The Downtown Cocktail Room is the watering holes for those work downtown and those who live downtown.  Michael Cornthwaite and his fiancee, Jennifer Harrington, are doing their part to make Fremont East a viable part of the community.

Our buddy, Johnny Kats, caught up with them a few days ago:

To accurately gauge the viability of downtown Las Vegas, specifically the Fremont East entertainment district, watch Michael Cornthwaite. If he can't make it happen down there, everyone should beware.

The owner of Downtown Cocktail Room just off the corner of Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard, Cornthwaite is pressing forward with plans to lure at least 20 boutiques, art galleries and various creatively fertile shops to the shuttered Fremont Medical Building on Sixth and Fremont streets. Set amid musty exam spaces, check-in and check-out counters, and a vaguely haunting X-ray room will be a collective known as Emergency Arts. This puzzle-piece project might be open as early as March 1 if Cornthwaite can fill the 20 spaces positioned snugly on the three-story building's bottom floor.

He's confident it will happen. As of this afternoon, Cornthwaite has secured 15 tenants, including a café at the entrance — where the medically needy once assembled is now where you might pick up a nice pastry. Cornthwaite and his fiancée, Jennifer Harrington, are partners in Emergency Arts with landowner El Cortez. They are giving themselves a year to "make it work" on Fremont East. If they fall short, well, Seattle's a nice city. So is San Francisco. It would be a shame for the city to lose these two downtown devotees and visionaries, but the clock is ticking. Even Harrington's own gallery, Henri & Odette, which once taking up residency nearby on Sixth and Carson, will move into the Emergency Arts project.

During our 30-minute interview Monday in the KUNV studios at Greenspun Hall on the UNLV campus, Cornthwaite talked at length about Emergency Arts, but also let opinions and thoughts on other Vegas-tied issues flow as freely as his shoulder-length hair:

• On working with El Cortez: "El Cortez is anchor of the entire (Fremont East) district. Their customer demographic is an older demographic, and frankly it is getting too old. It needs a younger demographic, and I think they're doing very well. El Cortez is the coolest hotel down there; the Cabana Suites are beautifully designed. ... It's a nice situation, and they are very supportive. ... When we had the (Las Vegas) Farmers Market (on Fremont Street), they supported that. They put flyers in the envelopes with the employees' paychecks, things like that."

• On the fate of the moribund 7-Eleven building on the corner of LV Boulevard and Fremont Street, a space that has been sitting unoccupied since the convenience store closed in 2006: "Since I started building (DCR), there have been two signed leases on that space, one of which was really never executed. The first, money was never collected and they just vanished, literally. ... But about a year and a half ago a group came in, showed a lot of interest, signed a lease and actually worked on the space. They demo-ed the adjacent space, so now we've got two spaces that are connected to each other for one, giant 5,700-square-foot space with a 36-foot ceiling inside. Unfortunately, they couldn't get their resources together, either. It was supposed to be like a live music venue, they were going to build a mezzanine level, but it was a fairly expensive project for the area, a $1-$2 million project. You know, they were about $300,000-$400,000 along, with no doubt they were going to be able get the money together. That was mid-2008, when everything started to fall apart. The Hive, is what it was called. It had lots of potential, and it could have worked out, but it's just been an unfortunate situation."

• On the fate of Neonopolis, which sits kitty-corner from DCR on the corner of Fremont and Las Vegas Boulevard: "Nobody has any doubt of the importance of Neonopolis in connecting Fremont Street Experience with Fremont East. That's the only way it could happen. But I take a little bit of a different approach in that scenario. I never wanted to connect the Fremont Street Experience with Fremont East. I wanted Fremont East to be locals-driven and have a locals-based clientele. I wanted a buffer between us and the Fremont Street Experience."

• On Rohit Joshi, who fronts Wirrulla Hayward, the development company that owns Neonopolis: "The gentleman involved in Neonopolis (Joshi) is a wonderful salesman. He has been to the club one time, and he has an amazing skill. I've had several meetings with him, and he has a very positive approach and he gets you feeling really good, and you walk out and you're feeling really good for about two minutes. Then you realize, something just happened but you don't know what it was, and of course nothing ever happens."

• On the proposed Star Trek Experience, which reportedly was on line to move into Neonopolis in May but has not actually moved in at all: "Nothing's going on. It's not going to happen. I would stake my bar on it."

• On CityCenter: "It's beautiful, it's an amazing architectural marvel. It's what I would love to see, what I miss in a vibrant city, and that's what we're trying to bring downtown, into the core of our city. I've heard them say that it's non-themed, but it's a city-themed casino. It's themed as a city. The really smart consumer won't buy into that. Who can afford to shop there? I'm not going to Tom Ford to buy a $650 shirt.

