Our Preservation Spotlight today turns to Jack LeVine, who has been documenting and trying to preserve the central urban core and downtown neighborhoods for many years.
Jack is also the force behind the website, VeryVintageVegas.com where he has been documenting those neighborhoods and homes for the last few years. He is a proud sponsor for the "Movies in the Park" events at Circle Park in the Huntridge neighborhood and has been a vocal proponent of historic preservation for many years.
We wanted to include Jack in this series because he was, like us, one of the early bloggers on history and preservation in the bright light city!
CLV Blog: How did you become interested in preserving Southern Nevada history?
LeVine: My interest in historic preservation began long before I lived in Las Vegas, and long before I became a Realtor. The first home I rebuilt – where I cut my teeth learning to do plumbing and electric and drywall and painting - was an 1886 former farmhouse in the middle of a 1910’s neighborhood about a mile from downtown Columbus Ohio.
Read MoreIn our Lost Vegas article yesterday on The Mint, we quoted mid-century modern author, preservationist and historian, Alan Hess. Alan has a long list of books on architecture that we recommend you check out!
He has long been interested in the mid-century modern history of Las Vegas. One of his earliest books (which should be in your library if you love Las Vegas history and/or the mid-century modern era), is Viva Las Vegas: After Hours Architecture. It has become one of my useful books when writing for this blog.
Alan has also been a long-time supporter of ours at Classic Las Vegas. In 2009, When we did the wildly successful Mid-Century Modern event which included panels and a bus tour of Zick and Sharp buildings around town, Alan was the tour guide. He also headed up the next year's panel discussions on a variety of mid-century modern topics.
We were fortunate enough to be able to talk to him about history, preservation and Las Vegas earlier this month:
CLV: How did you become interested in Las Vegas history?
Hess: Learning From Las Vegas, by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, had been published a few years before I started architecture school at UCLA. It proved to be the Rosetta Stone
Read MoreIt was a majestic mid-century modern piece of architecture sitting right there on Fremont Street amid the western motif of the Golden Nugget and the western flavor of Benny Binion's Horseshoe Club.
The Mint, all pink and adorned in a necklace of chaser lights and neon, is the one hotel on Fremont Street that to this day, when Hollywood set designers want to reference that era and Las Vegas, the Mint is the go-to choice. With its pylon sign and the chaser lights rising into the night sky to light the neon star at the top of the pylon, the Mint gloried in its mid-century modern finery.
Read MoreToday's Preservation Spotlight shines on Courtney Mooney, the Preservation Officer for the City of Las Vegas. May is Preservation Month and this year we are talking to some of the preservationists, archivists and historians whose work towards saving our history isn't always acknowledged.
We've worked with Courtney on a number of projects related to our Classic Las Vegas preservation project, so we were very happy when she agreed to be interviewed.
CLVBlog: How did you become interested in preserving Southern Nevada history?
Mooney: As a native Nevadan, our state’s history holds a special place in my heart. That being said, I’m addicted to all history, including archaeology and natural history, because it explains everything about who we are as individuals and as a community, why we are here at this very moment, and how we can create our own legacies.
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