the rix mix

but bigger.

Fremont Street, downtown Las Vegas, 1980. It looks like a boardwalk. Casinos open out on to the street like boardwalk arcades. In the 1970's, Steve Wynn added a first rate hotel to the Golden Nugget.

Fremont Street went into decline anyway. The Strip was the place. Atlantic City imitated The Strip, with self-contained casino-resort hotels, some of them isolated at the north inlet, & unlike Vegas, they were not family friendly. Atlantic City had attracted families for a century, had practically invented the concept of a middle class resort city with vice on the side. Las Vegas in effect expanded its appeal by imitating old Atlantic City & adding the Steel Pier with The Diving Horse, Steeplechase Pier with the amusement rides, & lots of good, affordable hotel rooms.

To revive Fremont Street, Vegas enclosed it, turning it into "The Fremont Street Experience" pedestrian mall with the most amazing lighting displays in America. Atlantic City could have enclosed a large stretch of the Boardwalk with retractable walls. I wouldn't care. It'd still be the great Boardwalk, large hotels & all. Atlantic City never planned for legalized gambling using its most famous asset, the Boardwalk, as a thoroughfare.

Labels: Atlantic City