and women who helped build the town and celebrate one of the most fabulous cities ever built!
Will the Swim-In-Sign ever be repaired and put back up?
A tribute to Betty Willis and 50+ plus years of marketing
Endangered
Pepe's Tacos great redaptive reuse of a former IHOP
Endangered
Tod Motor Hotel still going strong
Fremont Hotel Parking Garage
Thanks to Allen Sandquist for letting us use these images
The Downtown Cocktail Room is the watering holes for those work downtown and those who live downtown. Michael Cornthwaite and his fiancee, Jennifer Harrington, are doing their part to make Fremont East a viable part of the community.
Our buddy, Johnny Kats, caught up with them a few days ago:
To accurately gauge the viability of downtown Las Vegas, specifically the Fremont East entertainment district, watch Michael Cornthwaite. If he can't make it happen down there, everyone should beware.
The owner of Downtown Cocktail Room just off the corner of Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard, Cornthwaite is pressing forward with plans to lure at least 20 boutiques, art galleries and various creatively fertile shops to the shuttered Fremont Medical Building on Sixth and Fremont streets. Set amid musty exam spaces, check-in and check-out counters, and a vaguely haunting X-ray room will be a collective known as Emergency Arts. This puzzle-piece project might be open as early as March 1 if Cornthwaite can fill the 20 spaces positioned snugly on the three-story building's bottom floor.
He's confident it will happen. As of this afternoon, Cornthwaite has secured 15 tenants, including a café at the entrance — where the medically needy once assembled is now where you might pick up a nice pastry. Cornthwaite and his fiancée, Jennifer Harrington, are partners in Emergency Arts with landowner El Cortez. They are giving themselves a year to "make it work" on Fremont East. If they fall short, well, Seattle's a nice city. So is San Francisco. It would be a shame for the city to lose these two downtown devotees and visionaries, but the clock is ticking. Even Harrington's own gallery, Henri & Odette, which once taking up residency nearby on Sixth and Carson, will move into the Emergency Arts project.
During our 30-minute interview Monday in the KUNV studios at Greenspun Hall on the UNLV campus, Cornthwaite talked at length about Emergency Arts, but also let opinions and thoughts on other Vegas-tied issues flow as freely as his shoulder-length hair:
• On working with El Cortez: "El Cortez is anchor of the entire (Fremont East) district. Their customer demographic is an older demographic, and frankly it is getting too old. It needs a younger demographic, and I think they're doing very well. El Cortez is the coolest hotel down there; the Cabana Suites are beautifully designed. ... It's a nice situation, and they are very supportive. ... When we had the (Las Vegas) Farmers Market (on Fremont Street), they supported that. They put flyers in the envelopes with the employees' paychecks, things like that."
• On the fate of the moribund 7-Eleven building on the corner of LV Boulevard and Fremont Street, a space that has been sitting unoccupied since the convenience store closed in 2006: "Since I started building (DCR), there have been two signed leases on that space, one of which was really never executed. The first, money was never collected and they just vanished, literally. ... But about a year and a half ago a group came in, showed a lot of interest, signed a lease and actually worked on the space. They demo-ed the adjacent space, so now we've got two spaces that are connected to each other for one, giant 5,700-square-foot space with a 36-foot ceiling inside. Unfortunately, they couldn't get their resources together, either. It was supposed to be like a live music venue, they were going to build a mezzanine level, but it was a fairly expensive project for the area, a $1-$2 million project. You know, they were about $300,000-$400,000 along, with no doubt they were going to be able get the money together. That was mid-2008, when everything started to fall apart. The Hive, is what it was called. It had lots of potential, and it could have worked out, but it's just been an unfortunate situation."
• On the fate of Neonopolis, which sits kitty-corner from DCR on the corner of Fremont and Las Vegas Boulevard: "Nobody has any doubt of the importance of Neonopolis in connecting Fremont Street Experience with Fremont East. That's the only way it could happen. But I take a little bit of a different approach in that scenario. I never wanted to connect the Fremont Street Experience with Fremont East. I wanted Fremont East to be locals-driven and have a locals-based clientele. I wanted a buffer between us and the Fremont Street Experience."
• On Rohit Joshi, who fronts Wirrulla Hayward, the development company that owns Neonopolis: "The gentleman involved in Neonopolis (Joshi) is a wonderful salesman. He has been to the club one time, and he has an amazing skill. I've had several meetings with him, and he has a very positive approach and he gets you feeling really good, and you walk out and you're feeling really good for about two minutes. Then you realize, something just happened but you don't know what it was, and of course nothing ever happens."
• On the proposed Star Trek Experience, which reportedly was on line to move into Neonopolis in May but has not actually moved in at all: "Nothing's going on. It's not going to happen. I would stake my bar on it."
