The Inevitble Downtown Backlash Has Begun

If there is one absolute truth on the internet, it's this: haters gonna hate. Thus, it's no surprise that the low rumble of backlash has already begun to surface in response to Tony Hsieh's ambitious plans for the future of Downtown Las Vegas.

In a recent column in Vegas Seven Magazine, writer Heidi Kyser criticized Hsieh's efforts to revamp the entire Downtown area using only private money. Kyser was responding to reports of a proposed dog park in Downtown that would be exclusively available to fee paying members. Now, I'm not going to argue the idea of a private dog park designed by a person whose job it is to design dog parks from San Francisco in which you must pay membership dues isn't a little silly, or even a lot silly to the point of absurd satire, but I also wouldn't be so quick to single it out as the reason why Hsieh's plans are doomed to only benefit the super elite rich cool yuppie hipster class. While the fees seem a bit silly, the fact is there is no dog park in Downtown yet even though residents of the neighborhood are hungry for one, and the fees will help pay for the building and maintenance of said park. If the place proves to be popular enough, I don't think that will detract city government from building a public dog park, I think it will only encourage it. Hsieh's vision is to turn a formerly uninhabitable swath of abandoned lots and crumbling buildings into a truly vibrant and livable neighborhood with a young and creative community. Perhaps a private dog park with a membership fee is not ideal, but it's better than no dog park.

Beyond Kyser's mild and not entirely unjustified criticism, I've noticed a bit more hatorade being poured on the Downtown Project in comment threads than I used to. Certainly, comment boards are the most vile corner of the interwebs, where the cockroaches skitter under the floorboards and make racist, sexist, and homophobic comments anonymously and without repercussion. But it's still disheartening to see people write things like the below comment, posted in response to Kyser's piece:

All hail King Tony and his downtown hipster land.   Stay tuned for the Fixies only bike shop, the super tight jeans store,  the pub that only serves PBR, the eye glass shop with the super thick black frames, a store that sells retro stereo equipment like Boom boxes and cassette players.  Stay tuned for the enormous cloud of irony and cynasism that will form as this new Downtown hipster land takes shape.  If you don't think your cool enough to be a part of it you probably aren't.   Cop an attitude and find it all a bit passe and you'll fit right in.  While we are at it lets import some trustafarians.

I don't even know where to start in responding to this post, between the fact that they haven't updated their list of hipster cliches since Bush left office (a "supertight jeans store," really?) or the fact that he doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're" (and thus would never get a date on OKCupid), but it's still an attitude that depresses me. A dude is investing a large chunk of his personal fortune into turning a dead area into a cool neighborhood with a personality different from the tourist mecca of The Strip just down the street and this guy is accusing the imagined future citizens of Downtown of cynicism?

Or how about this gem from the comment section under The Las Vegas Review Journal story announcing plans for the dog park, in which the very idea that the designer came from San Francisco is proof positive that it's a bad idea:

A transplant fron San Francisco. Need I say more? She and those like her ruined California and now are planning to destroy Nevada. This why Obama and Reid are elected. A dog park, with security? Can't your dogs run in the yard? You don't have a yard, take the stupid thing to the park. I don't want to pay for it with my tax money. She is after all from San Francisco and they are very good at spending other people's money.

The funniest part of this comment is that it's a fundamental opposite of the Vegas Seven article criticizing the fact that the Dog Park is publicly funded... this person is angry that a liberal Obama and Pelosi lovin' San Franciscan tax and spend welfare baby vegan type will spend all their hard-earned tax money on a park for dogs, while failing to take in the part that the project is privately funded, but he can still enjoy his anger at the idea that he'd have to pay for it with his tax money (while a privately funded dog park would probably end up costing him a few dollars at most in taxes, but that's neither her nor there)... why be informed on the internet when you can be OUTAGED?

I'll say that there is one common complaint I've seen amongst the comment boarders discussing Downtown that I totally agree with... the lack of a grocery store currently in the vicinity. If they really want people to move there, open up a Trader Joe's in the middle of the action, stat. That way there is high quality food available in walking distance from where people live, which means less driving and pollution and more reasons for San Francisco-hating commentators to become angry for no good reason.

Listen, I know I'm cherry picking a few choice comments and one editorial here, but this is the first time I've started to see any volume of criticism for the Downtown Project's epically ambitious neighborhood revitalization and rejuvenation plans. While criticism is good and will keep Hsieh and his merry band of Downtown dreamers honest and on the right path to truth and freedom, some of these complaints are pretty ludicrous to me. I agree that the idea of member-driven dog park with security guards and background checks for the pets sounds a bit like a Portlandia sketch, but it's at least a well-intentioned service being brought to a part of town devoid of said service up until now. And that's the point... for all of the hatin' them haters be hatin' on the Downtown Project, thus far everything they are getting steamed about has all been well intentioned, if not completely perfect in execution. The Downtown Project people are trying something experimental and ambitious and exciting, and they're sure to stumble more than a few times along the way. Who would ever get outraged at people like that?

