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Writing Samples: Moon Metro Las Vegas, Avalon Travel Publishing, 2004
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Neighborhood Profile: Downtown
Downtown Las Vegas is where casinos and culture comfortably coexist. Here, the city's past is not only honored but tangible in the form of its oldest hotels, beloved vintage neon signs, and museums that preserve its Old West roots. But downtown has a future as well, as a spirit of restoration brings in new restaurants and shops, and woos visitors back to the city's core.
On Fremont Street, some see only the faded glory of hotels past their prime. But fierce loyalists find funky charm in these close-set, low-ceilinged gambling halls and favor them to the sprawl of Strip resorts. This is where you'll find the image of Las Vegas favored in the media, swimming in neon from the sidewalk up. Ten casinos open right onto the pedestrian mall that is the Fremont Street Experience, where light shows play up and down the canopy that arches over the mall's four blocks.
Fremont is the center of downtown commerce, but as the neighborhood stretches to the north and south, the dizzying lights dim and give way to the city's artistic and cultural heart.
While Strip hotels have added galleries to showcase centuries-old masterpieces, the south side of downtown is where to find living local artists at work in a clutch of galleries and studios around Main Street and Charleston Boulevard. First Fridays, a monthly art and music event that unfolds across multiple galleries and restaurants, is giving this budding arts scene welcome exposure. The shabby chic of nearby antique and vintage clothing shops appeals to the same crowd.
North of Fremont, Las Vegas defies its reputation as a city without history or community. A literal culture corner at Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue, anchored by a natural history museum and the remains of a Mormon fort, explores the region's heritage of fossil finds and frontier settlements.
Night owls are finding their way back to the area, too. An evening out downtown is more about beer and pretzels than velvet ropes and VIP rooms, and new nightspots are attracting a young, easygoing crowd that eschews the club scene frenzy.
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