Nothing bores me more than the laments of phony Vegas nostalgists who bemoan the disrespect this city has for its history. Oh, boo hoo, they whine, there goes another great Las Vegas landmark, sacrificed on the altar of so-called progress, disappeared forever in a great explosion of fury and fireworks, more evidence that the people who live and prosper here feel no reverence for sacred grounds.
It’s an odd claim that surfaces with every implosion, and it did again last week with the long-overdue destruction of the New-Last-Worst Frontier to make way for what, at the moment thanks to some ill-advised renderings, looks like a steroidal horror of a replica of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. (Steve Wynn told me last week he’s advising the Elad Group guys on better designs; one can only hope they listen.)
The oddest part of the complaint against implosions and change is that in my time as a podcaster and blogger, I’ve discovered there are enormous legions of Vegas-lovers who do nothing but dwell on and probe this city’s history. On The Strip podcast, we give away prizes every other week to some of those who get our trivia questions right, and almost always they look right past the CDs and celebrity stuff and snap up the old Stardust room keys and the John L. Smith books.
It is a pivotal part of many tourists’ adoration for the place, the great tales that can be told of the Dunes and the Sands, of Bugsy and Rosenthal, of Hughes and Kerkorian, of Elvis and the Rat Pack. Websites serve as virtual shrines -- VegasTodayandTomorrow.com and LeavingLV.net are two of the best—to the point that I suspect Vegasophiles are more fanatical about preserving and attending to our history than devotees of just about any other American destination. And you never met a more serious group of history buffs than those at the Casino Chip & Gaming Token Collectors Convention, or the folks who crawl through a junkyard dodging bits of broken glass at the Neon Museum just to behold the signs stored there.
Fact is, this fervency would probably not exist were it not for the speed at which Las Vegas changes and grows. It is precisely because these places don’t exist anymore that so much attention is paid to preserving the memory of the things that happened there. There’s a reason we hear ad nauseam about the events at the Dunes, Desert Inn and Stardust but not quite so much about great moments in the history of the Sahara, the Riviera or the Trop.
It’s because true Las Vegas nostalgists aren’t fools. They know that the Bellagio is an improvement on the Dunes, that the Mandalay Bay is a better establishment than the Hacienda ever was, that whatever charm the Stardust, the Landmark or the Sands had was long gone by the time Controlled Demolition Inc. was brought in to finish off the job.
And God knows, one reason why the implosion of the Frontier was so beautiful and satisfying was that, aside from being better-lit and less toxic to onlookers than the Stardust, it was a terrible place full of problems. One ingredient for a great implosion, it turns out, is that few are really sorry to see the place go. For that reason, the next one up—the Island Tower at the Tropicana in January or February—should be an awesome display; it’s just, after all, a standard-issue hotel tower.
With only one exception, what’s come later has been bigger, brighter, better and more profitable than what was there before. The exception: The monstrosity that replaced the old Aladdin. And this exception proves the rule, because they removed a classic, interesting structure with lots of Vegas history and replaced it with, uh, another Aladdin, and a hideous, illogically designed one at that. They didn’t put up something better, and they suffered for it.
And even in that, Las Vegas provides the prospect of a parallel redemption, that of the site and of Planet Hollywood founder Robert Earl’s tattered reputation. Each relies on the other to return both to their former glories. A few days after the Frontier’s demise, Planet Hollywood enjoyed a two-day grand “opening,” showing off some beautiful new interior and façade designs. Time will tell.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate Vegas history. In fact, that’s exactly the point. Those of us who love the blink-and-miss-it changing nature of the Strip are often accused of having no respect for the past.
And maybe there is a certain truth to the fact that, having only lived here on and off since 1996, I don’t feel emotional about what’s lost. I did, after all, grieve (mildly) the sudden loss a couple of weeks ago of something that is a significant part of my own Vegas history, the White Tiger Habitat at the Mirage, shuttered unceremoniously to make way for a new burger joint. It made me sad and seemed unnecessary, although Steve Wynn consoled me by explaining that the purpose of that free exhibit at the hotel entrance was merely to sell tickets for the Siegfried & Roy show.
Somehow, I’d actually deluded myself into thinking the White Tiger Habitat had something to do with presenting the wonder of nature to the masses. Shame on me.
I should remember that the soul of Las Vegas is never that impractical or altruistic. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s an honest thing. It keeps everything in perspective. And to think Vegas is so often derided as phony.
Read Steve Friess’ daily blog at TheStripPodcast.blogspot.com and catch his weekly celeb-interview podcast at TheStripPodcast.com. He can be reached at [email protected].