Resort towers set back behind long driveways, and the Bellagio fountains where Ocean's Eleven ends.
What The Strip looks like
Las Vegas Boulevard runs about four miles through unincorporated Clark County, the resort towers set back behind long driveways and parking structures rather than fronting the sidewalk directly. Pedestrian bridges cross the road at Tropicana Avenue, Road, Harmon Avenue and Spring Mountain Road. Each one has its own stairs and escalators up from street level.
Lit signage covers whole building faces after dark, and glass curtain walls rise over stone and stucco podiums built out toward the sidewalk. A landscaped median of palms splits the six lane roadway, and valet drives and porte cocheres cut into the frontage every few blocks.
's arcade continues into an indoor Grand Canal with gondolas. rises behind a half scale Eiffel Tower with an observation deck over the boulevard, and fronts an eight acre lake where the fountains run at intervals through the day and evening. faces the lake from across the street, behind its own colonnaded entrance drive.
Casino floors run without windows or clocks, banks of slot machines lit under low colored light through the night. Table games sit toward the center of each floor, poker rooms and sportsbooks opening off the sides.
The Flamingo's tower and sign stand at the boulevard's Flamingo Road corner, by one of the elevated pedestrian bridges. 's green tinted glass tower rises at the Tropicana Avenue corner, one of the taller buildings on the boulevard. Newer construction at breaks from the themed resorts nearby, glass shafts with angled, largely unornamented facades.
Shot in The Strip
Casino used the old Riviera as the fictional Tangiers for six weeks of night shoots, covering the casino floor, the kitchen and the counting room; the building came down in 2016 and nothing of it stands today. The Hangover shot in the real corridors and elevators of Caesars Palace's Augustus Tower and on the Forum Tower roof, though the villa interior itself was built on a soundstage in Burbank. Ocean's Eleven ends at the Bellagio's own fountains, still running on the same lake today.
Ocean's Eleven, 2001
The Bellagio fountains
The film's ending cuts to the cast watching the Fountains of Bellagio from across the lake, set to Debussy's Clair de Lune. The same fountains still run on the same eight acre lake today. Street View
What The Strip can double for
Cotai Strip in Macau, China
The Cotai Strip holds a similar run of casino resort towers and reproduced landmarks, several of them built by the same operators as their Las Vegas counterparts. Chinese signage and right hand drive traffic give it away in any street level shot, and humid air changes how the lit facades read at night. Try searching casino resort towers now.
Pacific Avenue and the Boardwalk carry a similar run of large casino hotel towers behind their own driveways and porte cocheres, on a comparable strip layout. The ocean and the boardwalk itself give Atlantic City away in any wide shot, so tighter frontage shots hold the illusion better. Try searching casino hotel towers boardwalk now.
Virginia Street in Reno, Nevada
Virginia Street runs through downtown Reno with casino marquees and older motel style signage rather than resort towers, a smaller and older version of the same lit strip. Reno's blocks are shorter and the buildings lower, so wide shots need tighter framing to avoid showing the edge of the strip. Try searching casino marquees on Virginia Street now.
