Las Vegas -- Destroying Glitter Gulch In Order To Save It . . .

LAS VEGAS - In Vietnam, American soldiers sometimes claimed they had to destroy a village to "save" it from the communists.

Taking a page from the Pentagon's playbook, Las Vegas is murdering "Glitter Gulch," the stretch of pulsating neon signs and cut-rate casinos along Fremont Street.

The rationale is the same as in Indochina. City leaders argue that after years of economic decline, radical surgery is the only solution to renew downtown's most famous gambling street.

"It has been changing throughout its history and this is just the latest evolution. You have to change to survive," said Kathilynn Carpenter, vice president for marketing on the project.

Now it's nearly all gone. Next month, the city and local businesses will officially unveil "The Fremont Street Experience," a $70 million project that has bulldozed and rebuilt Glitter Gulch beyond recognition.

Neon fastasia

For nearly 50 years, Glitter Gulch has been a gambler's fantasia - a narrow street lighted by flowing rivers of light, patrolled by tightly packed hordes of grim-faced losers and on-top-of-the-world winners.

Gamblers carrying plastic buckets filled with quarters would dodge four lanes of a 2 a.m. traffic jam, lured across the street to yet another casino by a cacophony of a hundred slot machine payoffs, shouts of girlie shows, and the distinctive clink-clack-clack of the ball settling into the black of a roulette wheel.

Driving into Las Vegas on Main Street, visitors would make a right turn into a sizzling neon canyon. Fremont Street wasn't lighted - it was ablaze. Midnight made as bright as high noon by two solid walls of rolling, flashing electrified gas plastered on every inch of a half-dozen casinos.

Dominating the street were Vegas Vic and Sassy Sally, the famed pair of neon cowhands erected in the 1950s. Vic smoked a cigarette and waved "howdy padner" to Sally across the way, who flirted back, her neon blue legs crossed in a come hither pose.

In a city where the colossal is a religion, Glitter Gulch was built on a human scale. The Strip had casinos the size of domed stadiums seperated by thousands of yards of concrete. Fremont Street was four short blocks where another casino, another chance at luck, was just a few steps away.

The Strip was conventioneers and families with gaggles of youngsters in tow. Glitter Gulch was for the adult gambler - home simultaneously to the city's highest stakes games ($25,000 per bet) at Binion's Horseshoe, and the state's largest collection of penny slot machines.

No more Vic and Sally

Today, Fremont Street has been torn up, replaced by a meandering palm-fringed pedestrian path. Vegas Vic and Sassy Sally no longer stand under the stars. They've been roped in by a 100-foot tall steel mesh "space frame" with 2.1 million lights and a 40,000-watt sound system.

If you think it all seems a bit like a rip-off of the phony street life of Universal City's City Walk, you're right. The architect of both is Jon Jerde, who has brought his pop-culture sensibility to one of America's great urban spaces.

The changes have some Glitter Gulch fans reeling in horror.

"They've completely destroyed Fremont Street," said Alan Hess, a Rancho Santa Margarita architect and author of "Viva Las Vegas," a study of Las Vegas' architectural history.

"The play of neon and buildings and sky is completely gone. It's a big loss. The neon signs of downtown Las Vegas are one of those primary American icons everyone knows all over the world."

In competition with the ever-changing Las Vegas Strip, the lords of Fremont Street have tried to mimic it - not very successfully.

Hess especially laments the space frame, which covers the street and pinches down upon the heads of Vegas Vic and Sassy Sally. "Vic and Sally are such marvelous images - neon sculpture, really," he said. "Now it's like they're indoors."

The defense speaks

Backers of the Fremont Street Experience are accustomed to the criticisms, after years of planning and construction.

Carpenter says the latest make-over is in keeping with Glitter Gulch's long history.

"When people say, `Don't change Fremont Street,' I say, `Which one?' " she said. Backers of the Fremont Street Experience say they, too, love Glitter Gulch, but while its image is known around the globe, visitors have dropped off in recent years.

