Question of the Day - 16 July 2018

Any discussion of old downtown Las Vegas has to start with the Golden Gate, built in 1906 as the Hotel Nevada and home to Las Vegas’ first telephone number. Alas, the 99-cent shrimp cocktail is gone, but it still has its original pint-sized hotel rooms, which have been augmented with newer, larger ones in a recent makeover by owner Derek Stevens that added a hotel tower and showy new porte cochere onto the back. So it continues to move with the times, but it has a more "classic Vegas" flavor than any other downtown casino.

Except, perhaps, the El Cortez, which opened in 1941. Proving that everything old is new again, the El Cortez is enjoying a renaissance sparked when its management had the foresight to lease some vacant office space to artistic entrepreneurs in what became Emergency Arts. As coffee shops and niche restaurants began popping up around the neighborhood, the El Cortez became chic, after suffering a long period of isolation from the Fremont Street Experience-linked casinos. The interior of the casino floor and restaurants definitely has a Bugsy Siegel aura (he learned the ropes of the casino business here), and ownership has done a good job of balancing intimacy with ease of movement. Largely untouched by the passing years, the El Cortez has the distinction of being on the National Register of Historic Places; it's the oldest continuously operating casino in the U.S.

The glamorous Golden Nugget hails from 1946, although recent owners Steve Wynn and Tilman Fertitta have made it over so radically that the Nugget wears its years very lightly. What period flavor it exudes is mainly felt in the marble-floored check-in area. The showroom has a nice older-Vegas vibe, too, although it’s remarkable to think that Frank Sinatra hung his hat in a joint so small.

Binion's (1951) has the potential to be an atmospheric casino again, but the hotel rooms remain closed and the garage needs to be rebuilt. Formerly the Horseshoe, a part of its soul disappeared when Harrah’s Entertainment bought the Horseshoe brand and the World Series of Poker -- and took both of them away.

Believe it or not, the Fremont's 15-story hotel tower, built in 1956 at the height of the mob era, was the tallest building in Nevada. The original owner, Ed Levinson, was an associate of Meyer Lanksy, and Allen Glick's Argent Corporation owned it during the last gangster gasp in Vegas. It hasn't seen much upgrading over the decades, so it still has an old-time Vegasy feel, though the Second Street Grill is a (fairly) modern favorite.

The last stop on your tour should be the Downtown Grand (1964), once the Lady Luck. It suffers a bit, business-wise, from being a couple of blocks off the Fremont Street Experience, but it's kitty-corner from the Mob Museum: More old Vegas than that you cannot get. The two hotel towers feel entirely contemporary in ambience and elbow room, but the casino clings to its historical roots. The drop-ceiling has been stripped away and, in industrial-chic fashion, the upper workings of the old Lady Luck are laid bare: You can see all the catwalks once prowled by the eye in the sky. This stylistic choice marries the architecture of Mob-era Vegas with the latest in slots and table games — a point of understandable pride with Downtown Grand management.

With that, we say goodbye to small area where Las Vegas began, skipping over the Four Queens and The D. At the former, built in 1964, only Hugo's Cellar is reminiscent of a bygone era. And the latter hails from 1980, the opening year of a decade that architecture forgot. Owner Derek Stevens has wrought many improvements to the interior, but The D is stubbornly of an era that produced nothing of lasting style in Sin City.