• On CityCenter: "It's beautiful, it's an amazing architectural marvel. It's what I would love to see, what I miss in a vibrant city, and that's what we're trying to bring downtown, into the core of our city. I've heard them say that it's non-themed, but it's a city-themed casino. It's themed as a city. The really smart consumer won't buy into that. Who can afford to shop there? I'm not going to Tom Ford to buy a $650 shirt.
Thanks to Allen Sandquist for letting use his photo.
One of my favorite people is Dr. Michael Green. He teaches history at the College of Southern Nevada, he's a familiar face to my Untold Stories class, is one of my go-to guys when I need a historic question answered and is just a terrific guy.
He is also our inaugural guest for a new feature here at Classic Las Vegas. I will be interviewing various history and cultural gurus in Las Vegas right here.
Dr. Mike was kind enough to help me kick this new feature off.
So, without further ado here's Dr. Mike:
1) Why do you enjoy teaching Las Vegas history?
Besides teaching Las Vegas history—and general surveys—I specialize in the Civil War era. I would love to interview Lincoln or someone who knew him fairly well, but that doesn’t seem possible. But in Las Vegas, the people who made the history are here or one generation removed, and that adds an excitement and interest level for me and, I think, for others.
Also, to refer to my example, while there remains a great deal we do not know about the Civil War era, we know a lot. I always find it more interesting to study something not very well known to try to learn more about it, and so much of Las Vegas’s history is uncharted territory. Also, it is right here, waiting for us. I like to think of myself as being a public servant, and I think we serve the public when we do research on our community’s history.
2) Which part of Las Vegas history do you think needs more of the spotlight?
Ha! Just about all of it! Even the Strip, which gets so much attention—how much do we know about the business operations and the entertainment history? We need to know a lot more about what went on here in the community at all times, and especially before the dam. There have been some good studies of the broader Las Vegas community, but we need a lot more specialized work on everything from women to religion.
3) Which is your favorite era of Las Vegas history and why?
If you asked me another day, my answer would be different. To turn it around, I would find it fascinating to have been here when the Stewarts and Kiels were about the only ones around in the late nineteenth century and see just what was really going on. But I incline toward the 1950s: interesting people with interesting backgrounds, the Strip and downtown expanding, growth fast but reasonable, political change, incredible entertainment, and a civil rights movement really ramping up.
4) What is the significance of Las Vegas before WWII and in the post-war era?
Do you have a year for me to answer? Before World War II, Las Vegas wasn’t terribly significant. It was a pit stop and a small tourist town between Los Angeles and Salt Lake, dependent on the railroad first for jobs in its repair shops and then, when the railroad moved the shops, on tourists coming through on the train or via the old highway. Not that that era isn’t worthy and in need of further study, but Las Vegas didn’t matter yet on a regional and national—even international—scale in the way that it would and does. I think the era is incredibly valuable for us to examine for harbingers of what was to come, locally and nationally.
As for the postwar era, in 1994, Time proclaimed Las Vegas “the all-American city.” At about the same time, Marc Cooper did a great piece in The Village Voice about how Las Vegas operated, and it was far less, shall we say, glamorous than Time’s version.
I think that Las Vegas is in some ways symbolic of postwar America: a greater movement toward leisure and instant gratification, thanks partly to social changes (suburbanization, different mores and morals) and partly to inventions that make them possible (computers and jet airplanes). Las Vegas also is a fascinating way to look at the evolution of entertainment: showrooms used to resemble the Ed Sullivan show, which resembled vaudeville.
Now, with shorter attention spans, we have one-person shows with lots of bells and whistles or Cirque shows that are not in themselves star vehicles but sometimes are related to stars and/or use those bells and whistles.
5) What are your thoughts on the "Casino" the movie and myth vs. reality?
Let’s start with the point that “Casino” is a marvelous film, as film. It also does a very good job of conveying its time or milieu. Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi captured the aura of the time. The problem is that it’s terrible history.
For storytelling purposes, they combined several politicians into one, made Ace Rothstein look far abler than Lefty Rosenthal actually was (understandable when you have Robert DeNiro in the lead role), and attached far more significance to the affair between Joe Pesci’s and Sharon Stone’s characters than it actually had.
The reality is that the mob’s fall here had a lot more to do with federal and state investigations, which don’t transfer well to the screen, and Rosenthal’s incredible arrogance, best displayed in his confrontation with then-Gaming Commission chairman Harry Reid and his abominable television show.
6) Is the "Green Felt Jungle" a good book on the mob if so, why or why not?
My answer is yes and no. As with most books in that genre, Ed Reid and Ovid DeMaris have a lot of good information but are more interested in heat than in light. Also, a significant amount of the book is stuff that Reid reported in the Las Vegas Sun nearly a decade before—the Thunderbird case. But it has a lot of useful, interesting information, and it’s certainly a good read.