Oh right, comment board lurkers posting under the cover of anonymity. They call 'em Trolls for a reason.

Why Doesn't Downtown Have A Movie Theater?

I spent as much of what turned out to be a very busy weekend as I could tuning in to the live stream of epically awesome non-profit movie lover temple Cinefamily's eclectic 24 hour telethon. If you're unfamiliar with Cinefamily, they're a cinematheque with a fantastically diverse programming schedule that has featured everything from a John Cassavetes retrospective to obscure Czech New Wave gems to Muppet movie sing-alongs, not to mention a good dose of midnight cult movies that draw out drunken crowds whooping and hollering as Patrick Swayze tears out the throats of of evil red necks.

This year's telethon launched with superstar and all around awesome dude Robert Downey Jr. pledging to cover the cost of a new digital projector and sound system, ended with a potluck lunch hosted by Jason Schwartzman where head Cinefamily guru and the Rushmore star discussed movies that scared them as children, and featured interviews with Devo frontman/ film composer Mark Mothersbaugh, Parks and Recreation's invaluable Nick Offerman, and the creators of cult kid's show The Adventures of Pete and Pete, as well as a live scoring session by indie darlings Yacht, comedy from meta-insult slinger Neil Hamburger, and a spoon-bending class hosted by Hadrian's mom at 4:30 in the morning. The telethon brought in tens of thousands of dollars in donations that will go to much needed and richly deserved upgrades for the place, located in the historic Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax. The wide-ranging list of guests who dropped in to the theater gives you an idea of just how insanely eclectic and ambitious their programming is week in and week out, and the fundraiser willl help them continue to do what they're doing. The telethon is over, but they're continuing to raise money through a Kickstarter campaign, to which you can still make a donation until Jan. 2.

All of this got me thinking about the movie-going experience in Las Vegas, and specifically in Downtown Las Vegas. Currently, the neighborhood is pretty much void of theaters in general. For people looking to see The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises, it's an easy trip to The Strip or The Palms, both of which feature conventional multiplexes. But the Las Vegas audience for indie cinema is a bit under-served, which is something that probably should be rectified if plans for Downtown Las Vegas to evolve into a smart, creative, and young population are to come true.

There isn't really an arthouse theater of any kind to speak of in the area. Theater 7 is a small and awesome little art gallery and performance space that also does screenings of cult movies and anime, but they don't really have the space or capacity to run a deep retrospective (like the epic Passolini festival  unfolding at MOMA in NY at the moment) or to show newer art films like Leos Carax's thrillingly beautiful, sad, hilarious, and wholly mysterious Holy Motors (one of my absolute favorite films of 2012). The question is, has Dowtown's population grown enough to support a theater that would show such films?

Currently, enough young professionals with spending money are pouring into Downtown that a theater showing current Hollywood hits and mainstream "mindie" films like Juno, Up in the Air, Young Adult, or (basically any Jason Reitman movie) could absolutely thrive. But could a theater such as Cinefamily or Austin's legendary Alamo Drafthouse (currently expanding its reach to New York and San Francisco, with plans to set up shop in LA as soon as they can find the right venue), which both mix in plenty of more esoteric fare (such as foreign, cult, and more challenging than the work of Jason Reitman indie flicks) find its footing in DTLV? I think the answer is a "maybe," but it would take an enthusiastic curator to pull it off.

Indie film is struggling lately, even in markets where people theoretically love film. The Laemmle Sunset 5, a cornerstone of my indie movie viewing when I moved to LA for film school, recently shut down (but was replaced by a new Sundance Cinemas, which fully renovated the place), which led to a controversial LA Weekly cover story about the "state of the art-house" the city. It was a decent article that railed against the fact that people in a town where the movies are made wouldn't go see more challenging fare that played at The Sunset 5 such as the Greek incest-ridden dark comedy psychodrama, Dogtooth, while pointing out that the movie did very good business in New York. But then the article went on to note that Dogtooth did quite well when it was screened at Cinefamily. And I think that's precisely where Longworth kind of missed the point.

Cinefamily has done a magnificent job of helping audiences find strange and wonderful films such as Dogtooth or Holy Motors discover enthusiastic audiences through their robust web and social media presence, which goes a long way to explaining why a movie they choose to screen is worth seeing for people who don't know much about it initially. They also do an excellent job at their screenings of convincing people why they should come back to see upcoming films, with Cinefamily's head nerd Belove often on hand to introduce the movies and talk about future shows personally. They also cut their own trailers and promos for their eclectic programming, such as their homemade spots for the effervescent Czech New Wave film Daisies and First Blood (the very first and decidedly darker Rambo movie, which they'll be showing for a week to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its release). If watching those two trailers doesn't give you an idea of just how eclectic Cinefamily's programming is, I don't know what will.

