“Imagine a neighborhood that had everything it needed within its own borders,” says Katherine Duncan-Reed, executive director of Harrison House. “It was like an island in itself. … Everything that Las Vegas had, the Westside had, but it was exclusive. It was just a vibrant, beaming, blooming community.”
We’re standing just outside Harrison House, and the desert wind carries faint echoes of music and memory. Sammy Davis Jr. once slept here. Nat King Cole and Pearl Bailey, too. Down the block, the Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino—the first integrated casino in the country—was alive with movement, smoke, jazz and Black excellence. That was then.
Duncan-Reed walks the cracked pavement like a curator of living history. She gestures at invisible landmarks as if they’re still standing and retells the stories of this community’s past.
Through the 1950s, segregation carved the city into halves. On the “wrong” side of the railroad tracks bloomed a community that, despite its imposed limitations, thrived. Residents—many descendants of the Jim Crow South—built a new life in the Las Vegas Valley. There was pride. There was power.
But when the city desegregated in 1960, it didn’t come with investment. Residents left, businesses closed, and after decades of neglect, what was once a vibrant neighborhood became a ghost of its former self.
“This area deserves to thrive like it used to,” says Tameka Henry, executive director of the Obodo Collective, a nonprofit founded in the Historic Westside in 2020. “I was born and raised here, and when I was a younger girl, there were places that you can go to after church, to have a meal, or to shop, and now we don’t have that throughout the neighborhood.”
Formal efforts to revitalize the area exist in the City of Las Vegas’ HUNDRED Plan. Short for Historic Urban Neighborhood Design Redevelopment, the plan was first developed in 2016, and a master plan was unveiled to the City Council in 2023. It’s a framework. But more than that, it’s a reckoning—a long-overdue attempt to honor what the Historic Westside was, and to imagine what it can still become.
And the signs are already appearing. Jackson Avenue—once booming with restaurants, clubs and entertainment—was revitalized in 2023 with new sidewalks, streetlights and trees. On C Street, the Historic Westside Education and Training Center is taking shape, as is a redesigned West Las Vegas Library on Martin Luther King Boulevard.
“The HUNDRED Plan was a community effort. It’s the foundational document that the community said how they want this community’s future to be,” says Las Vegas Councilwoman Shondra Summers-Armstrong. “We’re going to do everything we can to move as many of the concepts in that plan forward to the benefit and growth of this community.”
In this neighborhood, people still remember what once was. And as new developments come into the frame, they know that true progress is measured in honoring that legacy and the people who live there.
Tameka Henry — Obodo Collective
Tameka Henry
Tameka Henry moves with a quiet confidence through the urban garden, her hands brushing through the abundant leafy greens swaying in the morning breeze. Rows of vibrant produce stretch out before her, and it’s almost surreal to think that just four years ago, this space was nothing more than an empty lot.
As she pauses to inspect which bunches are ready for harvest, there’s a moment of unspoken acknowledgment of the how far Obodo Collective has come. The transformation is tangible, not just in the earth beneath her feet but in the renewed sense of possibility for the neighborhood.
When it comes to revitalization, Henry says the focus should be on residents’ basic needs first.
The urban garden
“Transportation, access to healthcare providers that are close to the area … making a livable wage in the area. That’s why we’re excited about the different potentials and possibilities of, be it a hotel coming, be it the CSN school that’s coming there, where people can get the training and education,” Henry says.
As executive director of the nonprofit Obodo Collective, she adds that one of the most pressing issues in the Historic Westside today is the lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables. According to Three Square Food Bank, the ZIP code where the Historic Westside sits, 89106, has one of the Valley’s highest food insecurity rates. More than one in five residents doesn’t have access to enough food to lead a healthy lifestyle. Grocery stores are few and far between.
Powered by a deep bench of volunteers, the Obodo Collective is constantly striving to meet the community’s needs through programs addressing hunger, housing and other needs, including child care and mental health.
The nonprofit just opened the Obodo Greengrocer in February, in partnership with the Southern Nevada Health District. The produce store provides locally grown fruits, vegetables, herbs and more to shoppers within the Historic Westside and beyond.
According to Henry, Obodo Collective requests feedback from customers, asking them what types of produce they’d like to see on the shelves, as well as gauging how shoppers feel about their price points.
“Over the past year we harvested just over 1,000 pounds of food. Many of our customers live within the neighborhood [but] we get shoppers from all over the Valley,” Henry says. “We’ve been wanting to get more people in the door. We’ve done canvassing door-to-door to the surrounding neighbors and neighborhood to let them know that we are there. ... Because it’s not just our store. It’s a store that’s there for the community so they can have access.”
The Obodo Collective’s mission—grounded in the three core pillars of food security, affordable housing and job opportunity—aligns closely with what the HUNDRED Plan hopes to deliver. Henry is realistic—hopeful, but cautious—when it comes to results.
“My hopes are that those homeowners, or those who rent, don’t become displaced and that they’re able to reap the benefits of the new developments that are proposed,” she says. “You have to have like-minded and like-spirited connections to see the project through.”
