Las Vegas… General information about the City
Las Vegas
Las Vegas: Bound by the Taming of the Shrew
The city of temptation, kitschy aesthetics and illuminated grandeur enters the difficult year of the economic crisis with audacity and foresight. A truly curious… It is said that the city of Sin City flourishes in times of economic crisis. And they’re absolutely right. Since the Great Depression of the 1930s, when it experienced its first major tourist boom, Las Vegas has been a haven for a society seeking pot, spectacle and heavy doses of gambling. Today, as the economic crisis returns to the US and the entire planet, the city is rebuilding itself to welcome millions of new visitors. You can feel it as you approach the city at night, either by plane or driving across the desert. You get the sense that you can hear the electricity that keeps the billions of lights on. Five gigawatts of electricity – as much as the whole of Greece needs for at least a month – are consumed every day.
When you reach the famous Strip, the part of Las Vegas where the giant hotels are crowded, you enter a world of virtual reality. The city greets you with the now legendary “Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, built in 1959. Thousands of people gather from time to time in front of the hotels to watch some Hollywood-inspired spectacle of light, fire and water. Your brain is forced to redefine what is beautiful and what is kitsch, what is big and what is colossal, what is useful and what is a waste. The major attractions are usually the hotels themselves (in fact, 17 of the largest hotels in the US are concentrated in the city). In and around them you’ll see the gondoliers next to the Venetia, take in the Eiffel Tower, the Giza pyramids, the sphinx and the huge pirate ships parked on a sidewalk. Similar pharaonic structures have dominated the city since its earliest days. Especially since 1931, when gambling was legalised, turning the city into a new gamblers’ Eldorado. Coupled with the construction of the famous Hoover Dam on the Colorado River (which is still a tourist attraction for thousands of visitors today) Las Vegas saw its population grow, in a matter of months, from 5,000 to 25,000.
Since then, the city has done everything in its power to keep the hordes of tourists arriving from every corner of the globe. In the early years of the Cold War, local businessmen even managed to take advantage of the nuclear tests that were taking place relatively close by in the Nevada desert. Tourists would climb up to the hotel’s rooftop gardens to enjoy not only their cocktails, the nuclear mushroom, but also the vibrations that each explosion caused in the buildings. It was during this period that Las Vegas’ “old town” also saw the creation of the famous Vegas Vic, the legendary cowboy form that is still today the largest moving neon structure in the world. Today, the city can keep tourists of all ages busy, even if they have no intention of trying their luck at the slot machines and casino roulette machines. And the growth never stops. Over the next few years, some $40 billion is expected to be spent on hotel construction and renovation. The legendary MGM Mirage hotel alone was expected to spend $7.8 billion on its renovation.
At the same time, however, the largest hotel chains are also offering exceptional deals in order to maintain the occupancy levels of the past. After all, Las Vegas has always been a city of offers, as casino owners were willing to offer guests anything they needed to keep them in front of a slot machine for a few more hours. The special lighting and temperature conditions inside the hotel and casino rooms ensure that you will quickly lose track of time and space. The new Vegas trends, however, are not only about a shift towards luxury or promotions, but also about a total surrender to a modern empire of the senses. Las Vegas was already famous in the late 1930s for its legal brothels. But the interwar tradition was abruptly interrupted in 1942, when Nellis Air Force Base was moved to the area. The US Pentagon used its influence to ban prostitution, ending the legendary days of the so-called Block 16 – the city’s red neighborhood.This is not to say that as a city Las Vegas is not experiencing the effects of the crisis. As the income of American and foreign tourists shrinks, the tips and the amount of money wagered daily on the goddess of luck fall with it. This has the practical consequence that the city’s tourism industry is readjusting. It is widening the gap to accommodate both much poorer and much richer visitors at the same time. The latter will continue to spend up to $40,000 a night in the Hugh Hefner suite at the Palms Hotel, as Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton did previously. Those same people will occupy 3,000-thousand-square-foot rooms with views of the entire city and private bowling alleys and small indoor pools. It’s for these people that some of the world’s greatest chefs are rushing to Vegas, like Ubert Keller, who makes his own Kobe Hamburger with truffle and foie gras for $5,000 a plate. And when guests finish their dinner they can pop over to Tryst’s “bar” in the Wynn hotel complex and enjoy a bottle of Menage a Trois for $3,000.