Similarly, the wonderful New Beverly Cinema, a rep-house where double features of classic films still only costs $7 to attend (which was recently saved from extinction by Quentin Tarantino) draws decent crowds to movies from decades past with good use of Twitter, their website, and old fashioned calendar print-outs that inform film-lovers of their upcoming slates. The American Cinematheque at The Egyptian in Hollywood and Aero in Santa Monica has a very ambitious slate every month of retrospectives, major new films, and documentaries, and more, and they also do good business by keeping audiences informed through email lists, their website, social media, and calendars that can be picked up at many venues all over the city. A recent screening of Barry Lyndon at LACMA (which has an incredibly in-depth Stanley Kubrick exhibit running through June 2013 and has shown his entire filmography in conjunction) sold out despite the fact that it's a period piece made in the 70's and is often considered Kubrick's "slowest" film (which is pure balderdash, as the movie is secretly a hilarious comedy that clips along at a nice pace despite its over 3 hour length, which includes an intermission, and also happens to be one of the most purely beautiful films ever committed to celluloid), something they achieved through similar means of getting their message out to the people.

My point is that, even in LA, where people make films, there needs to be helpful curation to coax audiences out of their homes and get their butts into theater seats. To me, Cinefamily is the greatest example of how to successfully pull audiences in to adventurous cinematic programming, but The New Bev, American Cinematheque, and LACMA are all proving it can be done as well. And Laemmle, the company that had to shut down the historic West Hollywood Sunset 5, is doing just fine in other parts of the city. They recently opened a new theater in North Hollywood and are reopening their renovated Laemmle Royal this week in West LA. And the Sundance Cinemas, which replaced the Sunset 5, are doing decent business after the old and out of date theater it replaced was upgraded. So while getting audiences to see indie, foreign, cult, documentary, and generally esoteric cinema isn't easy in an age of constant distractions from the internet and television shows that are nearly as good as most movies, there is an audience for those works that can be drawn out out their hovels for a unique cinematic experience. It's not that the audience isn't there for these films, it's that someone needs to guide their seats into the butts better than the owners of the defunct version of The Sunset 5 were doing by its last days.

All of which does not answer the question whether a place like Cinefamily can thrive in a city like Las Vegas. because it's unclear whether the audience is there... yet. But as Tony Hsieh's master-plan continues to gain steam, with a recent splashy NYTimes profile that argues he's bringing "Brooklyn to Vegas" adding to the mounting evidence that his crazy goal of turning Downtown into a livable and creative playground for smart entrepreneurs is actually working, then if the audience isn't quite there yet, they will be soon. Hseih recently gave $1 million to Venture for America, which places young and creative college graduates in under-served communities like Las Vegas to encourage entrepreneurship. This is the kind of thing that will keep driving the young, creative, talented, and curious to continue moving into the area... and that audience will be hungry for cool and interesting things to do in their new city beyond Sin City's most famous pastimes, gambling and drinking. Which means a cool and adventurous Cinematheque might have an enthusiastic audience sooner than later... particularly if the audience is informed and drawn in by an even more enthusiastic curator who mixes the programming just right with the kind of midnight cult stuff everybody enjoys along with more adventurous fare people might not have checked out otherwise. Imagine screenings at the theater that end with gatherings at Commonwealth or The Downtown Cocktail Room, where like-minded cinephiles can discuss Fellini or Bergman films over delicious themed cocktails, or argue passionately about the latest controversial works from provocateurs like Von Trier or Haneke. It's the kind of thing that works in cities like LA, New York, Austin, San Francisco, or Portland... but if Las Vegas, and particularly the Downtown neighborhood truly hopes to grow into a city comparable to those hip metropolises, then an eclectic Cinematheque can and should thrive there.

This was a long, rambling article, but it's something I'm passionate about. Tony Hseih is looking to create a real community people can be proud to call home in Downtown Las Vegas, and there are very few communal events that can be more magical than a truly special film screening. Perhaps Mr. Hseih and I should talk about opening a Cinematheque (or a SinCitymatheque) in the Fremont East District? Because Las Vegans should be able to see Holy Motors just as easily as The Hobbit.

The Continued Evolution of Downtown Las Vegas

Apologies for the slightly supremely pretentious title, but sometimes excitement for cool new things is a valid excuse for pretentiousness.Or so I tell myself.