Thanks to Allen Sandquist for letting use his photo.

Just some things that irritate me,  make me wonder and really make me mad.  Hey, it's my birthday.  I should get to blog about personal stuff every now and then.

1.  The NBC Late-Night Fiasco.  I know there are folks on Team Conan and folks on Team Leno.  But guess what?   There are no people on Team Zucker and that’s the way it should be. 

 Jeff Zucker, the one-time boy genius who was going to make NBC #1 forever and ever, instead, made one of the worst decisions in network history.  Now Zucker is blaming Conan for not delivering a higher audience for the Tonight Show and blaming Jay for not delivering a higher audience for the Jay Leno show.  

Despite the fact, that he, Jeff Zucker, was the architect of this entire fiasco. 

In the old days of corporate America when you screwed up on a scale this grand, you did the right thing by taking the blame and stepping down immediately.  Not Jeff Zucker, he really wants to be the poster boy for everything that we hate about Corporate America today.  That is, instead of admitting your mistakes and taking your punishment, you instead blame the victims and ask all of America to ignore your hand in designing this fiasco and ask that we all just pretend you’re not to blame.  Sorry, Jeff Zucker, there’s a reason the only person on Team Zucker is you.

2.  Post-Apocalyptic Movies.   They come around every few years.  Anyone remember “The Postman” with Kevin Costner?  Earlier this winter we had “The Road” with the wonderful Viggo Mortensen and based on the acclaimed novel by Cormac McCarthy.  Didn’t do well at the box office.  I’m thinking when it comes to post-apocalyptic movies, movie goers want someone forceful, charming and who offers hope.  Kevin Costner in “Postman” not so much, Denzel Washington in “The Book of Eli”, hell yeah!

3.  Mel Gibson in “Edge of Darkness”.    With all the problems Mel has had with his fans and his personal life the last few years, is this really the time in his career to start channeling Jack Nicholson?  Doesn’t he realize that Jack is still alive and can probably kick his ass for stealing his act?

4.  Smokey Robinson.  Who knew that Smokey was Wayne Newton’s half-brother?  I didn’t .   Did you?  Well, have you seen Smokey lately?  I saw him the other night on an American Masters documentary on Sam Cooke and my jaw dropped to the floor.  There was Smokey, our Smokey, looking like he had gone to Wayne Newton’s plastic surgeon and was proud of it!

 All I could do was hang my head in despair.  Has looking youthful in America sunk so low that someone like Smokey has to chase the fountain of youth to be taken seriously?  For God’s sake, he’s Smokey Robinson!!!!  That should be enough to let him grow old gracefully and still love him!

5.  The Las Vegas Sun.  I read the paper every day on-line.  When I click on News it takes me to a new page where it previews the big Las Vegas news story of the day and has one or two other line items for other news stories.  Underneath it says, More Las Vegas News.  I click on that thinking it will take me to more news stories about what is happening around Las Vegas. 

Instead, it takes me to the weather articles.  Rain in the forecast, not so much.  In the winter, reports of a cooling or cold trend, in the summer, reports of the heat.  I don’t really want to know the weather.  I want to know the More Las Vegas News stories.  Why doesn’t the Sun have a separate weather page?  Or do they really think the weather in Las Vegas changes enough to warrant being the end page for More Las Vegas News?

6. Sheldon Adelson.  He built a new casino in Bethlehem, PA on the grounds of the old US Steel plant.  As part of the deal with the city, he also funded a museum detailing the history of Bethlehem and the importance of US Steel to the community. 

Years before, Shel Adelson built a casino/hotel in Las Vegas called “The Venetian”.  It was built on the site of the famed and beloved Sands Hotel.  We didn’t get a museum detailing the history of Las Vegas or the importance of the Sands Hotel.  The Sands was home to the Rat Pack.  The Sands was one of the first hotels to break the color barrier.  The Sands was the hotel we think of when we think of Classic Las Vegas.  We got squat for all that history.  Thanks, Shel.

7. Cell Phones.  If you are shopping in Trader Joe’s, do you really need to be talking on your cell phone?  Do you really think the rest of us care about your conversation, that we care about who is picking up the kids, what’s for dinner, what your plans of the evening are?  News Flash!  We don’t. Trader Joe’s are not large stores.   If your call is that freakin’ important take it outside and let the rest of us shop in peace.  Because you standing in the middle of the aisle talking away while you and your cart block the rest of us from shopping is only making us hate you more.

