It’s Friday, and all that’s left is a white sign about knee-high, pierced at the bottom by a forearm-length metal rod and stuck like a fork into a grassy knoll near the UNLV library. This way to the Democratic debate, it reads, directing visitors south to the Cox Pavilion, where a CNN-hosted Democratic presidential debate a day earlier drew 2,300 attendees, 8 million eyeballs to television screens across America and incalculable attention to a city that preens for the spotlight like a boozed-up celebutante.
Across town at the Regional Justice Center, there’s no leftover remnants of the worldwide media invasion—no huge scrum of satellite trucks or elbow-y reporters and camera crews jockeying for prime pictures. They anchored here last week for double-murder acquitee O.J. Simpson’s hearing on armed robbery and kidnapping charges related to a September sports-memorabilia heist at Palace Station. The center has returned to normalcy: as the hub of justice in a city so often viewed as the antithesis of the concept.
These two dissimilar events—the former a precursor to one of the most important elections in American history, the latter the latest in the sad devolution of a onetime sports prince turned all-pro enigma—had the same beneficiary: Las Vegas.
“Live from Las Vegas ...” “We return to Las Vegas ...” “Here in Las Vegas ...” “From the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas ...” Last week, our city was on the world’s lips, and the attention never felt so good.
It’s part and parcel of the year that’s been huge. When all’s said and done, 2007 will go down as a pivotal time in local history. Perhaps not as epochal as 1905 (the year of the land auction that birthed the city) or 1931 (when gambling was legalized), but maybe as essential as 1950, when county commissioners blocked city leaders from annexing the Strip into Las Vegas Township, or 1989, which ushered in the megaresort era. For in 2007, Las Vegas proved itself to the world.
Proved that it can handle a world-class event. Let’s keep it real: February’s NBA All-Star Weekend was our audition for a pro hoops team. We did ourselves proud. The city opened its arms and bent over backward. The old Thomas & Mack Center never looked so good, shined up all pretty and nice to host the world’s greatest basketball players. A lot’s been made of the snarled traffic, rude customers and crime. But we must remember: Those problems were brought in.
Proved that, on the basketball court, UNLV can matter again. In March, the Runnin’ Rebels restored the memory of the championship years of the early ’90s, collecting 30 wins against seven losses, and finishing within one win of the NCAA Tournament’s Elite 8. In a city where college hoops was once shorthand for community pride, we were proud of our team—and ourselves.
Proved that our build-it-bigger-better-higher-and-flashier ethos can be applied to something other than a casino. Unveiled in June, the $250 million Las Vegas Springs Preserve represented a paradigm shift. The 180-acre project in the center of the city has trails, gardens, galleries, museums and entertainment options (including an 1,800-seat outdoor amphitheater). It’s our very own Central Park.
Proved that a small, off-Strip property can be the center of the pop-cultural universe, if only for a night. The Palms served as a capable host for September’s MTV Video Music Awards, in Vegas for the first time.
Then came O.J. Simpson’s criminal troubles, which could be just what our criminal justice system—tainted by the G-Sting scandals and buy-a-judge exposes in the LA Times—needs. A good performance by District Attorney David Roger, who’s personally prosecuting Simpson, could (re)establish the competency of our legal system. The CNN debate proved that we can handle the political glare.
We may never know the monetary impact of the CNN debate and Simpson hearing on the Valley’s bottom line. (Kris Tibbs, senior research analyst for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, says his group generally only tracks revenues related to hotel occupancy and convention attendance. Our business oracle Keith Schwer, who directs UNLV’s Center for Business and Economic Research, says, “We have not completed impact studies for either of these events. Doing so is difficult, since many of the possible impacts are not directly measurable in traditional economic variables.”) But that’s not important.
What is important is that at every opportunity this year, Las Vegas has stood up and counted itself a competent, maturing city, ready for its next evolution. For too long, we’ve gone about gaining entrance into the hierarchy of the world’s great metropolises through Broadway shows and name-brand headliners, celebrity chefs and eponymous architects, highbrow art exhibits and superior nightclubs. In 2007, we found out that we’d been worthy all along.