I've spent many, many reams of digital ink typing up my praises to Downtown Las Vegas as the neighborhood continues to grow from an empty lot filled mugging-zone where one would not dare spend time after dark away from the single large street of cheesy low stakes gambling parlors into the vibrant and interesting area filled with unique and cool local businesses its quickly becoming. Places like The Downtown Cocktail Room and The Griffin and events like First Fridays have thrived and encouraged the openings of distinct watering holes like Insert Coins, The Lady Silva,  Bar+Bistro, Artifice, Commonwealth, and resurrected classic Atomic Liquors, as well as hipster brunch spot Eat, quirky museums that illuminate the history of the Mob and Atomic Testing in Las Vegas, the soon to open (and surprisingly cool sounding) Shipping Container Park, coffee/vinyl/zine merchants The Beat Coffeehouse, world class cultural showcase The Smith Center... you get the idea. Basically, I'm trying to say that Downtown is pretty cool.

Clearly, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and Downtown Cocktail Room proprietor Michael Cornthwaite's masterplan to convert Downtown Las Vegas into a world-class neighborhood that will attract creative and artistic young people and innovative start-ups (as well as tourists looking for a more off-beat experience than The Strip can offer) to the area is already paying off, and will continue to do so. (Let's just pray that they're not trying to gather all of those people into one Downtown neighborhood in a relatively small city so that they can use their brains to power their brain-powered giant robots. I know this fear is far fetched, but we can't rule it out as a possibility, especially since Hsieh's massive investment of his own money is so generous that some sort of unseen ulterior motive may as yet be revealed.)

Downtown's evolution continues to roll on (to mix metaphors), as list of new businesses and projects are set to debut on or near Fremont Street in the next year or so. Below is a list of just a few #DTV coming attractions I'm most excited about.

The Velveteen Rabbit
Local sisters Pam and Christina Dylag are set to open their dream bar in Downtown as soon as construction finishes, and these crushable alt-chicks have a vision. Named after their favorite children's story, set to serve craft brews and cocktails, and promising to feature an imaginative and whimsical design inspired by its imaginative name (and teased on the bar's Facebook page), the place will most likely become an essential hipster mecca, frequented by Vegan-riding bicycle riders and haunted by food trucks just outside its doors, once it opens officially in 2013.


The Life is Beautiful Festival
No, it's not a weekend devoted to the Oscar-winning Robert Benigni concentration camp set tragi-comedy, but rather a music food and wine festival that promises to bring "arena sized acts" to Downtown in an event that's being organized by a powerful coalition, including the people behind San Francisco's popular answer to Coachella, Outside Lands, the marketing group behind First Fridays, and the guy who served as The Cosmopolitan's music director. Despite the terrible name and even though they have promised "arena-sized" artists, Life is Beautiful has the lot of potential to bring back a full-on music festival that's a little less corporate-driven than iHeart Radio to Las Vegas and features acts a little more interesting and outside-the-box than Lady Gaga or Usher (and which will hopefully be organized in a way that will lead to less diva-like onstage tantrums from mega-selling pop-stars who petulantly insist they're not Justin Bieber).

Bolt Barbers
The irreverent and dude-friendly barbershop, which gained some notoriety by promoting their bad reviews with a "people hate us on Yelp" flag that became so popular that they turned it into book form. Now the cutting-edge hair-cutters are moving to the Shipping Container Park in Las Vegas, in a converted train caboose. Obviously, this place could not be cooler, so get on the crazy train and score yourself a great new cut before you hit the bars on your next Vegas adventure.

Escape from Douchebaggery, Part 31: Eat

Nothing proves a city's true hipster credentials like a hip brunch spot with a minimalist name. I have no scientific, statistical proof of this claim, but I do have plenty of anecdotal evidence to support my thesis (something that uber-stat wonk Nate Silver would surely frown upon, using math-wizardry). To compliment places like Good in Silverlake, Home in Los Feliz, Gravy in Portland, Radish in San Francisco's Mission District, and Egg in Brooklyn (which has its own farm, of course), Downtown Las Vegas now has Eat.

Fed up with the corporate culture that came with working in Vegas kitchens for two decades, veteran Chef Natalie Young was about to move away to El Paso before Downtown Cocktail Room impresario Michael Cornthwaite recruited her, Avengers style, to stay in town and open her own restaurant. When Young protested that there was no way she could afford to open her own place, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh swept in with his magic powers (read: money) to finance the brunch spot. With that, Eat was born.


Dedicated to filling a hole in the emerging but still slightly sparse dining scene in Downtown, Eat is a hip spot that serves inventive takes on American classics with a French twist. Eat's menu is designed to be hearty and healthy, with items made from sustainable, fresh, ingredients, with as many local and organic elements as humanly possible. So on the hipster brunch checklist, the restaurant hits pretty much all the right notes.

Eat is one of those places that really makes Downtown feel like a neighborhood with a thriving community, with art installations personally curated by Young, including large murals and wood sculptures on permanent display as well as rotating photographs and paintings from local artists. Natural woods, exposed bricks, and overhead lights with exposed light-bulbs give the place a funkily rustic vibe.

