What Is the Downtown Arts District?

What and where, exactly, is the downtown "Arts District?"

What started out in the late 1990s as a few artists' studios and galleries, along with the odd antique shop in the older rundown part of town, burgeoned into a thriving, if somewhat amorphous, Arts District. Stretching approximately from a couple of blocks south of E. Charleston Blvd., just off I-15, to north as far as Fremont Street and just beyond, it consists principally of art galleries, antique and vintage shops, bohemian bars, hair salons, and restaurants, but over the years they've become more plentiful and coalesced into a recognizable "district," with colorful paint jobs and murals on District buildings, murals, signs, green spaces, sculptures, and occasionally people in costume defining the large downtown space.

The First Fridays event, which celebrated its 17th anniversary last October, is proof of the area's vitality. A monthly happening that takes place, logically, on the first Friday of each month, it involves all the relevant stores and boutiques throwing their doors open until late at night for a big open-house/street party, often accompanied by cheap beers. There's live music and street entertainers, whole roads shut off to traffic and lined with various weird and wonderful arts, crafts, food, and drink stalls, and generally a very chilled-out atmosphere with good opportunities for interesting purchases of a gift nature or just as a treat for yourself. An average of 20,000 people congregate for the event every month.

Technically, the Arts District is known as the 18b, which signifies the 18-square-block zone laid out in 1998 to encourage art and artists in downtown Las Vegas. The 18b is bounded by Commerce Street to the west, Hoover Avenue to the north, Fourth Street to the east, and Wyoming Avenue at the south. But the Arts District has spilled over the 18b and has turned into a cultural, commercial, and even residential district that's arguably the hippest area in town.

What and where, exactly, is the downtown

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Adam Cohen Jan-27-2020

First Friday

So there is a First Friday in the Arts District and on Freemount Street?

Leonard Accardi Jan-27-2020

Location and Parking

Does anyone know if the primary center of activity is Main Street and Charleston, and where do 20,000 people park?

Jan-27-2020

Safe!

I'm curious as to whether the area is now considered safe because of the arts development.  It used to be really seedy and a bit scary.  I remember seeing many buildings abandoned with broken windows, etc., and graffiti on the walls.  I would not have felt safe walking around there.  I even felt a bit antsy just taking a bus down to Charleston to go to a business and then waiting at the bus stop for a bus to take me back up to Fremont.  Does anyone know if the area has really become safe now?

Dave Jan-27-2020

Safe?

Although I do it during the daytime, every trip I will walk from my hotel, down main street to gamblers general store, then across to gold & silver pawn, then back up to Fremont.

Never a problem.

Gene Bennett Jan-27-2020

A google map

Here you go. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Arts+District,+Las+Vegas,+NV/@36.1599335,-115.156602,16z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x80c8c39a93d8c991:0x6aa99e61a4dd7d96!8m2!3d36.1595961!4d-115.1518603

Kevin Lewis Jan-27-2020

It's real now

When they first started calling it The Arts District, that was a joke--a few desperate little businesses in a neighborhood where the owner would have been wise to never put down his shotgun. Now, it's actually kinda sorta an actual arts district--with its boundaries ill-defined, but definitely with the same vibe that such an area would have in a real city. Businesses gathered there because of the low rents in the bombed-out, abandoned buildings. Then, like existentially cruddy areas in other cities, suddenly it all gentrified. Now, there's actually some really good shopping and restaurants there--though you do have to approach it from Fort Apache or west-side downtown, neither of which should be traversed on foot.

Thomas R Jan-28-2020

Good coffee eats and watering holes

Esthers Kitchen, Cornish Pasty (?  sorry if i butcher these), makers and finders coffee, vespa coffee, hop nuts brewery, re-bar, the taste site (maybe changed names), a great little local theater (can't remember name, but wife loves them), three sheets brew pub, that rabbit bar....  oh and lots of art and antiques.  this is just a smattering off the top of my head.  you could easily spend a day/night in the area now.  lots to see/do.

Question of the Day - 27 January 2020

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