J. Patrick Coolican

Columnist

J. Patrick Coolican was born in Connecticut to a large, Irish Catholic family and then studied dead white male authors at the University of Notre Dame. He started his career during the 2000 presidential campaign, writing for a Web site he created with two friends. He's written for The Seattle Times, The Nation, LA Weekly and, since early 2006, for the Sun.

Contact J. Patrick via e-mail

Call J. Patrick at 702-259-8829.

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Let's remember: Warren Buffett's power play is to make money: Wednesday, May 29, 2013; Shouts of joy rang out among Nevada’s political elite on the news that an entity owned by famed investor Warren Buffett is buying the state’s electric monopoly, NV Energy.
The Steven Brooks saga points to much bigger problems: Wednesday, April 3, 2013; The unfortunate truth is that story of expelled Assemblyman Steven Brooks, sad as it is, could have been even more tragic.
Photographer documenting homeless families finds no place like Las Vegas: Monday, April 1, 2013; Craig Blankenhorn has spent most of his professional life on film and TV sets — “Sex in the City” and “The Sopranos” among them — shooting photos for the big advertising displays you see in newspapers and magazines. But now he’s also traveling the country, documenting the lives of homeless families. In Las Vegas he met Tom, Angela and little Kaleb, who is one of 1.6 million homeless kids in the United States, and he won't soon forget them.
In search of mysterious Downtown sign artist King Richard: Wednesday, March 13, 2013; King Richard’s realm is not a conventional one. It is the weathered sides of Downtown cinder block.
Taking a real liking to a bunch of guys under the lights on Friday nights: My confession: Getting attached to a high school football team, but maybe we all should; Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012; On Friday, we posted a long piece that I wrote tracking Canyon Springs High School’s football season. Now comes this addendum, because I must share with you my personal feelings after having found myself becoming attached to the team.
Our Downtown columnist offers friendly advice for the area as he prepares to move on: Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012; A last installment of Sun columnist J. Patrick Coolican's Neon Eden column.
The battle for the Huntridge is waged in frustration and misunderstanding: Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2012; Will the wrecking ball arrive after all is said and done?
Does Las Vegas need its own Mayor Daley?: Chicago's turnaround mayor is in Las Vegas this week for a Chamber of Commerce luncheon; Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012; Chicago's turnaround mayor is in Las Vegas this week for a Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
After a tough stretch, Downtown’s Juhl has seen its fortunes rise: Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012; Some poor soul bought a two-bedroom, two-bath unit at the Juhl tower Downtown in 2009 for $465,804. The same unit sold earlier this year for $104,500. And yet, things are looking up at Juhl.
Las Vegas’ mid-mod homes don’t just look cool — they were built for the desert: Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012; The retro homes were designed smarter than the track homes lining suburban streets.
Should we turn the old Ambassador Hotel site into a Middle Eastern market?: Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2012; The possibilities seem endless for the seven acre space.
Are Downtown landowners waiting for a Hsieh payday?: Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012; Are owners in denial about the crash?
Is Downtown Las Vegas in danger of gentrification?: Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012; Will wealthy yuppies and retail outlets like J. Crew soon dominate the area?
Keeping up with Downtown development can be exhausting: Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2012; There's no shortage of great projects going on Downtown. Check out our list.
J. Patrick Coolican comes out of party retirement at the new D: Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012; It was time to come out of a six-month retirement from Downtown carousing and check in on the scene.
Can we solve the homeless situation by ... giving them a place to live?: Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012; A prominent business person suggested to me that to solve the homeless problem Downtown, we should buy an empty subdivision in the suburbs and move everybody in. This person was joking, but there’s actually some validity to that idea. Why? Well, that’s what we’re already doing, and it’s working.