None of these cool features would be anything more than gimmicks if the food wasn't good, but thankfully the food at Eat is very, very good. Cornthwaite made the right call by keeping Chef Young in town, because her menu is pretty darn amazing. I ordered the Huevos Motulenos (2 over easy eggs with Red and Green Chili, Black Beans, Peas, Feta, and Sauteed Bananas served on warm Tortillas... yes, sauteed Bananas are part of that amazing dish), while my friends ordered Chicken Fried Steak and the Truffled Egg Sandwich.

We all shared bites of each other's meals (but only one bite each because none of us were particularly keen on giving away much of our amazing orders), and everything was ridiculously delicious (though I'm pretty convinced my meal won the day, if only for the friggin' Sauteed Bananas). For dessert, we split an order of fresh Beignets, served with Raspberry Jam and Vanilla Mascarpone. I love Beignets. I've been to Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans multiple times... and these were some of the best Beignets I've ever tasted. Eat's steamy and strong Coffee, which is always just as important an element to a good Brunch as the food itself, was served fresh in a French Press, which was a very nice touch.

As much as I love the runaway gluttony of a good (or even mediocre) Brunch Buffet, Eat is so perfectly executed that it's probably going to be my new go-to destination for Sunday Brunch on future Las Vegas weekends. Thank goodness Michael Cornthwaite was able to pull a Samuel L. Jackson and convince Chef Natalie Young to stay in Las Vegas and open Eat, which will surely become a staple of the burgeoning Downtown Las Vegas community for years to come.

Escape from Douchebaggery, Part 22: The Lady Silvia

The Lady Silvia is the latest piece of evidence in the increasingly strong case being made for Tony Hsieh's vision of the future of Downtown Las Vegas. While Hsieh's mad-scientist plans to use his personal fortune to turn a desolate neighborhood North of the Las Vegas Strip into a thriving, artistic, creative, and cohesive community seemed like madness just a few years ago, the existence and success of businesses like The Lady Silvia, an artsy speakeasy with a sexily bookish vibe, prove that Hsieh's vision is slowly but surely becoming a reality. But I've sung the praises of the online shoe sales magnate enough on this blog... this post is about why The Lady Silvia in specific is such a vibrant and cool place to get your drink on in Sin City.

The Speakeasy style bar has a nondescript entrance that can make it hard to find, but it's worth the initial annoyance of figuring out exactly where the eff it is for the dramatic moment you'll experience once you enter the low lit beauty. The Lady Silvia's stunning interior design is based on Prague's Strahov Monastery Library and decorated with tall bookcases stacked high with leather-bound tomes. Paintings by local artists hang on the black walls, while original murals scrawled with graffiti hang from the ceiling. The black and white checkerboard flooring and the colorful leather and velvet furniture add to the unique atmosphere of the bar. While this might make The Lady Silvia sound a bit pretentious, the vibe of the bar is anything but as the place has a warm atmosphere that's much more inviting than some of the snootier hipster bars in L.A's Silverlake neighborhood.

On most nights, you can find a DJ spinning a smartly selected playlist at a comfortable volume that actually makes it possible to have a conversation with your friends while you drink. Cooler still, The Lady Silvia offers a Jazz Happy Hour from 6:00- 9:00 PM every Friday, with happy hour prices on all drinks and bottle service while local Sax wizard Tommy Thompson blows some killer live tunes.

The bartenders serve up a great selection of simple yet perfectly mixed cocktails, while stocking a great selection of interesting Beers and Wines. The Lady Silvia, as is standard with any classy Las Vegas lounge, does offer bottle service in which you can reserve seats as the staff brings you overpriced bottles of liquor. But like everything else in Dowtown, their version of bottle service is more relaxed and less show-offy than what you'll experience (of if you're as broke as I am, watch rich people experience) in clubs like Tryst or Marquee on The Strip, where the VIP status of the haves is flaunted in the face of the 99%.

Located inside the Soho Lofts, a building filled with condos occupied by artsy types and Zappos employees (which boasts fantastic views of The Strip from a very cool rooftop pool deck), the bar has become a popular watering hole in the increasingly busy neighborhood.The Lady Silvia is short walking distance of other newish Downtown hipster bars like Artifice, Bar + Bistro, The Griffin, and The Downtown Cocktail Room, making it a key stop for an epic Downtown bar crawl, and the place always has something interesting up its sleeves during the First Frdiays Art Walk event. The unique approach that the owners of The Lady Silvia took in crafting their bar makes it stand out as a place worth visiting while simultaneously fitting in perfectly with the artsy, progressive, and youthful vibe that the neighborhood has cultivated. It's just the latest example of a business that is helping Downtown come together as a cohesive and exciting community built by and for locals. Plus The Lady Silvia's old-world library vibe makes it the perfect spot to tell ghost stories while you enjoy a classic cocktail and some excellent music.

