Lucky as I was to see a lot of the late 70s Vegas before much of it made way for the 80s I can't say I've eagerly awaited the "upscale" millennial changes. My uncle from the UK came last summer and was disappointed. "What was different?", thinking that he would've come back impressed. "All the neon is gone. It's dark"
It took me back when they visited back in '79. My memory is not that sharp that far back. But I remember the million miles of neon tubing that stretched from one end to the other. The Tropicana was the southern end if I remember correctly, then going north, the Flamingo, Desert Inn, and the Sands. The Sands impressed me the most because it looked the cleanliest...and it was a reference point for many tv shows. That is, until Caesar's opened and became the focal point.
El Rancho and Circus Circus were mainstays for so long. As was the Stardust, Riviera and the Frontier. I can't go that far back, but the interesting thing about hotels of the late 50s until the changes in the 80s had pools open to the street - hell, everything was more open. The hotel rooms opened out into miles of desert in all directions.
Interesting again to see what I saw last week: for the first time in decades, I felt I could breathe in Vegas. It was fairly empty. Only the major hot spots had people - but there were a few times it was me and a buddy strolling through, with only bored card dealers staring off in the distance. It wasn't a bad thing...at least for me.
I can imagine early Vegas, with its smaller venues, open air parking, etc as being more of an intimate experience. Now it feels like a series of malls. I'm not knocking Vegas: I have never failed to have a modicum of fun no matter what the visit. Now the town's gotten bigger with it's City project. They're trying to compete with Dubai and, without cash, it simply can't support it.
A simple barometer for the economy is Vegas, and the massive underpinnings are showing stress.
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