8. Trying to park your car while talking on your cell-phone?  Please get off the phone!  Now!

9. The El Cortez.  With all the focus on rehabilitating Downtown, will someone, besides us, please acknowledge that the crew behind the El Cortez ROCKS!  Jackie passed his legacy to a group that understands his legacy.  Thank-You!!!!

10, Endangered Buildings.  As the economy starts to rebound more and more buildings and homes will become endangered:

•  Flora Dungan Humanities Building designed by Zick and Sharp.  One of the last original campus buildings yet, UNLV higher ups want it gone.

• Valley High School- an impeding update will destroy much of the original Zick and Sharp original architecture.

• City Hall, another Zick and Sharp late mid-century modern architecture.  Mayor Goodman wants a new City Hall closer to the Smith Center.  If the that happens, the current building will be torn down to make room for a new casino/hotel.

• East Fremont Motel Auto Courts.  One of the largest and last standing groups of motor auto courts still in existence.  Not to mention the wonderful neon signage still standing.  All are endangered.

• The Las Vegas High School Historical Neighborhood.  Despite being on the Historical Registry of Historical Places, this neighborhood still does not have City Preservation Protection.  Thus, many of the homes that date back to the 1920s-1930s are being torn down and in there place are rising McMansions.  This is our best example of a Historic District and we are letting it go to waste.

While the Neon Museum continues to struggle to find funding to build their dream, the Mob Museum continues to get financial support from the Las Vegas City Council.

From the Las Vegas Sun:

The Las Vegas City Council quietly approved spending nearly $2 million more last week for the mob museum project, which is on track to open in 2011 in the city's downtown.

But City Councilman Stavros Anthony made it clear he still doesn't like the project, which will be officially known as the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement.

Anthony didn't speak out today about the project, which is estimated to cost about $50 million. But his actions were fairly loud and consistent with his past votes.

He asked to have the item pulled from the council's routine consent agenda so it could be voted on separately. Then he was the lone vote against the extra funding among the seven council members.

Anthony had also voted against additional funding for the retrofit project back in November. At that time, he had explained he could not justify spending money on such a museum.

The extra money approved today, amounting to $1,958,908, is needed to take care of some structural retrofit work on the historic 1933 federal office building and post office building at 300 Stewart, which will house the museum.

The work includes modifying the beams on the second and third floors, removing more hazardous material from the building, doing more work on the exterior plaster and courtroom ceilings and installing a new remote fire pump assembly that's needed because of failing water pressure in the downtown area, according to the city's finance and business services department.

The museum, which is expected to open in the first quarter of 2011, would tell the tale of how federal and local law enforcement officers fought the mob and eventually drove it out of Las Vegas' casinos.

The exhibits would features items from the FBI, plus artifacts from mob life, including many donated from the children and grandchildren of top members of organized crime and their underlings.

The museum has been pushed by the city's mayor, former high-profile mob lawyer Oscar Goodman, and by the FBI.

Councilman Ricki Y. Barlow, who made the motion to approve the extra funding today, has said in the past he supports it as an additional tourist attraction for the downtown.

From Fox5:

The iconic Las Vegas sign has been vandalized for the second time this year.At about 7:30 Friday morning, a barefoot man wearing a barrel and a Santa's hat threw red paint on the front of the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign and black paint on the back of it, as FOX5 News was broadcasting live.

The man, Joe Pepitone, told FOX5 News he threw the paint at the sign as a form of protest. He was also one of the protesters in front of the Clark County courtroom during the O.J. Simpson heist trial.

At the time, FOX5 was reporting at the world famous sign on the southern end of the Strip about a program Metro police have implemented to try to get graffiti artists to redirect their tagging to actual art canvasses to be sold to fund the program.

Pepitone, who was half-naked, said he had lost his job and gambling winnings.Police said Pepitone could face jail time if cleaning up the damage costs more than $250. Otherwise, he could face a fine, police said.Pepitone tripped and cried after defacing the sign, and he complained of ear ringing, so an ambulance transported him to a local hospital for treatment.

Needless to say Joe Pepitone, Reality called, your 15 seconds of fame are up.

Okay, Dennis McBride and Tom Dyer and crew at the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas are putting together a wonderful exhibit (hopefully to open in January) on Mid-Century Modern architecture in Las Vegas.

They are asking for our help.  Can you provide any information about this church:

Bishop Gorman, the old Bishop Gorman on Maryland Parkway, is the front runner but if you have more info, please post it here.  I'll pass the info on Dennis and crew.

Since we are in a mid-century modern frame of mind (and working on ideas for next year's event), here are some other mid-century modern gems:

Coming up later this week, all the info on New Year's Eve fireworks as well, as things we are grateful for this year as well as an update on our Archive Project. 

Stay Tuned!