The Smith Center Brings Class and Culture to Las Vegas

If you compiled a list of the most cultured cities in the world, Paris, London, and New York would undoubtedly rank exceedingly high, while Las Vegas, at least historically, probably would have fallen somewhere between Riverside and the woods where the Unabomber's cabin was located. But while it will take the world some time to change their perceptions of the glitzy gambling capital, the reality is that culture has indeed come to Sin City in the form of the breathtakingly beautiful Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Downtown.


The Arts Center boasts a classic art deco design inspired by The Hoover Dam, with a 17 story working bell tower, a 2,050 seat theater with a massive stage and orchestra pit, an intimate 250 seat Cabaret and Jazz venue, and a small theater built for community based performances and events. Original paintings hang on the walls throughout the buildings, and handcrafted sculptures are placed indoors and outdoors throughout the 5 acre campus.

The Center is surrounded by the peaceful and meticulously manicured Symphony Park, featuring more original artwork. Names of prominent backers (including, surprising to exactly no one, Downtown savior Tony Hsieh) are carved into marble in the stunning Grand Lobby that leads into the complex's centerpiece, the jaw-dropping (yes, I'm using many synonyms for the adjective "pretty," but The Smith Center is exceedingly pretty), multi-tiered 2,050 seat Reynolds Theater, where most of the Center's major events are staged.

The programming is diverse and designed to draw in the entire local community, as high culture performances are mixed in with more widely appealing commercial fare. March's extravagant opening night gala was hosted by Neil Patrick Harris (who must have a closet full of tuxedos after as it seems like he's emceeing or hosting a different classy event every weekend) and featured performances by Carole King, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Mavis Staples, Jennifer Hudson, Joshua Bell, and John Fogerty. The Center is the home for the Las Vegas Philharmonic and Nevada Ballet Theater, as well as The Broadway Las Vegas series (which is bringing an ambitious slate of productions including Wicked, Mary Poppins, Memphis, The Million Dollar Quartet, Catch Me If You Can, La Cage, West Side Story, Billy Elliot, American Idiot, Beauty & The Beast, The Addams Family, Shrek, and Anything Goes to the city in its inaugural season), and is hosting performances from music and showbiz icons like Diana Krall, Pia Zadora, K.D. Lang, Chris Botti, and Steve Martin in the upcoming months.

The Smith Center has filled a void in Las Vegas that once seemed un-fillable, bringing actual honest-to-gosh culture to Sin City, with a diverse programming schedule designed to invite the entire community to celebrate the arts. Beautifully designed and smartly curated, The Smith Center for the Performing Arts is a shining triumph in Downtown's metamorphosis from a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with empty lots, drug dealers, and low-rent hookers into a vibrant, creative, and thriving community.

No offense to low-rent hookers; they deserve to experience the arts as much as anyone.

Escape from Douchery, Part 18: Downtown Cocktail Room

I've mentioned The Downtown Cocktail Room a few times in recent posts, and realized it was high time the place got an entire article devoted to it's unique brand awesome-ness.

I'll start this endorsement by admitting to being incredulous about the place before my first visit, mostly because I'm bored and annoyed by the whole faux speakeasy trend that seems like it will never come to an end (especially with the success of Boardwalk Empire on HBO). It's become a huge cliche to open justify the prices of your expensive cocktails at bars by attempting to sell an old-school prohibition era speakeasy feel, complete with costumed staff, vintage projections on the walls, 1920s era music playing on the speakers, and secret passwords uttered to gain entry. It was a fun gimmick when it first started, but I've been to far too many bars where customers are dressed up in striped suits, fedora hats, and ugly fake flapper girl dresses purchased at Forever 21 for it to be cute anymore. Manhattan's Please Don't Tell (or PDT, for those who are too cool to say full words) has a secret entrance through a telephone booth in the back of a hot dog shop where you have to say a password into the phone to get in. All of this is fun and nice, but the vibe of mot of these places place is thick with unearned pretension and smugness, like a Jason Reitman film given solid form. What's the point of going to a place just to boast that you've been there? The whole trend to me is the depressingly uncreative side of the cocktail culture trend; creating a speakeasy theme in your cocktail-centric bar is as lazy as wine bar owners who make their guests sit on wine barrel stools and use "clever" grape puns in their names.