Thank you Dr. Mike!
Just some things that irritate me, make me wonder and really make me mad. Hey, it's my birthday. I should get to blog about personal stuff every now and then.
1. The NBC Late-Night Fiasco. I know there are folks on Team Conan and folks on Team Leno. But guess what? There are no people on Team Zucker and that’s the way it should be.
Jeff Zucker, the one-time boy genius who was going to make NBC #1 forever and ever, instead, made one of the worst decisions in network history. Now Zucker is blaming Conan for not delivering a higher audience for the Tonight Show and blaming Jay for not delivering a higher audience for the Jay Leno show.
Despite the fact, that he, Jeff Zucker, was the architect of this entire fiasco.
In the old days of corporate America when you screwed up on a scale this grand, you did the right thing by taking the blame and stepping down immediately. Not Jeff Zucker, he really wants to be the poster boy for everything that we hate about Corporate America today. That is, instead of admitting your mistakes and taking your punishment, you instead blame the victims and ask all of America to ignore your hand in designing this fiasco and ask that we all just pretend you’re not to blame. Sorry, Jeff Zucker, there’s a reason the only person on Team Zucker is you.
2. Post-Apocalyptic Movies. They come around every few years. Anyone remember “The Postman” with Kevin Costner? Earlier this winter we had “The Road” with the wonderful Viggo Mortensen and based on the acclaimed novel by Cormac McCarthy. Didn’t do well at the box office. I’m thinking when it comes to post-apocalyptic movies, movie goers want someone forceful, charming and who offers hope. Kevin Costner in “Postman” not so much, Denzel Washington in “The Book of Eli”, hell yeah!
3. Mel Gibson in “Edge of Darkness”. With all the problems Mel has had with his fans and his personal life the last few years, is this really the time in his career to start channeling Jack Nicholson? Doesn’t he realize that Jack is still alive and can probably kick his ass for stealing his act?
4. Smokey Robinson. Who knew that Smokey was Wayne Newton’s half-brother? I didn’t . Did you? Well, have you seen Smokey lately? I saw him the other night on an American Masters documentary on Sam Cooke and my jaw dropped to the floor. There was Smokey, our Smokey, looking like he had gone to Wayne Newton’s plastic surgeon and was proud of it!
All I could do was hang my head in despair. Has looking youthful in America sunk so low that someone like Smokey has to chase the fountain of youth to be taken seriously? For God’s sake, he’s Smokey Robinson!!!! That should be enough to let him grow old gracefully and still love him!
5. The Las Vegas Sun. I read the paper every day on-line. When I click on News it takes me to a new page where it previews the big Las Vegas news story of the day and has one or two other line items for other news stories. Underneath it says, More Las Vegas News. I click on that thinking it will take me to more news stories about what is happening around Las Vegas.
Instead, it takes me to the weather articles. Rain in the forecast, not so much. In the winter, reports of a cooling or cold trend, in the summer, reports of the heat. I don’t really want to know the weather. I want to know the More Las Vegas News stories. Why doesn’t the Sun have a separate weather page? Or do they really think the weather in Las Vegas changes enough to warrant being the end page for More Las Vegas News?
6. Sheldon Adelson. He built a new casino in Bethlehem, PA on the grounds of the old US Steel plant. As part of the deal with the city, he also funded a museum detailing the history of Bethlehem and the importance of US Steel to the community.
Years before, Shel Adelson built a casino/hotel in Las Vegas called “The Venetian”. It was built on the site of the famed and beloved Sands Hotel. We didn’t get a museum detailing the history of Las Vegas or the importance of the Sands Hotel. The Sands was home to the Rat Pack. The Sands was one of the first hotels to break the color barrier. The Sands was the hotel we think of when we think of Classic Las Vegas. We got squat for all that history. Thanks, Shel.
7. Cell Phones. If you are shopping in Trader Joe’s, do you really need to be talking on your cell phone? Do you really think the rest of us care about your conversation, that we care about who is picking up the kids, what’s for dinner, what your plans of the evening are? News Flash! We don’t. Trader Joe’s are not large stores. If your call is that freakin’ important take it outside and let the rest of us shop in peace. Because you standing in the middle of the aisle talking away while you and your cart block the rest of us from shopping is only making us hate you more.
8. Trying to park your car while talking on your cell-phone? Please get off the phone! Now!
9. The El Cortez. With all the focus on rehabilitating Downtown, will someone, besides us, please acknowledge that the crew behind the El Cortez ROCKS! Jackie passed his legacy to a group that understands his legacy. Thank-You!!!!
10, Endangered Buildings. As the economy starts to rebound more and more buildings and homes will become endangered:
