Driving on the Las Vegas Strip at Night, 1972

**Optional** · 06-10-25, 06:40 PM

Cool. Downtown hasn't changed much, apart from the mall.

**brock** · 06-10-25, 09:46 PM

Economy lodge. Stardust.

**Ian** · 06-11-25, 06:52 AM

Awesome footage! Thanks for posting.

**Ian** · 06-11-25, 06:54 AM

Originally posted by Optional

Cool. Downtown hasn't changed much, apart from the mall.

It's a little weird to see people driving down Fremont St, but yeah, that's the one part of Vegas that's basically the same.

**stevenash** · 06-11-25, 08:06 AM

Originally posted by Ian

Awesome footage! Thanks for posting.

You're welcome.

I love these retro-vids.
There are a couple of dozen of those retro videos out there; half of them are sketchy 8mm jobs. The video I posted was, in my opinion, the absolute best. I love the neon lighting up the sky. The guy did it with a 35mm camera, brilliant.

The first time I was in Vegas was in April 1990.
(What major sporting event happened in 4/1990?)

Anyhoo, I was barely 21, working in my first real corporate IT job, I was making beaucoup money, so I took my first year-end profit-sharing bonus and booked a flight to LV. I stayed in the Stardust, not the hotel, but the Motor Lodge dump. The Sradust Motor Lodge next to the hotel. It was a dump I tell you, but I didn't give a shit.

To make a long story short, I booked that trip three months before the NCAA Final Four.
I had no way of knowing who was going to the Final Four; I'm not Nostradamus.
The championship game was UNLV vs. Duke.

UNLV croaked Duke by 30 points, the Strip was packed with fans, trust me when I say this, Las Vegas was a *scene*

That was a hell of a first impression of Las Vegas. I went back every year for like the next 12 years.
I love Sin City; it was better in the 90s than it is now, but I still love Las Vegas.