Joe Downtown - Las Vegas Sun News

Joe Downtown: Downtown Project converting trailers into 'Skillshare' classrooms: April 3, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; A once-empty lot at Eighth and Fremont streets, adjacent to the coming downtown Container Park, is now full of more than a dozen large trailers. Not trailer homes though a rumor, however unlikely, was floating a month ago that the Downtown Project was looking to trailers as a way to fill a residential need as it prepares to move some 1,300 Zappos employees downtown this fall.

Joe Downtown: Life is Beautiful festival announces dates, schedules lead-in events: April 3, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; The two-day downtown Life Is Beautiful festival – a celebration of music and food – is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 26 and 27, and organizers have begun to put together some mini-events leading up to the fall festival on Fremont Street.

Ames, Iowa, residents Nancy Levandowski and Steve Keller, wearing identical "We go together like eggs and bacon" T-shirts from Denny's, are photographed before boarding a flight to Las Vegas. On Wednesday, April 3, the two will be married at the Denny's on Fremont Street, the inaugural wedding at the restaurant's chapel.

Joe Downtown: Meet the first couple to be married at Denny’s wedding chapel: April 3, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; A couple from Ames, Iowa, will be the first to exchange wedding vows in a Denny’s when they get married Wednesday at the national chain’s restaurant on Fremont Street.

A Tesla Model S is shown in the showroom at the Washington Square Mall, July 20, 2012, in Portland, Ore. Tesla Motors produces electric cars that can go from zero to 60 mph in less than six seconds, all without a drop of gasoline.

Joe Downtown: Teslas on order for public use in rideshare program: April 2, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; A futuristic mural in the mayor’s office of old City Hall used to depict a "Jetsons"-esque city with flying cars zipping down Fremont Street.

Joe Downtown: Cambridge grad students to offer expertise to the Plaza: April 1, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; First came Venture for America’s college graduates, several of whom were hired by Downtown Project for two-year stints to study, learn and help startup businesses. Then a few weeks ago, 14 students from the University of Iowa in a class devoted to "reimagining" downtown Las Vegas spent their spring break here and will return this summer. Now students from Cambridge University – yes, that Cambridge, the second-oldest university in the English speaking world – are getting in on the act.

Fresh from her training session at Real Results downtown, Staci Linklater, left, and husband, James Reza, owners of Globe Salon, say they will have auditions for new employees April 8.

Joe Downtown: Salon owners see uptick in business as more workers head downtown: April 1, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; A downtown salon’s desire to hire eight stylists by the end of the year is being fueled by a resurging economy and the influx of workers to the area. Staci Linklater and James Reza, owners of Globe Salon, 900 Las Vegas Blvd. South, will stage auditions for new stylists from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday, with the goal of hiring on new people to meet the salon's growing demand, they said.

“Fremont Street is on the rise, baby!” said Cassandra Rachal, dressed in a showgirl outfit and hoping to pose for photos with tourists for tip money in the Fremont East Arts District.

Joe Downtown: Parade of characters in Las Vegas has new venue – East Fremont Street: April 1, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; One more sign that the Fremont East Entertainment District is starting to come of age: Those superhero and other characters that populate the Fremont Street Experience were seen last weekend near Fremont and Sixth streets.

The return to Downtown of the 2013 Opportunity Village Great Santa Run is announced on Thursday, March 28, 2013.

Joe Downtown: Great Santa Run returning to downtown Las Vegas: March 29, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; After a four-year absence, the Las Vegas Great Santa Run is returning to downtown Las Vegas.

Joe Downtown: More eats on the streets of downtown Las Vegas: March 29, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; Downtown’s economic march continues with the recent openings of two new businesses, Rachel’s Kitchen and Park on Fremont.

Joe Downtown: Former YouTube executive to speak about 'community': March 28, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; “Community” is word coming into vogue in downtown Las Vegas due to efforts of Downtown Project to create and strengthen community in an area where virtually none previously existed, along the eastern stretches of East Fremont Street. Late Friday afternoon, a man who worked nine years at Google and its subsidiary, YouTube, will talk about how the world is not only smaller because of Internet video sharing, it’s creating more awareness and forcing a redefinition of “community.”

A man drinks beer from a plastic cowboy boot on Fremont Street Saturday, June 30, 2012.

Joe Downtown: If you're drinking downtown, be sure you bought it there: March 28, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; It isn’t illegal to have open containers downtown, notes Officer Charles Stuart, who will talk about the issue to local media Friday. But it is illegal, he said, if the alcohol is not purchased from a downtown establishment.

Downtown Project pieces together its $93 million llama: March 28, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; The purchase of downtown — well, a good bunch of it, anyway — is almost complete. Downtown Project insiders call the mass of land stretching over several blocks from Las Vegas Boulevard to Maryland Parkway “the llama,” because that’s what it sort of resembles from space.

Joe Downtown: Longtime Metro officer to lead Downtown Rangers: March 27, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; A Metro Police sergeant who has become a familiar face downtown will retire Monday then go to work overseeing the new Downtown Rangers program.

Josh Ellis says technologists used to work on big problems, "sending humans to the moon, ending poverty, ending disease. And they didn’t do it because it was gonna get them a big, badass IPO."

Joe Downtown: Is Downtown too insular for its own good?: March 27, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; It was stunning to watch a local creative look over both shoulders before talking to me about what’s going on Downtown. “I don’t think they really want to hear anything negative,” he said, sitting at the bar of the Beat coffeehouse.

Joe Downtown: Irish musician, fourth-grade artist team up for fundraiser: March 27, 2013; By Joe Schoenmann; A local fourth-grade artist and an Irish folk music legend are teaming up Easter Sunday for an art show and concert to benefit Casa de Luz, which serves the poor in downtown’s Naked City.

Joe Schoenmann doesn’t just cover downtown, he lives and works there. Schoenmann is Greenspun Media Group’s embedded downtown journalist, working from an office in the Emergency Arts complex.

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