Five miles north of the Strip, the boulevard full of casinos that is the most universal image of Las Vegas, The old heart of this city beats where every day the past is swallowed up by the present. Those who make an express trip to this Gomorrah of games and fun surely do not have time, you don't even want, to approach Fremont Street. And they will be wrong, certainly, because it is impossible to understand a city so excessive, in which any containment ruins its true dimension, without walking through one of the oldest streets in Las Vegas in search of the spirit that turned a small town lost in the desert of Nevada in the global megalopolis of gambling addiction.
In a country with such a brief history behind it, the 111 fremont street years is an eternity. The Las Vegas Pleistocene is, therefore, Fremont Street, where Las Vegas was Las Vegas for the first time. The first hotels were built here (the Nevada Hotel, in 1906) and opened their pioneering casinos. And in 1925, It became the first paved street in Las Vegas (from Main Street to Fifth Street). And not only that. Here the first phone in the city rang, the first traffic light was installed in 1931 (perhaps to celebrate legalization, that year, of gambling in Nevada, banned since 1910) and the first elevator was built, in Apache Hotel.
The Pleistocene of Las Vegas is Fremont Street: The first hotels were built here and their pioneering casinos opened
And, despite all this succession of milestones, Calle Fremont (for many years the scene of multiple films) was about to die of success when Las Vegas Boulevard, the brand new artery of a city that had to give free rein to its expansive soul, It was progressively displaced into oblivion as one casino after another rose up next to it., each more spectacular and excessive.
To get to Downtown you can take the bus. (The Deuce Bus, that runs along the strip), although we prefer to do it by taxi (as there were four of us, It was practically the same price). Anyone who expects to find an old street dotted with historic buildings illuminated by the dim light of streetlights will soon be corrected.. This is Las Vegas and history has been written here by the casinos. There are also plenty of them in Fremont and the profusion of lights and neon is overwhelming., although its dimensions (there his past gives him away) they are not, course, those of the Strip.
The century-old street was about to die of success when the brand new avenue The Strip was pushing it into oblivion
The atmosphere is less extravagant, more authentic, so this is a more than recommended option to search hotels in Las Vegas. Pedestrian from 1994, Fremont Street is a friendly revelry compared to the superlative revelry that is the Strip. Where the Coin Castle stands today opened its doors in 1912 the Northern Club, where five-cent American Beauty beer was the star. With Prohibition, its owner, Lon Groesbeck, He suffered three months of arrest when the agents surprised him with 23 pints of beer.
To the health of Prohibition, the first thing we do as soon as we step on Fremont St. is to buy a couple of liters of beer, which they serve us in a large plastic rugby ball that I still have. The bad thing is that it is accompanied by several straws, as if it were a tropical juice. So, with a rugby ball in his hand, we walk the old street, where one of the main icons of Las Vegas is located, but the one who most: the neon cowboy Pioneer Club, that throws its sparkles at visitors from the distant 1951.
To the health of Prohibition, The first thing we do as soon as we step onto Fremont Street is buy a couple of liters of beer
But it hasn't been nostalgia or a love of history that has saved Fremont Street from becoming a ghost town.. In a country so devoted to spectacle, few will be surprised that what was once the main artery of Las Vegas has been reborn, precisely, thanks to a superlative show promoted by the consortium of hotels and casinos Fremont Street Experience: VivaVision.
Nightly, from six in the afternoon to twelve with intervals of one hour, the lights and music take over the street, magnified by a luminous screen, the largest in the world, the 400 meters long (a device in permanent struggle with the relentless erosion of desert sand), one of those things you have to see once in a lifetime. The music booms and the light shines above our heads and for several minutes one experiences an explosion of rhythm and fun that turns the atrocity of sipping beer through a straw into a venial sin..
Nightly, from six in the afternoon to twelve with intervals of one hour, the lights and music take over the street
But apart from that festival of flashes and watts, Fremont Street turns out at any time of the afternoon (mornings do not exist in a city that lives at night) a very lively visit, with its street concerts where you can breathe the American way of life without the stridency of the Strip.
Now, railway and nearby workers presa Hoover who saw it develop in the first half of the last century (They lived here for years while the works lasted), the military parades of the great wars that paraded along its pavement, the parade of gangsters and movie stars, They have been replaced by the thousands of tourists who help ensure that the memory of Las Vegas is not buried in the desert sand..
Any visit to Las Vegas should start with Fremont Street
Any visit to Las Vegas should start with Fremont Street (named after a 19th century military man, John C. Fremont, who explored for years and mapped these then inhospitable lands). And, before facing a tour of the inevitable The Mirage, The Venetian, Excalibur, New York-New York, Mandalay Bay, Bellagio, etc., It is a good idea to approach from here to the nearby Stratosphere, the skyscraper of Las Vegas and the Western United States, from where we will enjoy unparalleled views of the city.
On the floor 108, with a beer in hand, Perhaps we will be startled when we come face to face with a group of tourists with distraught faces hanging over the void. And the building is crowned by a small amusement park only suitable for those who are passionate about strong emotions.. From the Stratosphere to the south, The Strip abajo, the succession of hotels and casinos until the Mandalay Bay it's endless, As endless as the history of Fremont Street.