Councilwoman Shondra Summers-Armstrong — Las Vegas Ward 5
Shondra Summers-Armstrong
As a longtime resident of West Las Vegas, Shondra Summers-Armstrong’s approach to revitalization is rooted in respect for the community’s deep history. Speaking with the Weekly at the Historic Westside School, Vegas’ first integrated school, she looks up at a wall of richly colored stained glass featuring images from the area’s multiple churches.
She believes progress should preserve the integrity of the Westside, not overwrite it, and that economic opportunity and cultural preservation must go hand in hand. Trust-building between residents and developers is foundational, she says. The process of redevelopment isn’t just about infrastructure; it’s about ensuring the longtime residents benefit from the changes.
“You have to come correct,” she emphasizes, speaking of the developers coming to the Historic Westside. “You can’t just come in and build something that erases what’s already here.”
She might be referring to Clark County’s attempt to build public housing on the site of the Moulin Rouge. The 2019 proposal by the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority was met with criticism and tabled thereafter.
She could also be nodding to the seven-story Harlem Nights casino complex proposed for the corner of Jackson Avenue and F Street. Developer Shlomo Meiri describes the project as a “catalyst for economic revitalization” that would bring tourists and more hospitality jobs to the area.
“We want people to come over here. We want commerce, we want tourism, we want cultural attractions. And so we’re excited about any development that wants to come and talk to us about what they want to do,” says Summers-Armstrong.
Public projects have also emerged as examples of what true, community-driven initiatives look like—projects that honor the history while ensuring the neighborhood’s future prosperity.
The councilwoman is particularly optimistic about the Historic Westside Education and Training Center (see page 20), slated to finish construction this fall, and the West Las Vegas Library, slated for completion in 2026. Putting those resources directly in the neighborhood could help eliminate the need for residents to have a car, with bus routes connecting them to other areas of town.
Not just the City of Las Vegas, but also Clark County has invested in infrastructure in the Historic Westside like the Lake Mead Microbusiness Park. The property is to have 76 workforce housing units and over 20,000 square feet of retail, office, restaurant and “entrepreneur space.” It’s expected to be completed by 2026.
“That’s the brainchild of Commissioner [William] McCurdy. It’s an amazing idea to have housing where people are connected to transportation. ... People can live, get training on the bottom and take those trainings into the community, to work good jobs,” Summers-Armstrong says.
She emphasizes the city’s “wraparound approach” in its initiatives for housing, work and education.
The city also has shown interest in expanding cultural resources in the Historic Westside, namely an African-American Museum. In 2022, it approved a contract with Gallagher & Associates, known for the National Museum of African-American Music in Nashville and our own Mob Museum, to develop a master plan for the project.
“The African American Museum & Cultural Center is in the planning stages, and the city has a contract with world-renowned museum designers Gallagher & Associates to develop a master plan for the project,” a spokesman for the city says.
Katherine Duncan-Reed — Harrison House
Katherine Duncan-Reed
As we stand in front of Harrison House and look back into the not-so-far past, we can almost still hear the ringing of laughter and music that once filled the Historic Westside. Preservers of history like Katherine Duncan-Reed certainly do.
“You had grandparents, children and great-grandchildren all in the same neighborhood. That’s a different dynamic than you would have in any place else in the city,” she says. “And the people who lived here all have similar backgrounds because they’re coming from the deep plantations in the South and they’re getting freedom and prosperity for the first time.”
It wasn’t just a place to live. It was a place for entertainment and culture, especially with the Moulin Rouge in the neighborhood. Opened in May 1955, the integrated hotel lasted only five-and-a-half months before it closed. Marred by random fires between 2003 and 2017, all that is left of it is an empty lot dotted with weeds.
Duncan-Reed attempted to preserve the casino’s history, but those blazes led to the building’s final demise.
“I had fought to save that property and lost and lost and lost, and when they finally burned it down, I was like, ‘Oh my God, there’s nothing left of our history,’” she says.
But where one door might have closed, another opened. Duncan-Reed uncovered the Harrison House. In 1942, Westside resident Genevieve Harrison opened her home to traveling entertainers, business people and divorcing couples who couldn’t stay in Strip hotels due to segregation laws. Duncan-Reed now runs the historical landmark with funding and assistance from the Commission for Cultural Centers and Historic Preservation.
“I didn’t even know it was a Green Book destination,” she says, referencing the 1949 “Green Book” advising Black travelers how to stay safe and where to find food and accommodations when traveling. “I got into it more, started researching it [and it] started to come alive.”
Her vision for the Historic Westside largely centers around bringing tourism to the neighborhood. Her nonprofit is working with UNLV to “investigate” the neighborhood as a destination. She says there’s plenty for people to see, including the Pioneer Trail, an urban walking trail that passes several historical sites including the Moulin Rouge lot and Harrison house.
“We’ve got a lot of history. You saw how many historic sites there were on that Pioneer Trail. That’s all in our little neighborhood. We’re looking to become a historic district … a place for families to really come and be,” she says.
Duncan-Reed sees the Harrison House, which has ramped up its tours recently, as a compass for what revitalization and redevelopment could look like when it’s led by the community.
As the Historic Westside still works to shed a long-standing pattern of neglect, Harrison House offers a fresh take, one rooted in advocacy, culture, and ownership.
“People see this as a top destination—for development, for housing, for hotels. But it has to be done right,” Duncan-Reed says.
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