Beyond the bright lights, Vegas shines
To make the time travel complete, we ended the night at Vickie’s Diner. It is open 24 hours a day and outfitted in bright pink and chrome. The burgers drip with grease and the old man stationed at the grill engages in the kind of idle chatter that has been endangered since the invention of the smartphone.
Having found one wormhole to a seemingly golden point in Vegas’ past, I started seeing even more as I ventured further from the casinos. I went to Atomic Liquors and Dino’s — twice each. At the beautifully arranged Neon Museum, I toured the “boneyard,” filled with neon signs from the city’s past, each with a story of its own.
Some of those artifacts carry a dark history — like the sign for the Chief Hotel Court, topped with the lit-up profile of a stereotypical Native American in a Hollywood war bonnet that had absolutely no relationship to the actual Native Americans who lived on a reservation mere miles away from where it stood. Other signs exemplify the city’s spirit of boldness and revolution, like the Martini glass marking Red Barn, the first openly gay bar in the city or the space age sign for La Concha, a hotel designed by Paul Williams, the well-known black architect who, the story has it, learned to sketch and write upside down because white clients wouldn’t want to sit next to him in meetings. All these stories were told to me by a guide who channelled the same nostalgic pride I had witnessed in Paradise Palms.
I spent a rainy afternoon inside the Pinball Hall of Fame, a 10,000-square-foot warehouse packed with playable pinball machines dating back to the 1950s. It is a non-profit institution run by volunteers. There were tourists there too, but the vast majority of visitors seemed to be local families, the children running from machine to machine with their allotted bag of quarters to battle it out on games as old as their parents.
That is not to say that everything old in Las Vegas is great and everything new is boring. I was impressed by the rapidly expanding Arts District, with its galleries and burgeoning cocktail scene. I also toured the Palms Casino Resort, a once tired establishment just off the strip that is in the final stages of the most expensive renovation in Vegas’ history. I had been put off by some of Vegas’ in-yourface glam, but it is hard not to be excited when walking through a hotel you encounter Warhol, Basquiat, Murakami and more Damien Hirst than you would find at most contemporary art galleries. (The Palms also has a collection of massive suites with amenities that include a bowling alley and a basketball court.)
Then there are the shows, with residencies playing a huge role in shaping the culture of the Strip. It is not just nostalgia acts like Céline Dion or Blink 182 (millennials can be nostalgic, too). Lady Gaga has a residency at the Park MGM. Cardi Bis heading to KAOS, the newly built club at Palms Casino Resort, this spring. Both are new spins on an age-old Vegas tradition dating back to Liberace.
I was not around for Cardi or Gaga, but in an attempt to do something really Vegas, I did attend a burlesque show put on by X Burlesque at the Flamingo Hotel, where I was the only man by himself in a room of couples and groups, on Valentine’s Day might I add. Not comfortable. But it was also an example of the way the city is innovating. The show has all the elements of traditional burlesque — the red-curtained theatre, the standup comic interlude, the overt sexiness — but the soundtrack is hip-hop, heavy metal and country, and the dancers were just as comfortable hanging upside down on a pole as they were doing the can can.
The best drink I had in Vegas was at the Laundry Room, a hidden speakeasy tucked into the back of an expansive bar called Commonwealth in Downtown Las Vegas. Reservations are by text message only, there are no photos or phone calls allowed once you are in, and guests are reminded that this is a “speak easy,” so “use your inside voices.” The bartender took my order by asking for flavours I liked — no specific spirit requests or drink comparisons allowed. “Smoke, pickles and chili peppers,” I said. The drink tasted like all those things and more. My evening disappeared into hushed conversation in the small, Prohibition-style space, filled with dark leather, ornate accents and gold-tasseled table cloths.
Is this really what Vegas 70 years ago felt like? Probably not. All the recreations and interpretations seem a little too clean, too consistent. In a city whose raison d'être has for decades been to create monumental experiences for tourists, performance is a habit that is hard to break. But the effort behind it feels genuine. When you look past the artifice and give yourself over to the experience, it is a lot of fun. And, in the end, isn’t that the point of Las Vegas?