Stuff I Found Cleaning Out My Vegas Office

As you may have read in my acclaimed love-letter essay to Las Vegas and my life there in Las Vegas Weekly, I spent my final days in Nevada packing up a house and office stuffed to the gills with historical and peculiar Vegas stuff. There was a shelf in my office closet with at least a six-foot pile of press materials that proved akin to an archeological survey, newest to oldest layered upon one another like a geological formation.

The stuff I unearthed was Vegas in its most optimistic, boosterish form, such as the above document outlining the expansion plans for the airport. I also found this promo for CityCenter...

...which is technically true because, uh, the future always begins now. Duh.

I loved this relic...

...and made sure to put this piece of Frontier glass in a safe place.

I found this magnet from the late, great Dive at the Fashion Show Mall, where I used to take my little brother all the time for fries and to peer through the periscope that offered a Strip view. It was just last month that a listener of the podcast asked me something about this place:

I found these artifacts of the earlier days of our podcast...

We used to send CDs and thank-you notes to all our guests, and once we got this back from the amazing Paula Poundstone:

Here was one of the table centerpieces from the final performance of Siegfried & Roy, a fundraiser for Keep Memory Alive, the foundation that funds the Lou Ruvo Cleveland Clinic for Brain Health in Vegas:

I found it rather unsettling that I did not and still don't remember that I had actually been a patient in 2002 of the most infamous endoscopy doctor in America:

At the same time, I find it awesome beyond words that I found this, which my old R-J friend Natalie Patton sent to me in 2000 when I was about to depart for China:

And I have no idea whatsoever how I came into possession of this rather invaluable bit of family history...

...but I'm so glad I have it.

Boyd Halts Echelon Construction

In more depressing signs that this economic downturn is hitting Vegas harder than pretty much any other in more devastating and tangible ways that will take ever longer to recover from, Boyd Gaming today halted construction on its planned $4.8 billion resort on the old Stardust property because of, of course, financing problems. In the process, they seem to have lost their joint-venture partner, Morgan Hotel Group.

Here's the company's statement: "We have decided to delay construction of our Echelon project on the Las Vegas Strip due to the difficult environment surrounding today's capital markets and the challenging economic conditions that currently exist. We expect to resume construction when credit market conditions and the overall outlook for the economy improve."

That, they said, could take nine months to a year. It was originally due to open summer of 2010.

These photos below come from an email sent out by Deutsche Bank gaming stock analyst Bill Lerner. They were taken early this morning to show how far the project had come so far. The company had already invested $500 million, but Wall Street greeted the news that Boyd had realized its limits by running up the stock by more than 20 percent, its largest gain in eight years.





Unlike the shadenfraude of taking note of the struggles of the arrogant and misleading Trump folks, this really makes me sad. The Boyd folks are from top to bottom nice, helpful and humble people and I've been excited to see what they come up with over there.

BREAKING: Frontier Implosion planned for Nov. 13

I interviewed Steve Wynn last week for a few of my publications. But this piece of news has no such home and could be scooped soon, so I blog it. The owners of the property stay across the street at Wynn Las Vegas when they're in town, and they tell him stuff. And Wynn volunteered to me that the implosion will be October 13.

I'm glad I checked around, though. Wynn is slightly mistaken. I can now tell you without hesitation that Wynn was off by a month. The Frontier is scheduled to disappear on November 13, not October 13.

Aside from the unimpeachable nature of the sources who clarified the date for me, there are other reasons why Nov. 13 rings true. For one, Oct. 13 is a Saturday, and there's no way Clark County would allow that. But Nov. 13 is a Tuesday, the same day of the week as the Stardust implosion. And I remember when working on the Stardust implosion that county officials had said they demand implosions take place early Tuesday mornings because that's the lightest traffic time of the whole week on the Strip.

No word yet whether the implosion will be turned into a spectacle, although Phil Grucci, the owner of the fireworks company that handles all the big shows, has been contacted and discussions are underway. Grucci, for the record, is among the sources who confirmed the date for me and said he had not heard of a specific date as yet.

Chips Ahoy!

(Note: Click on all pix to make them bigger.)

I wrote this piece for Sunday's Chicago Tribune on the big chip collectors confab in Vegas, which was terrific fun to cover. I went in thinking, "These people are gonna be nuts" and I left totally getting it. In fact, I'm going to edit down a charming interview I did with a couple of these folks and put it out on "The Strip" podcast feed as an extra. Here are some pix of the intriguing non-chip stuff people brought to show, trade and sell.



I also, of course, bought a little something. OK, two things. The first is this fantastic music box (pictured below) from the 1991 opening of the Stardust tower. It even plays "Stardust."

I grabbed it for my mom, who collects music boxes, but I think I may keep it. The amazing part was that the seller had wanted to sell it for $25 and started a silent auction with bidding beginning at $5. It was too silent. When I came along his deadline had passed and he let me have it for $5!!!


My other treasure was a June 1955 Life Magazine that is constantly referenced whenever people ask if Vegas is hitting its outer limits of growth. The main art is of a Moulin Rouge showgirl but in the upper right corner of the cover was the headline "Las Vegas - Is Boom Overextended?" That was 52 years ago. The guy had five of them, each going for $25. I bought three, including one for the LVRocks.Com studio and one for an as-yet-determined friend or professional contact. I'll sit down to read the stories later and let you know what I uncover.

TheStripPodcast's Video Debut

Please, please be kind. Mark and I took some fancy equipment out to the Stardust on March 13 for the demolition and finally, we're ready to show you the "show" we did. It includes implosion footage we already put on YouTube as well as an interview with Bob Boughner, CEO of Echelon, the $4 billion project that will replace the hotel.

