The Much Improved State of Vegas' 9/11 Memorial

What a difference a few days and a blog post can make. Here's what Las Vegas' 9/11 Memorial at the corner of the Strip and Tropicana looked like on 9/8.


It was shameful, given the proximity to the anniversary of 9/11. New York-New York maintenance folks were responsible for managing it, a deed the property voluntarily took on when they created this monument in 2002. Artifacts -- T-shirts, messages, notes, etc. -- that were left at the base of our Statue of Liberty for months after the 9/11 attacks were collected and archived at UNLV. They are to be presented in these display cases regularly, rotated as needed.

But when I was there a couple days before 9/11, nine of the boxes were empty and most of the other items were so faded as to be unreadable.

Well, as of Thursday, look:


All filled, all new stuff!

I asked MGM Resorts why the monument had been allowed to fall into such disrepair in the first place. Yvette Monet, a corporate spokeswoman, answered:

At the time the photos were taken on Wednesday night, we were in the middle of our routine maintenance process where we replace plexiglass and the memento items, thus the empty cases. The cases get very high exposure to sunlight and so the items fade quickly, and we switch them out frequently. The lighting in the cases is currently being evaluated.

I guess I don't understand why they would remove some items if they didn't have others to replace them with. That seems inefficient. We're talking about a bunch of T-shirts, not some big, hard-to-carry items. Bring out the new stuff when you take the screwdriver to the boxes and remove the old ones, right? Also, I had been there on July 8 when those gay activists shut down the Strip with banners and I noticed several boxes empty then, too, although not nearly as many. So this is an on-going thing.

Anyhow, glad it's fixed. Let's hope they don't let it go again, even for a few days.

The Sorry State of Vegas' 9/11 Memorial

One of the first stories I covered when I returned to Vegas in August 2002 to freelance from here was a firefighters union convention at which the New York-New York resort announced with great fanfare they would be carving out a plaza in front of Vegas' Statue of Liberty for a Sept. 11 memorial.

They did so, creating 21 lit glass boxes that were to hold items that were left at the base of the Statue of Liberty in the weeks and months after the 9/11 attacks. They included T-shirts and gear from fire and police departments around the world as well as cards and signs, a steady stream of which reflected the worldwide outpouring and the desperate need people had to find some symbolic way to pay tribute.

New York-New York did it, yes, and they've been so demur about it that they don't even squawk about it on their website for fear of seeming to be trying to take advantage of the suffering of that day. It was, I believe, the first permanent 9/11 Memorial in the nation.

Yet on Wednesday night, I noticed nearly half of those lit displays are presently empty. This is strange because there were thousands of objects saved and archived at UNLV, where they sit in boxes waiting to be rotated into the display. Many of the items that are still in the memorial exhibit have become so faded that you can't read them anyway and probably should be replaced.

The responsibility for the upkeep belongs to the maintenance department at New York-New York, owned by MGM Resorts International. I didn't have a chance today to inquire as to why the memorial has been left in such disarray, but I did want to put this out there now because the ninth anniversary of the attacks is upon us. One would think that whatever the cause of the problems over there, someone would think that for that particular occasion, the memorial ought to be in tip-top shape. Right?

Gays Screw Up Strip Traffic, The Wrap

So how often do you see something like this in Vegas?

In fact, almost never. The cop spokeswoman in my AOL News piece says the last political protest to disrupt traffic on the Strip was a good 15 years ago, so far as she can recall. Even the AIDS Walk, when it went along the Strip instead of downtown, took place on the sidewalk.

Yet for a good half hour, southbound traffic at Nevada's busiest intersection -- LVB and Tropicana -- was largely halted by eight GetEQUAL activists with that banner attempting to embarrass/inspire Sen. Harry Reid over sluggishness in passing ENDA, a workplace non-discrimination bill that has languished for years.

The results were quite colorful. A limo driver nearly came to blows (the wrong kind, har har) with one of the banner-holders. I sympathized; it was ridiculously hot out and sitting stuck on the Strip in traffic would make me lose it, too. Especially in my piece of shit car. So maybe I don't feel quite as much for folks in a limo.

