Cultural walking tour explores downtown Las Vegas.

Cultural tour explores downtown Las Vegas’ past, present — and future

JUST because you look around doesn’t mean you see — or understand — what you observe. Unless, of course, you have someone to help sharpen the focus.

Enter Richard Hooker of Urban Adventures. An artist — and former urban arts coordinator for Las Vegas’ Office of Cultural Affairs — Hooker leads walking tours that examine a different side of downtown Las Vegas.

“Interpreting the Urban Landscape: A Cultural Walking Tour of Downtown Las Vegas” explores 10 downtown blocks — from Main Street to Las Vegas Boulevard, along Fremont and other connecting streets.

Of course, it’s still Glitter Gulch — and Fremont Street, with its neon-bedecked mix of casinos, bars, restaurants, panhandlers, street performers, street art, wide-eyed visitors and more, is as freewheeling as ever.

But the dozen-plus participants on this particular walking tour aren’t just visitors seeking some afternoon diversion. They’re arts professionals from around the state — in Las Vegas for the Nevada Arts Council’s two-day “Arts at the Heart” conference, which wrapped up Friday.

Some wear sneakers, others high heels. Some hail from Reno, Carson City and beyond.

Shari Bombard, tourism and events coordinator for Tonopah, cheerfully acknowledges that she’s there to “represent the rurals,” she says. Yes, it’s “the middle of nowhere — or the middle of everywhere, we like to say instead.”

But a variety of Las Vegans are also along for the expedition, including “lover of architecture” Cathy Allen, who teaches at UNLV’s dance department — and is looking for “inspiration.”

‘A city of reinvention’

As the tour members introduce themselves, Hooker introduces one of the tour’s main themes: “I like to think of us all as storytellers.”

And the story he’s telling follows Las Vegas history from its 1905 beginnings to its status as “an outdoor museum of American pop culture.”

Most of all, however, Las Vegas “really is a city of reinvention,” Hooker says. “We’re reinventing ourselves all the time.”

One example of that reinvention: what used to be the Las Vegas Club on Main Street, which is being demolished for a future hotel-casino.

More examples: multiple murals adorning downtown walls, from one of the most recent — one by artist Shepard Fairey, completed earlier this year at the Plaza — to “Pyramid at Red Rock Canyon,” at Third Street and Ogden Avenue, in which artist Ozzy Villate augments the red rocks with tumbling red dice.

Completed as part of Las Vegas’ centennial celebration, “this seems really quaint and charming” compared to some of the newer, larger murals, Hooker says.

‘They haven’t imploded everything’

His affection for Las Vegas’ past also prompts a stop at Ogden and Casino Center Boulevard, which he describes as “one of the great midcentury urban corners you will ever see.”

One reason: the geometric exterior of the Fremont Hotel, designed by architect Wayne McAllister (whose credits include the El Cortez, the tour’s final stop, plus the long-gone Strip landmarks El Rancho Vegas, the Desert Inn and the Sands).

“When it opened in 1955, it was the tallest building in Nevada,” Hooker points out. “And it’s got one of the most magnificent neon signs.”

Across the street: the tower at Binion’s, which formerly belonged to the Mint. Visitors can “do something really classic Vegas” by visiting the erstwhile Top of the Mint on the 22nd floor, “just like back in the Rat Pack era,” he suggests.

For Allen, whose family moved to Las Vegas in 1969, visiting the tour stops is “reconnecting with my youth,” she says. “I’m glad they haven’t imploded everything.”

From to the now-dated video technology of the Fremont Street Experience’s VivaVision canopy to Main Street Station’s collection of Victorian-era antiques, Hooker offers running commentary on Las Vegas’ past, present — and future.

But he still hasn’t figured out a way to talk about the Oct. 1 massacre at the Route 91 Harvest music festival.

Perhaps there’s a clue, however, in the showgirl mural artist Tristan Eaton painted on the El Cortez garage, which Hooker points out as the tour heads for Container Park.

“Everything Vegas is in her headdress,” he says. And that includes the words “FEAR NO FATE.”

Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto “Arts at the Heart” conference attendees explore Fremont Street on a cultural walking tour that takes in everything from Main Street to Container Park.

Beth Macmillan, executive director of Reno’s annual Artown festival, joins Urban Adventures’ Richard Hooker on Fremont Street during a 10-block cultural walking tour.

Arts professionals attending the Nevada Arts Council’s “Arts at the Heart” conference gather at the Historic Fifth Street School.

Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto Artist and “cultural urbanist” Richard Hooker introduces artist Ozzy Villate’s mural “Pyramid at Red Rock Canyon” to members of a walking tour focusing on downtown Las Vegas’ cultural side.

Urban Adventures guide Richard Hooker identifies a point of interest during a walking tour of downtown Las Vegas.