Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Northern lights will glow

They're eye-catching mementos from times past - and from the moments we're living now.

One day visitors to Las Vegas might look wistfully at the old skull and crossbones of Treasure Island and remember the night they lost all that money playing blackjack.

In the coming months and years, many of those signs will be making a very public comeback, as beacons and historic signposts on Las Vegas Boulevard.

About 25 vintage neon signs eventually will line Las Vegas Boulevard from Washington to Sahara avenues, bringing to that stretch running through the city some of the recognition that the Strip, to the south, already enjoys.

It also will serve as a signal to those who haven't been paying attention that Las Vegas - not Clark County, which engulfs the Strip - might be changing, but it isn't forgetting its past.

"This is one of the most exciting projects imaginable," Mayor Oscar Goodman said. "Folks will be driving through our urban core and seeing these iconic signs out there. It's just going to be fun."

By April , the first two signs - the revolving H and horseshoe from Binion's and the massive silver slipper from the Silver Slipper - will be installed. The H will be placed on the median 100 feet north of Washington Avenue, and the slipper will be on the median halfway between the Natural History Museum and the Reed Whipple Community Center.

The cost to refurbish and install the two signs will be about $400,000, with the money coming from the city's Centennial fund.

After that, one or two signs, depending on available money, will go up each year, one per block. At a recent meeting of the city's Centennial Commission, which heard a presentation on the plan, Goodman warned panel members that once the project starts, it would be foolish to stop it.

"When we vote on this, we should keep in mind we have to keep doing this," he said. "Or it's going to look very funny to have just these two signs out there."

Yorgo Kagafas, urban design coordinator for the city's Planning and Development Department, said the addition of the neon signs is in keeping with the boulevard's designation as a state scenic byway.

Las Vegas Boulevard - but only from Sahara Avenue south to Russell Road - became the first federally recognized nighttime scenic byway in 2000. What that meant for the 3-plus-mile stretch of road was that all signs had to be well-maintained and new signs had to be designed with a certain percent of neon and/or animation.

But the designation ended on the north at Sahara Avenue.

"Why should it go further than Sahara Avenue?" one county official said. "There's nothing up there to look at."

If Goodman gets his way, there will be.

As part of downtown's renewal, Las Vegas applied for and received a state scenic byway designation for the city's part of Las Vegas Boulevard - Sahara to Washington - in 2001.

Though it hasn't received the same recognition at the federal level, the city has applied for $235,000 in National Scenic Byway Grant funding. If the city gets the money next month, it will be used to cement into place another historic reminder.

And as far as Goodman is concerned, that would be three down, about 22 more to go.

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