Please remember I'm not a TV person. The TV person in the family was at home in bed because it was the middle of the night. But he did dress me, awfully sportily in fact, and we produced this 12-minute show. You can click here to see it or subscribe to our show through iTunes by clicking here.

Whatever you do, definitely stick around for the ending when Mark and I are in his car. Very, very Blair Witch Project.

Don't know how many of these videos we're going to do, but this was fun to make even if it's full-on amateur stuff.

New Podcast Posted: Nicholas Pileggi

My New York Times interview with Nicholas Pileggi, from which I used just two sentences in my Tuesday story on the Stardust implosion, was aired in full tonight on the show, with a few interesting revelations including that he plans to write a book about former Clark County Sheriff Floyd Lamb.

Hear the new show here!

Also, vote in the new poll or answer the trivia question to win fabulous prizes! Or learn how German listener Thomas W suggests doing Vegas on $100 a day. It's all here.

The Stardust and 9/11 - a connection???

Oh, dear. I have been proved wrong. In my interview with Stardust imploder Mark Loizeaux aired on a special edition of "The Strip" earlier this week, he made reference to being constantly accused of being part of a gov't conspiracy, that he frequently gets attacked as the agent of the gov't who brought down the World Trade Center and Murrah federal building in OK City.

I didn't quite believe him. Seemed far-fetched. And then some nutjob left this comment as a response to my Stardust piece and photo-video package that was posted on Wired News late yesterday:

Now this was an obvious controlled demolition. I've seen this on the news at a different angle where the lighting was better but still in this video you can see at the bottom left side of the building blowouts or "Squibs" from taking out the building's colums from inside. This is what needs to happen so that structure can collapse. Does this remind anyone of anything? Perhaps ummm The WTC twin towers 1 and 2? If you don't believe me there is plenty of video footage of these blowouts or the technical term, "squibs" from both Towers when they were collapsing as well. Don't think I'm just making this up, see for yourself. Go find the Network footage on the internet with these things in there. -- Ed

I'm not even sure how to respond. I invite you to do so.

Catching up...

The Stardust thing took a massive bite out of me, but I've rested up and finished a pretty cool piece for a lawyer magazine on Bob Faiss, the father of Nevada gaming law. He's really an interesting and super-nice guy -- and the inspiration for this week's trivia question at TheStripPodcast.Com -- and what I love most is that he lives in Boulder City. You know, the only city in Nevada where gambling is illegal.

Anyhow, those who listen to "The Strip" know I have a love-hate relationship with the Review-Journal. I worked there for three years in the 1990s, which was the happiest time in my career as a full-time employee. And many of the reporters there are friends and they do the best they can with the limited vision and resources they are provided.

BUT... the features section is a disgrace. They seem to try their level best to bore the crap out of everyone, with some minor exceptions, which must be a challenge in a city like, uh, VEGAS. Entertainment scribe Mike Weatherford is excellent and unmissable and Corey Levitan's schtick as a stooge working odd jobs is wearing thin but I admire his pluck and I'm delighted the R-J is doing ANYTHING multimedia since I'm told the editors nixed the idea of political reporters doing blogs.

Still, I was reminded AGAIN how silly the section is by this bizarre piece by John Pryzbys (who shares my birthday, so he can't be all bad) from Monday's paper about SHARING A FRIDGE AT WORK. Can you imagine the incident at the R-J that spawned this brilliant idea?

The other baffling thing is a recent Sunday addition called "Strip Tips" in which they give away such important Vegas tourist secrets as, uh, that there's some little water show in front of the Bellagio. No, really. I can't find the link right now, but, wow.

Our Stardust Video

Here's the first version of our Stardust footage. We'll have a full-fledged version with an interview with the Echelon CEO later today in the podcast feed. Thanks to the brilliant Mark Vavrick for capturing this for us!

Bye, Cough, Bye

Wow. So the thing comes down faster than I can even watch it and the next thing you know, we're in post-9/11 NYC without all the death and destruction. Everyone is getting caked with debris, the fireworks show is canceled due to everyone trying to get the hell out of the way. Somehow, through all that, the Wynn sign still glowed.

Here's my New York Times piece on the event and, below, my favorite pic:



Among the oddest parts of the thing was the Boyd grandsons pushing the lever. Aside from the fact that none of these kids look alike (see below), there was a granddaughter in the crowd. She was only acknowledged because Bill Boyd's remarks turned out to be about five minutes too short. Odd, no?

More to come, including video. The full photo gallery is up so go check it out.

Is the Sahara next?

I just posted a new, special edition of The Strip, a brief interview with Controlled Demolition Inc owner Mark Loizeaux, who also knocked down everything from the Dunes in 1993 to the Wynn parking garage last week.

He has some interesting comments about what's next and what he's been asked to assess.

Listen to it HERE.

Funny, because the voting on TheStripPodcast.Com poll this week so far indicates most folks think the Frontier's next to go. He doesn't even mention it, I don 't think.

Stay tuned for Stardust implosion video.

Exclusive: See the fireworks plans for Stardust Implosion

Check it out -- the actual PDF document of the plans for the fireworks and light show at the Stardust-turned-Echelon Place site!

It's here.

What do you think of what you see?

Exclusive pre-implosion Stardust pix

OK... let's get this blog started off right - with an EXCLUSIVE.

Yesterday I got to tour the carcass of the Stardust in advance of the impending implosion slated for sometime in the next few days. I've posted loads of pictures here for all to see. And yes, I got a souvenir - two pieces of glass shards, one orange and one blue. Plus, I learned that the foundations of Strip hotels are sprinkled with poker chips when they're wet during construction -- for luck. When they buildings come down, the demolition team always finds that.

Also...if you really really want to know when it'll be, there's a clue in some of the pictures.

This is my favorite one...