However, the same city can at the same time even accommodate families with young children who will never know what’s going on a few blocks away. In any case, Las Vegas remains a mass tourism industry – an entertainment supermarket in which you can only buy the product you want, not caring about the rest. As long as you’re willing to wait in line, as do the 40 million tourists who arrive in the city every year. The sight of visitors being served by the hundreds at hotel reception desks, casinos and restaurants is more reminiscent of the production lines you would find in factories at the beginning of the last century. A peculiar Taylorism governs every movement of the visitor. Thousands of people bet intensively on the vast expanses of slot machines. They methodically park their cars in the high-rise hotel car parks. They gather reverently to watch the naval battle re-enactment outside the Treasure Island Hotel or the spectacular fountains at the Bellagio and Caesars. The pilgrimage to Moloch the Phantasmagoria continues at the man-made Mirage volcano that erupts every hour after sunset. And these are just the free attractions the city offers to its thousands of visitors. For a fee, visitors can fly over the city in a helicopter or wander through the Adventuredome, home to the largest theme park in the US. The more adventurous can drive a Formula 3 car around the Las Vegas Motor Speedway or hang upside down from the top of the Stratosphere Hotel, the tallest hotel-observatory in America that oversees the entire city.
Sin City is as alive as ever.
TRANSITION AND… COST
Airfare prices start at $1,000 with airlines like Delta and Lufthansa. Several visitors, however, prefer to combine the trip with a trip to Los Angeles (with tickets starting at $800) and from there rent a car to Las Vegas, which costs $30-$50 per day. By booking a hotel early on the Internet, you can get real deals for less than $60 a night. The Las Vegas airport cost of food can range from embarrassingly low, if you look for casino deals, to unaffordably expensive for upscale hotel restaurants. A leisurely day in the city, however, will cost no more than the equivalent day in Athens – provided you don’t throw your fortune away on a roulette wheel.
ACTIVITIES
OUT OF TOWNMost of the free attractions are located on the main boulevard (The Strip), where the heart of modern Las Vegas beats. A huge amusement park where you’ll find the Mirage volcanic eruption, Bellagio’s fountains, Treasure Island’s iconic naval battle, Venetia’s gondolas and every other extravaganza the city has to offer. Confirm the exact times of each activity at www.lasvegas.com
Wedding a la americain
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, the old saying goes. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. So do the mental thing and crown the girl in Sin City for $60 to $3,000. All it takes is an application to the Marriage License Bureau (+1 7024554415). You can take vows of eternal fidelity inside a replica of the USS Enterprise spaceship at the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel or have “King Elvis” marry you at the Little White Wedding Chapel (1 7023825943 wwwlittlewhitechapel.com). The ultimate American.
The Neon Museum
East end of Fremont Street Experience Las Vegas, NV, www.neonmuseum.org
Meet what Las Vegas residents know best how to produce. The night light.
Fremont Street Experience
425 Fremont St. NV 89101
The “old town” of Las Vegas, here where it all began nearly seven decades ago, is managing to attract visitors again. For six minutes, 12.5 million light bulbs illuminate the dome of the city’s main pedestrian mall.
The same covered walkways are home to some of the city’s oldest casinos, as well as some of the neon signs that have been the city’s trademark for several decades.
The Hoover Dam is considered one of the area’s major attractions, and the surrounding area with Lake Mead pleasantly disturbs the arid landscape. For larger doses of desert, head north of the lake to Valley of Fire State Park with its “psychedelic” dunes and curious wind-induced rock formations.
TRANSPORTATION
Car rental is essential if you want to see anything off the main strip. Another to move around Las vegas is by the las vegas airport taxi. You can park for free in almost all hotel parking lots. Each time, write down the name of the parking lot and the code of the floor where you left it if you don’t want to have to search for it for the next few months. Along the strip you can also get around on the overground railroad that starts at the Sahara Hotel and ends at the MGM Grand.
Little tips
In Las Vegas casinos, everyone will try to get you to gamble. Even the buildings are constructed in such a way that to find the exit you have to go through the games first. Strengthen your resistance if you don’t have money and time to spare! The cheapest time to visit the city is July and August. However, the neighbouring desert makes the thermometer rise above 40 degrees Celsius. Of course, consider that you’ll essentially be living inside air-conditioned hotels. If you visit the city with your significant other and decide you want to spend the rest of your life together, head to the Clark County Marriage License Bureau. If you’re both over 18, have your IDs/passports on you, in a few minutes you’ll be officially united in the eyes of God and the Las Vegas marriage industry officials.
On the other hand, though lit up entirely by neon signs, don’t expect to see a “kitschy” city. Of course there are nostalgics for the 50s and, yes, in some hotels the music program is kept by Elvis lookalikes, but the casino operators know exactly what they are doing! Venues are constantly being updated, modernised and improved. The 37 million visitors who arrive in the city each year may no longer come exclusively by road as they used to, but Las Vegas remains the artificial paradise on the edge of the desert, just as it was in the 1950s!