Las Vegas, often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and 2nd-largest in the Southwestern United States. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city, known primarily for its gambling, shopping, fine dining, entertainment, and nightlife. The Las Vegas Valley as a whole serves as the leading financial, commercial, and cultural center for Nevada.
The California Hotel and Casino opened in 1975 at a cost of $10 million with a hotel and casino located in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada near the Fremont Street Experience, two years after a similar named Fremont Street casino, California Club was sold to the Golden Nugget. When it opened it had 325 rooms which has since been expanded to 781.
The Fremont Street Experience (FSE) is a pedestrian mall and attraction in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. The FSE occupies the westernmost five blocks of Fremont Street, including the area known for years as "Glitter Gulch", and portions of some other adjacent streets.
The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign is a Las Vegas landmark funded in May 1959 and erected soon after by Western Neon. The sign was designed by Betty Willis at the request of Ted Rogich, a local salesman, who sold it to Clark County, Nevada.
Downtown Las Vegas is the central business district and historic center of Las Vegas, Nevada. It is the original townsite, and the Downtown gaming area was the primary gambling district of Las Vegas prior to the Strip. As the urban core of the Las Vegas Valley, it features a variety of hotel and business highrises, cultural centers, historical buildings and government institutions, as well as residential and retail developments. Downtown is located in the center of the Las Vegas Valley and just north of the Las Vegas Strip, centered on Fremont Street, the Fremont Street Experience and Fremont East. The city defines the area as bounded by I-15 on the west, Washington Avenue on the north, Maryland Parkway on the east and Sahara Avenue on the south.
Fremont Street is a street in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada that is the second most famous street in the Las Vegas Valley – and Nevada – besides the Las Vegas Strip. Named in honor of explorer and politician John C. Frémont and located in the heart of the downtown casino corridor, Fremont Street is today, or was, the address for many famous casinos such as Binion's Horseshoe, Eldorado Club, Fremont Hotel and Casino, Golden Gate Hotel and Casino, Golden Nugget, Four Queens, The Mint, and the Pioneer Club.
The Downtown Grand, formerly the Lady Luck, is a hotel and casino in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, owned by CIM Group and operated by Fifth Street Gaming. The Downtown Grand is the centerpiece of Downtown3rd, a new neighborhood and entertainment district in downtown Las Vegas.
The Lied Library building is located on the University of Nevada's Las Vegas (UNLV) campus in Paradise, Nevada. At 5 stories high and 302,000 square feet (28,100 m2), it is the largest building on the campus and the Architect of Record was Welles Pugsley Architects. It first opened on January 8, 2001. UNLV Libraries was established in 1957 and include the Lied Library that opened in 2001. Other campus libraries are the Architecture Studies Library, the Health Sciences Library, the Teacher Development & Resources Library, and the UNLV Music Library. UNLV Libraries has a collection of more than one million volumes, access to over 20,000 online and print journals, and more than 2 million additional resources of various media such as microfilm, DVDs, and government publications.
Vegas Vic is a neon sign portraying a cowboy which was erected on the exterior of The Pioneer Club in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA in 1951. The sign was a departure in graphic design from typeface based neon signs, to the friendly and welcoming human form of a cowboy. The sign's human-like abilities of talking and waving its arm received an immediate acceptance as the unofficial welcoming sign, reproduced thousands of times over the years and all over the world. The sign can still be found at 25 E Fremont Street, where it has been since 1951 on the exterior of what used to be The Pioneer Club but is currently a souvenir shop. The trademark is currently owned by Pioneer Hotel, Inc., which owns and operates the Pioneer Hotel and Gambling Hall on the Colorado River in Laughlin, Nevada. Laughlin has a twin of the Vegas Vic image on another large sign referred to as River Rick.
Neonopolis, a 250,000 sq ft (23,000 m2) shopping mall, is a $100 million entertainment complex in Las Vegas, Nevada located on top of a $15 million city parking garage. It is located on Fremont Street, at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard. In keeping with the complex's name, it contains three miles of neon lights.
826NYC is a nonprofit organization located in Park Slope, Brooklyn. It provides free after-school tutoring, workshops, in-schools tutoring, help for English language learners, and assistance with student publications. Drawing from a volunteer base of over 2,000, which includes many teachers, writers and journalism professionals, 826NYC unites students with tutors. It is a chapter of 826 National.
Gambler's Book Club / GBC Press is a bookstore & small press dedicated to gambling. Now located at 5473 S Eastern Ave in Paradise, Nevada, it was originally located in the Huntridge area of Las Vegas. The company has operated for over 40 years. Along with original books on various forms of gambling, the company engaged in the reprinting of "classic" works related to gambling that had long passed out of copyright, furthering Founder John & Edna Luckman's vision of Gambler's Book Club as a place of learning for gamblers.
La Bayou was a casino located on the Fremont Street Experience in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Las Vegas Natural History Museum is a private, nonprofit natural history museum that is located in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. The exhibits focus on various subjects, from dinosaurs, marine life, and mammals both exotic and native, as well as an Egyptian exhibit that opened in February 2010, focusing on the life of Tutankhamen.
The Las Vegas Arts District, or the 18b in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada was created in 1998 as an 18 block zone set aside to encourage art and artists.
The La Concha Motel was a motel that opened in 1961 and closed in 2004. It was designed by architect Paul Williams who was one of the first prominent African American architects in the United States and was also the architect who designed the first LAX theme building. It was located at 2955 Las Vegas Blvd South, on the Las Vegas Strip, in Winchester, Nevada, and was considered one of the best-preserved examples of 1950s Googie architecture. It is believed to be named after the Beach of La Concha in Spain.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. The Spanish Trader Antonio Armijo led a 60-man party along the Spanish Trail to Los Angeles, California in 1829 and found a natural steam water Land that was named Las Vegas.
Chris Molnar is a writer, editor, filmmaker and publisher. He is the co-founder of The Writer's Block bookstore in Las Vegas, and editorial director of Archway Editions, the literary imprint of powerHouse Books distributed by Simon & Schuster.
