Fremont Street

I was done writing about Las Vegas but I heard an interview this evening with a reporter who a cover story about the city in this week's Time magazine.  Well, it's the cover story if you're buying the European edition of last week's Time but they didn't mention those details in the radio interview.

The Golden Nugget, where I stayed on my last night, is on Fremont Street, the original Las Vegas Strip.  The Strip long ago moved to unincorporated land south of the city, where developers could develop to their heart's content.  Fremont Street is still trying to recover from the move.  The old casinos are kind of cool but several times every evening their exteriors go dark for several lame light shows along the street.

The shows are kind of depressing.  The great lights on the casinos get turned off and the canopy of lights overhead go into action.  Technically the show is kind of amazing.  The twelve million lights cover four or five blocks.  However, when the show, an animation vaguely set to a song, starts everyone stops dead in their tracks and stares upward for five minutes.  The show ends, the casino lights turn on, and everyone starts walking again, no doubt in anticipation of the next light show in a half-hours time.  A couple of people appeared to be shooting me dirty looks when I walked around while the show was in progress.

All was not a loss on Fremont Street.  The coffee shop in the basement of Binion's is the place to get an enormous, tasty and cheap breakfast.  It was made all the better by watching a guy two tables away pass out head first into his bacon and eggs.  Topping that performance was the waitress tucking the check under his arm.

Comments

[jeff]

you know, I think Vegas is really your kind of town--ever think of relocating?

[Joe]

My love for the city really shines through doesn't it?

[jeff]

its just that your aesthetic somehow works there--