After years of ridicule, Neonopolis is poised to become a must-visit destination: Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012; Neonopolis, the behemoth mall-ish structure at Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont, has collected a number of inventive descriptions and nicknames. Its own developer, Rohit Joshi, compared it to barracks. A reviewer on Yelp tagged it “Necropolis” (as in, burial grounds). CityLife writer Amy Kingsley inventively compared it to a bank vault.
Downtown desperately needs more trails, but don't hold your breath: Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012; There's a long-range plan for trails downtown, but where's the money going to come from?
Downtown desperately needs more parks. Who will step up?: Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012; It's hard to imagine a great city without great parks.
Small businesses, big beginnings: Talking with Downtown Project's Don Welch: Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2012; The Downtown Project’s plan to open dozens of small businesses in the next few years after picking from hundreds of at-times highly creative submissions can seem rather freewheeling, like a certain locally famous online apparel retailer.
Las Vegas has the potential to be more of a fashion industry player: Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012; Downtown's upcoming Fashion Lab just might help.
Dissecting the Downtown glut of bail bondsmen: Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012; How bail bonds work, what the bondsmen do and more.
A food truck influx has Downtown restaurants—and local government—crying foul: Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2012; We often hear that businesses wish government would merely get out of the way. Just as often, however, I see businesses lobbying government to kill off the competition. In the latest example, the Las Vegas City Council is mulling protecting Downtown brick-and-mortar restaurants from their wily new competitors: food trucks. As my Las Vegas Sun colleague Joe Schoenmann reported recently, the owner of Uncle Joe’s Pizza on Fremont East was outraged that “there, in front of his pizza joint, was parked a food truck. And it was selling pizza, no less.”
Downtown's dining options are about to explode. Hungry?: Wednesday, July 25, 2012; For years, Fremont East was a fun place to drink, especially if you were so committed to drinking (you know who you are) that you didn’t want food to get in the way. Now, however, a restaurant boomlet is coming Downtown. What had been slow and steady progress is quickening, with a pile of new spots opening, in construction or stewing in someone’s imagination.
Dodger Stadium in downtown LA shows that adding a ballpark is no magic bullet: Wednesday, July 18, 2012; Las Vegas could learn something from the City of Angels.
Why an urban Downtown and lots of free parking spots are mutually exclusive: Wednesday, July 11, 2012; Strategic parking policies will be an important part of the Downtown renaissance.
Coolican measures how far downtown has to go, one step at a time: Wednesday, July 4, 2012; After watching the Las Vegas Philharmonic blow the doors off the Smith Center recently, my date and I wanted to have dinner downtown. We stood outside, looking toward the Golden Nugget, and pondered how we’d get there.
Towne Terrace and the apartment shortage of Downtown revitalization: Wednesday, June 27, 2012; Where's everyone going to live?
Nancy Williams Baker has been bringing color to Downtown for decades: Wednesday, June 20, 2012; The costume shop owner intended to stay in town for two weeks — she stayed a lifetime.
Finally buying into the Zappos hype: Tony Hsieh's dreams seem lofty, but they are worth pursuing; Wednesday, June 20, 2012; As a journalist, my job is to be skeptical, and given the incessant flimflammery in Las Vegas, I think I was entitled to be extra wary of the Tony Hsieh-Zappos-downtown craze. My outlook is deeply influenced by the “Simpsons” episode when the charismatic charlatan Lyle Lanley sells Springfield a rickety monorail (sound familiar?), so I always try to question what’s in that delicious Kool-Aid. For years I’ve been reading glowing profiles of Hsieh, the prodigy founder of an Internet company he sold to Microsoft for millions before becoming CEO of online retailer Zappos.
Board member's resignation shines light on region's unhealthy habits: Sunday, June 17, 2012; Nancy Menzel, a professor of nursing at UNLV, is leaving the Southern Nevada District Board of Health in frustration after just one term. Menzel describes a dysfunctional board burdened by conflict with Clark County while public health problems fester. Menzel is supportive of the district but was scathing in her critique of its board.
Tony Hsieh’s vision for Downtown might be ambitious, but we need it to happen: Wednesday, June 13, 2012; "Not pursuing his brand of urbanism will doom us."