The cops claim they got there six minutes after they got the call. There's probably important follow-up to be done on why (a) it actually took more than 20 minutes and (b) the cops lied about when they arrived (1:14 p.m.) when everyone was there with watches, cell-phones and time-stamped Tweets to prove otherwise. Given that a terrorist attack would collapse this economy even more and the oft-stated worst-case scenario would be some bomber in the middle of that very high-profile intersection, it's quite, quite alarming. I highly doubt the local media will dig in on this, so it'll probably be up to me.

Anyhow, you can see all the pix in my Flickr set. There may be others in my TwitterPhoto stream, too, with my requisite on-the-spot description/snark as they were transmitted.

This shot is interesting for two reasons:


First, the banner on the pedestrian crosswalk stayed there for nearly two hours -- and nobody was arrested for putting it there. So expect more of that, perhaps even this week as Netroots Nation, the liberal blogger/activist confab, brings a lot of political energy to the city.

Second, that Las Vegas Monofail sign is stupid. The arrow should point to the right, since the station is across the street at MGM Grand. God help the hot, disheveled tourist who doesn't get that those two signs are related or, given the huge number of international travelers, can't even read the English.


I just want to thank this guy above and his cohorts for remembering to grab my laptop bag as I ran all over the place taking photos and doing my thing. And PLEASE don't tell my partner I just left it there. (And no, I'm not worried about him reading this. He never does.)

I couldn't resist, amid all the mayhem and arrests, the fact that New York-New York folks were carting Häagen-Dazs® tubs into the resort. They couldn't spare one? For gay rights? Or sweaty journalists?


One of the GetEQUAL dudes brought his dog, Marley, which means that tomorrow I'm going to have to cover a PETA protest.


Speaking of PETA, I am reminded that they have done some protesting recently on the Strip. But, again, I don't think they did any civil disobedience with arrests and screwy traffic and all that jazz.

So how about a little perspective, huh? This homeless guy, to whom I gave $5 after I shot this photo, was using the crosswalk banner for shade. Something tells me his employment problems are NOT about being gay, but you never know.


And, finally, as I headed back to the Tropicana to get in my car and go write, I saw that all had returned to normal rather quickly.


I did not give this guy $5. He looked healthy, clean and well-fed, and I didn't think that anyone sane or unafflicted should be rewarded for torturing themselves in this heat. Which, I am aware, means that I've declared today's activists and journalists insane. I'm not sure anyone would disagree, though.

MGM Mirage On Fate of Fountain Coins

It seems the Wynn Las Vegas response that the coins are in some cases not cleanable is somewhat backed up by this response from Alan Feldman, the spokesman for MGM Mirage, who finally came back to me with a comprehensive response to the question asked by podcast listener Naomi in Israel weeks ago about what happens to the coins tossed in Vegas fountains:

Steve:

Well, as you may have surmised by now, this was not an easy question to answer.

While most of the coins end up with charity, they have to go through a major cleaning process. Some are simply too dirty or damaged to salvage and are destroyed.

TI discards everything they clean out of their Pirate Cove area as the coins are simply too dirty to recover. The same for Circus Circus Adventuredome from the water rides they have.

The Mirage has in the past given the coins from the water feature near the people mover along the Strip to Shriner’s and Red Cross. They did not have an amount; they simply gave away the coins. My contact there said it was difficult to find an agency to take the coins because they had to be cleaned first.

Bellagio gives coins from their front feature to Habitat for Humanity, however our contact at HFH is saying the company that cleans the coins charges them 50%. As I recall a past conversation Bellagio, the Red Cross asked us to stop giving them the coins about a year ago, because the company they were using to process the donations, was going to raise their fee.

In 2007 approximately $22,000 was given to Make-a-Wish of Southern Nevada from the water features at New York New York.

Mandalay Bay and Luxor give theirs back to Voice, our company’s Foundation, where the monies are disbursed to charities throughout southern Nevada under the direction of a board made up entirely of employees. Last year, we deposited more than $33,000 into the Voice account from the fountains at these properties.

I know this isn’t a detailed accounting, but it’s what I was able to pull together in between calls on the fire and economy slipping into recession.

Any thoughts, folks?