The Downtown Cocktail Room does, in fact, employ the "speakeasy" label; yes, it does feature an entrance that's hard to find even when you're looking for it, and yes, the bartenders wear silly hats as they pour you complicated cocktails. But that's where the speakeasy BS ends, as the bar is much more relaxed than other places that use the "S" word. The Downtown Cocktail Room never seems to be populated by annoying people dressed up in "look at me" outfits (but perhaps that particularly annoying observation is something I notice more simply because most of the speakeasy bars I've been to are in Los Angeles, of all cities). The Downtown Cocktail Room's vibe can only be described as "totally effing chill," with DJs spinning relaxed tunes (as opposed to aggressive club bangers) and intimate corner booths where you can enjoy private conversations with your friends where you can actually hear each other speak (or enjoy some low-lit, sexy-times makeout sessions with a date).

Even though their fedora hates do carry the whiff of douchery, the bartenders know their stuff cold. I'm normally a beer guy, but when you go to the Downtown Cocktail Room, you have to indulge in their spectacular libations. Their Old Fashioned is one of the very best I've had in Las Vegas, and the lead bartender is always switching up ingredients behind the counter depending on the season. While fruity drinks are rarely my thing, I've had a few cocktails at the place made with muddled fresh fruits that made me rethink my stance (and my entire life philosophy, they were so damned good).

It helps that DCR owner Michael Cornthwaite (who also runs The Beat Coffeehouse and Emergency Arts) is evangelical about the possibilities of the emerging neighborhood, a pioneer who was on the first to believe that a cool local business could survive in the area. According to local origin myths, Cornthwaite famously sold Zappos CEO and Downtown Vegas savior Tony Hsieh on moving his company to the area (over stiff drinks at the bar, of course). Hsieh was more than sold... he decided to move his company into the former City Hall and invest much of his personal wealth into revitalizing the area. Nowadays, Hsieh can often be found sipping on seasonal libations in what has become his favorite bar in Las Vegas.

With an owner who is truly passionate about turning the derelict neighborhood that surrounds the place into a community, a quirky sensibility (the bar's website lists house rules such as "talk of religion and politics is strongly discouraged unless you are a priest, rabbi, or politician. In that case, it is probably past your bedtime)," and some of the most mind blowing adult drinks that Sin City has to offer, The Downtown Cocktail Room has become the unofficial ground zero of the neighborhood's slow but steady rebirth.

Downtown Watch: Thinking Inside the (Hot Metal) Box

I've made no secret of closely following Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh's extremely ambitious plans to revitalize Downtown Las Vegas from a post-apocalyptic no-man's land into a vital, hip, artistic, and non-zombified neighborhood. Hsieh is a visionary who is probably the only person who can pull of the seemingly impossible task of turning an area that makes LA's famously derelict (though improving) downtown look more like Times Square in comparison into a livable and cool spot to work, socialize, and live.

Already, Hsieh has transformed Downtown by opening an indie coffee shop that's almost always filled with the coolest people in town, started plans to move his corporate headquarters to the area's abandoned City Hall, helped fund a beautiful new arts center that's brought an infusion of actual culture to the city, purchased the rights to and breathed fresh life into the monthly First Fridays art and music festival, moved himself and and many of his employees into a once failing condo complex that's transformed into a hub for the city's creative class. Hsieh doesn't just talk the Downtown talk, he walks the walk, as he's become a visible participant in the neighborhood's social life, as he is often spotted enjoying ballet at The Smith Center and throwing back drinks at The Downtown Cocktail Room.


But the latest part of Hsieh's masterplan has left me scratching my head a bit. The energetic and innovative CEO and his merry band of Downtown Project followers are moving forward on opening a group of businesses in old shipping containers.

That right's, Hsieh and his crew are super-cereal about opening a whole mess of bars, restaurants, boutiques, cafes, galleries, and other small businesses in those big, heavy ugly metal boxes (often referred to as "cans" by those in the know, or by those who have watched the second season of The Wire on Netflix) that are used to ship just about everything (including mail order brides) from port to port.

It's not a totally new concept. The idea has been given the buzzy-term "flexible urbanism," and has (to nobody's shock) already been adopted in places like Montreal, San Francisco, Portland and Brooklyn. Brookyln's Dekalb Market, with it's collection of boutique vintage shops, restaurants, and outdoor movie screenings, and San Francisco's Proxy Project, featuring a chill outdoor Beer garden, seem to be the models Hsieh is aiming to replicate... and surpass, as the Downtown Project website declares their goal of turning Las Vegas into "the shipping container capital of the world," a selling point that will probably not replace the city's famous "what happens here, stays here" slogan anytime soon.

The idea makes a certain crazy kind of sense, in a way. Hsieh is eager to get cool small businesses to move into spaces in Downtown ASAP, and one way to so in a quick and environmentally friendly fashion without waiting for entire new buildings to be built from scratch is to create shipping container structures in the many abandoned lots that are the most common feature in the area. It also means that a small business owner with a cool idea can score a space for very cheap and start interacting with the community without much overhead. Once building does begin in one of the lots, shipping container structures are also very easy to move as well if needed. The price and flexibility, Hsieh and company hope, will draw creative and innovative entrepreneurs looking to get their businesses started immediately, and then keep them in the area for good as more permanent structures are built.