City Council's decision further brands Las Vegas as kid-unfriendly: Wednesday, June 13, 2012; Until they can score a fake ID, there’s not much for kids to do in this town. Las Vegas is like most American communities that way, but gambling and alcohol are central to life here, making the problem even worse.
Not so neighborly: Group essentially says, 'Schoolchildren: not in my backyard': Friday, June 8, 2012; Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like we live in a ridiculous town. In the latest example, Clark County has put the squeeze on a Montessori school — a Montessori school! — to appease unhappy neighbors, so the school has decided to pack up and leave.
Frustration takes over in quest for local all-ages music venue: Wednesday, June 6, 2012; Unless it's a religious or educational institution, "it's basically impossible to open a venue for kids."
On the horizon: A quick look at projects poised to shape downtown: Monday, June 4, 2012; While development remains fairly moribund in the rest of the Las Vegas Valley, there’s suddenly a diverse array of projects in various states of planning and completion downtown.
Want a grocery store downtown? Change is in your hands: Thursday, May 31, 2012; My colleague recently moved into a cool place in Soho Lofts in the Arts District—would someone please change the name of this otherwise worthy building?—and is mostly happy with downtown living. But he’s also discovering its frustrations
TVs, home goods, Gatorade and wisdom — all 99 cents at Henderson store: Friday, May 25, 2012; Regina Burns got in line for Thursday’s grand opening of the 99¢ Only Store on Wednesday at 2:30 a.m. She spent 30 hours securing a spot as one of the first nine customers, each of whom had the chance to buy a 22-inch flat-screen TV for, yes, 99 cents.
Though religious group's efforts are noble, tackling issues won't come without making enemies: Thursday, May 24, 2012; As Cantor Mariana Gindlin sang “Eili, Eili,” the packed ballroom at UNLV hushed. Just moments before, they were boisterous and cheerful, singing “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” Now, though, the solemnity of the Hebrew song hit the crowd fiercely, and I felt a bit of a chill.
Mind over muscle: Fitness coach Denise Dinger shapes the body and soul: To many in the Las Vegas Valley, she's a bodybuilding icon; to the women she trains, she's family; Wednesday, May 23, 2012; High above Las Vegas, in a suite at the Palms, Denise Dinger is acting as matriarch of a trippy family whose obsession isn’t spelling bees or stringed instruments or dance. It’s human muscle and the display of it. Her charges — “my girls,” she calls them — are nervous and a little giggly, butterflies before they take the stage at the Palms for the Jay Cutler Desert Classic, an amateur bodybuilding event.
Downtown Bound: Column will focus on an evolving, exciting part of Las Vegas: Wednesday, May 16, 2012; This space is dedicated to one of the most important stories in the Valley.
Building bodies (and minds) with Denise Dinger: On the outer edge of human strength and effort, a fitness coach molds clients for competition—and life.; Thursday, May 10, 2012; On the outer edge of human strength and effort, a fitness coach molds clients for competition—and life.
The Sahara's SLS renovation could mean big things for the north Strip: Wednesday, May 9, 2012; The hotel's redevelopment project will begin in September.
Build a Greener Block gives local businesses a look at what Downtown could become: Wednesday, May 2, 2012; A stretch of Main Street was turned into a vibrant urban experience last weekend.
Hunger strikes and happiness 'pickets': Two very different Vegas demonstrations: Wednesday, April 25, 2012; A staged event by Tony Hsieh's for-profit venture and a Culinary Union hunger strike.
What can be done with the city’s half-built corporate eyesores?: Saturday, April 21, 2012; Imagine if the guy who owned the house next door tore it down and started building a cool new palace. Then imagine that a third of the way into construction, he stopped building, leaving a half-finished shell for you to see from your window.
Let the Clark County Commission make the Strip safer, but leave the entrepreneurs alone: Wednesday, April 11, 2012; Civil libertarians believe the "clean up" is an attempt in the county's battle against the First Amendment.
Two Sun City Anthem residents try to do the right thing—and get arrested: Wednesday, April 4, 2012; "Don’t question your homeowners association, because Henderson Police might arrest you."
Why some elections should be taken out of the public's hands: Wednesday, March 28, 2012; If we don't know the candidates or what the position entails, how do we know who to vote for?
What Adelson’s massive Gingrich donation could have funded in Las Vegas: Wednesday, March 21, 2012; What could you do with those millions?

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J. Patrick Coolican

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