Cultural landmarks in downtown Las Vegas

Leading a “Cultural Walking Tour of Downtown Las Vegas,” artist — and Urban Adventures guide — Richard Hooker points out more than a dozen “touchstone stops” illustrating, among other things, Las Vegas’ capacity for reinvention.

Among the notable stops on the tour:

“Monument to the Simulacrum”: Sculptor Stephen Hendee’s stainless steel mountain dominates Las Vegas’ Centennial Plaza, on Fourth Street adjacent to the Historic Fifth Street School. At its summit: a light, one that reflects “how electric architecture has played an important role in the personality of the urban environment” in Las Vegas, Hooker says.

Fremont Street Experience: Hooker describes Fremont Street as “the greatest performance street in America,” ticking off attractions including the VivaVision video canopy, riders on the Slotzilla zip line and zoom line, downtown performance stages, flair bartenders and dancers atop the bars, along with the “neon signs that animate the whole environment. Everything is kinetic and electric.”

Main Street Station: Chandeliers from opera houses in Paris and San Francisco. Stained glass windows from Victorian-era mansions. Winston Churchill’s billiard table (on the mezzanine). And a graffiti-covered slab of the Berlin Wall, installed behind a line of urinals in a men’s restroom. Main Street Station abounds in conversation pieces — perfect for “a storytelling town,” as Hooker notes.

Vegas Vic: Still smiling at Fremont Street visitors, the vintage neon cowboy, “built as a mascot of downtown,” predates the Strip’s “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign by eight years, according to Hooker.