Hsieh and his team envision the project opening as soon as possible, as plans have already been submitted to build a park of containers stacked on elevated platforms over two empty lots, one on Fremont Street owned by a company with ties to The El Cortez and one on 7th Street owned by a company with ties to The Downtown Project.

While the plan does sound nice and intriguing, with irresistible elements of Hsieh's utopian-enthusiasm, the fact remains that we're still talking about giant metal boxes here. Giant metal boxes that will be sitting out in the Las Vegas heat, in the middle of a dessert where temperatures in the summer often spike into the 120s. I'm sure these converted containers will be ventalated and feature some kind of air conditioning system, but that does not change the fact that they are, in the end, giant metal boxes. And while some of the converted container projects I've seen have been creatively designed, they're not exactly going to be Frank Gehry level works of architectural genius that will inspire people into believing that Downtown has been completely turned around into a progressive haven. The boxes can be pieced together like Tetris blocks, cut open on sides, retrofitted with windows and doors, and repainted, but there will still be drawbacks to the fact that they're narrow metal boxes that afford customers little in the way of leg room. Then there's also the fact that, as one commenter on The Las Vegas Review Journal's recent piece on the proposal pointed out that the designers should "put graffiti on" the renderings of the project so the public has a "real idea" of what the proposed project will look like (and then there's the commenter who somehow used the proposal as proof that we can't compete with China, then somehow tied it all in to blaming Obama, even though I'm pretty sure the President has nothing to do with the Downtown revival plans. Ah, internet comment threads.). Critics of the plan also warn that visitors may be intimidated by the area's prominent population of panhandlers, as well as the less than optimal parking options nearby.

While these are all valid fears, Hsieh has proven time and again to be an innovative thinker who has been right more often than not even when his positive thinking initially borders on crazy talk. Hsieh has pulled off the impossible before and seems eager to invest his own personal wealth into improving the area, so you might just find yourself enjoying artisinal Ice Creams and craft Brews served out of locked together shipping containers in Downtown Vegas sooner than later. And as long as Hsieh and company figure out a way to keep those damned metal boxes cool in the summer, I'll be hanging out there as well, snickering at references to The Wire with my friends.

Escape from Douchery, Part 12: The Beat Coffeehouse

The revitalization of Downtown Las Vegas is going to take some time.

Zappos CEO Tony Hseih's plan to transform the neighborhood from a vacant-lot filled post-apocalyptic wasteland into a vital arts-district populated by innovative tech-companies, local businesses serving the community, cool bars, music venues, and galleries is an ambitious endeavor that will not come to fruition for years, if at all. But the seeds of Hseih's plan are already beginning to take root, and one of the most visible seeds is the uber-hip Beat Coffeehouse.

The Beat is the coolest coffee place in Las Vegas, and not just because most coffee-shops in the city are located in corners of Casino food courts and have names that begin with an "S" and end with a "Bucks." Located in the Emergency Arts building, a collective that also includes galleries, a yoga studio, non-profit groups, and indie production companies, The Beat has become the center of culture in Downtown Vegas, a gathering place of the city's intelligentsia (yes, that is a demographic that exists in Vegas). On any given afternoon, you'll find Zappos employees, musicians, artists, and local politicians gathered around tables with their laptops open and a hot brews in their hands.

The coffee is uniformly excellent, as Colorado River Roasted Drip is always served fresh and you can order your own perfectly prepared French Press to take to your table. The food is equally tasty... I gobbled up their signature Slap and Tickle Sandwich, your classic Peanut Butter and Jelly number spruced up with Bacon and Jalapenos.

Upping its indie cred, The Beat features the only Zine Library in Las Vegas. While Zines seem a little out of date considering the fact that the blogosphere exists,  there is some interesting (and hippie-style progressive) reading material in there. Even cooler is the fact that the coffee shop features a killer vinyl collection, which you can pick and choose from to create the soundtrack while you hangout (I was in a very Rolling Stones-heavy mood the last time I visited). Local artwork hangs in the back of the shop (some of it better than the rest).

After 7:00 PM, The Beat becomes a 21 and over venue as great beers and wines begin to flow. On many nights, The Beat hosts some of the best local bands in Vegas. Monday nights they have an Spoken Word Poetry open mic night, which can be as insufferable as you'd imagine, but at 9:00 PM they bring DJs in for one of the most chilled out dance parties in town.

Like a plant growing out of the cracks in the pavement of a bombed out city (how's that for dramatic?), The Beat Coffeehouse is one of the most positive signs that Tony Hseih's vision for a revitalized Downtown Las Vegas can and will come true.