Okay, it's not quite summer yet (in fact, it's so cold and rainy tonight I'm thinking about hot cocoa) but here's something to set the mood -- an amazing set of postcards of oldschool Vegas pools. I'm always amazed at just how different Vegas looked in the early years. And it's not just all the empty space and desert you can see around the edges of the Strip. Everything looks like a motel! It's all so low rise. Too bad they didn't turn up any cards of the Algiers and their kidney-shaped pool. I shall forever regret not getting any decent photos of the Algiers when we stayed there.

It might be ridiculous (okay, it almost definitely is) but I could kinda identify with this heartfelt ode to a favorite slot machine. The upside of only going to Vegas (or anywhere, for that matter) every couple of years is that there's always something new to see when you go. The corollary/downside to that is that while there's plenty of new there's plenty of stuff that disappears or gets pushed aside to make room for that new stuff. Buildings that get torn down or restaurants that close and stuff like that are the obvious changes. But a lot of what makes some place fun are the little idiosyncratic things that maybe hover around the edge of the frame. And in Vegas, for me at least, one of those things is slots. I try not to get too attached to ephemeral cultural objects but I still look for, and generally don't find a few faves. Like the Sinatra slots they used to have at Bellagio, the French bakery at Paris, and (of course) Chainsaws & Toasters.

Las Vegas, 6/20/06

Encore, the next phase of the Wynn in Las Vegas, is getting ready to open on Sunday, And apparently Steve Wynn was not too crazy about having the broken down New Frontier sign still standing right across the street. So he's paying to have it taken down. The casino's been imploded and torn down. It was already an empty lot when we were there back in February. It's supposed to be the future home of the Plaza (owned by the same folks who own the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan) but no ground has been broken yet. When we were at the Neon Boneyard, our guide said that they probably weren't going to get the Frontier sign because the company was planning on keeping it. Sounds like now they're trying to get involved and salvage some of it. My understanding was that they have little budget to pay for any signs so they mostly have to depend on owner donations. And even though the New Frontier was (as I've mentioned once or twice previously) a wretched hive of scum and villainy, the sign was something of an old school Vegas classic so I hope they're able to save at least some of it.

So this is a very cool thing. Virtual Sands being created by students at UNLV and Politecnico di Torino. Awesome. Although I must admit that when I was looking at the slideshow with that article my first thought was that the virtual Sands should be in black and white. Doh! Once I got my beain into a more Ocean's Eleven kinda headspace I was able to work better with the concept. I want a virtual Copa room with 3 shows at 10, midnight and 2. Altho, unlike the UNLV prof, I don't think anyone needs to spend time coding up a virtual New Frontier experience. That we can safely lose to the sands of time.

That's enough crisp bacon!

Check this out -- the Sands from 1991. According to Vegas Tripping this is part of a set of slides taken in Vegas in the early 90s. Which, as I've mentioned too many times I'm sure, is right around when I first went to Vegas. It's quite striking to see just how much has changed since then. There's lots more amazing shots in the photostream

Attention, design geeks. Do check out this nifty little piece from Vegas Tripping on changes in Vegas casino logos. I don't share their animosity towards the top hat & cane on the old Monte Carlo logo. But they definitely nailed the hot mess that is the new NY, NY logo. One thing I noticed just now looking at the article is that, in the earlier version of the Mirage script logo (the one with the palm trees), the loop of the "g" encircles the "g" in Las Vegas but in the most recent version of the logo, the loop now captures the "e" and the "g" and I wonder how many hours they spent deciding on that. I also think it's interesting that there's so little in common among the casinos with mostly unchanging logos: Flamingo, Circus Circus, and Bellagio.

I've been meaning to mention this for a couple of days. If you're at all interested in Las Vegas you need to go check out the amazing Vegas history site that the LV Sun has up. Photos, video, timelines, audio... Just about the coolest thing I've seen online lately.

Canes, WTF? UCLA, WTF?? Tarheels, WTF??? ANTM, WTF??!!??

So, big ups to Spacegrrl for giving me something to ponder over besides the befuddling worlds of sports and reality TV. Friends of hers discovered some interesting history about their house. There is plenty of info about Major Riddle around on the interwebs. His lasting contribution to Vegas culture appears to have been the introduction of topless showgirls while he was running the Dunes. He also started several other casinos after moving on from the Dunes in the 60s, including the Silver Nugget. Coincidentally, we saw bits of old signage from both the Dunes and the Silver Nugget during our tour of the Neon Boneyard. I found a pic in one of my books (Fabulous Las Vegas in the 50s) that showed Sinatra and a couple of un-named guys at the Dunes opening. Further online digging, tho, indicates that neither of these was the elusive Major Riddle (One was Jack Entratter, owner of the Sands, who Sinatra's always joking about in his monologues). I did eventually find a site w/ some good info on the early years of the Dunes. I'm not linking it, however, cos it's a hot mess. Built to work in IE4 and only IE4 apparently. Won't even load the subpages in Firefox and when viewed in Exploder 5.whatever, has the photos dropped all over the page, usually obscuring the text. But, there were two pics of Major Riddle. One of him and his wife and the other of him and Virginia Hill. As in the notorious girlfriend of Bugsy Siegel. I'm sure it's too much to expect that Hill was the flashy dame who showed up in the Caddy w/ Major Riddle. Given the number of hot & cold running showgirls he would've been surrounded by, the possibilities are many.

On the left from 2004. On the right from 2008. Yes, it's the late and not-lamented New Frontier.