Change is a constant in the southern Nevada gambling world. Once Fremont Street was the mecca for the serious gambler looking to get away from the kids and hoopla along the Strip.

But in recent years, competition has mushroomed. Laughlin and Stateline have become alternatives for the hotel bargain hunters who used to flock to downtown. The Strip has added dozens of new attractions and a number of small neighborhood casinos have lured away locals who used to favor downtown.

"The wake-up call came in 1990 when the Mirage opened on the Strip and the casinos downtown lost $39 million," Carpenter said. The widespread perception was that downtown was on the skids. Compared with the glittering Strip, it was dirtier and less safe. A place where you might have to step over a sleeping homeless person or run a gantlet of panhandlers.

"I think the perception was in many ways inaccurate, but once the perception takes hold, it might as well be fact," Carpenter said.

Casino owners looked at the less-than-favorable trends and what was at stake: the future of 14,000 hotel rooms, 41 restaurants and a half-million square feet of casino floors. The city worried it might lose downtown's $70 million in annual tax money and the 22,000 jobs held by local residents.

Downtown casinos and the city decided Glitter Gulch needed a shiny new image - something to lure back the regulars and attract the younger generations who had avoided downtown. Jerde's plan was considered by some preservationists to be overkill - but it quickly won approval.

Not gone, just renewed

Carpenter says Glitter Gulch isn't gone - there are still miles of neon lights, Vegas Vic and Sassy Sally - just renewed.

Fremont Street Experience backers promise that the basic atmosphere of the street won't change. Attractions will be geared toward adults and serious gamblers. There will still be bargain hotel rooms and easy walks from casino to casino if you want to change your luck.

"We're not going to turn it into an expensive place for the stroller set and lookie-loos," Carpenter said.

Planners are especially proud of two special city ordinances that bar anyone from soliciting for money or passing out handbills.

"That should stop the smut peddling that you find on the Strip," Carpenter said. "We're not just creating a new environment. ... We're managing that environment."

Even critics like Hess admit that Las Vegas is addicted to change and has been made over dozens of times.

"Las Vegas has always trashed its past in order to move into the future - that's the tradition," Hess said. "Maybe the new Fremont Street will be a big success with a spectacular light show that will rival the old neon signs for excitement. But I doubt it. I think we are losing a lot of the character of Las Vegas." ----------------------------------------------------------------- IF YOU GO

Some stops in Glitter Gulch

Note: Rates at Las Vegas hotels are notoriously flexible. The first rate you are quoted is rarely the best. Always ask for specials or discounts.

-- Binion's Horseshoe, 128 Fremont St., (702) 382-1600. Rooms from $25. The highest gambling limits in Las Vegas ($25,000 on first bet). Gobbled up the old Mint Hotel in 1988.

-- El Cortez Hotel & Casino, 600 Fremont St. (702) 385-5200. Rooms from $23.

-- Fitzgerald's Casino/Hotel, 301 E. Fremont. (800) 274-5825. Rooms from $25.

-- Four Queens, 202 Fremont St. (800) 634-6045. Rooms from $25. Block-long casino with world's largest slot machine.

-- Golden Gate Hotel, 1 Fremont St., (702) 382-3510. Las Vegas' oldest hotel (1906), it's famed for shrimp cocktails and 25-cent craps.

-- Golden Nugget, 129 Fremont St., (800) 634-3454. Rooms from $50. Classiest hotel on Fremont Street. Removed famed neon sign in 1984.

-- Jackie Gaughan's Plaza Hotel/Casino, 1 Main St. (800) 634-6575. Rooms from $40. At the foot of Glitter Gulch.

-- Las Vegas Club Hotel & Casino, 18 Fremont St., (800) 634-6532. Rooms from $25.

-- Sam Boyd's Fremont Hotel & Casino, 200 E. Fremont St., (800) 634-6182. Rooms from $28. Downtown's first high-rise, once owned by singer Wayne Newton.