Hollywood discovered Las Vegas. Maybe celebrities had always been a part of the Las Vegas landscape, but not the most popular ones. Nightclubs began to open all over town, turning the Strip into one giant "Studio 54". For some reason, any nightclub with more than one word in its name was unacceptable. Perhaps it was because clubs were opening so quickly that there just wasn't time to build a sign with a second word in the name. Light, Pure, Rain, and Blush replaced the once hip Bachannal Room. Paris Hilton and Britney Spears replaced Steve and Eydie Gorme and were routinely paid six figure fees just to show up and draw publicity for an evening.
Private jets crowded the airport runways, room rates skyrocketed, and twenty dollar bottles of liquor were sold for two hundred. Suddenly, the Strip was no longer a place where anyone could afford to escape the daily grind. The middle class was no longer welcome, or at least that's the way it felt to me. Everything became at once grander than ever, but completely off limits to those of us who work for a living. We were left standing on the sidewalks gazing at the fountains unable to afford to go inside.
The same thing happened to the suburban scenery. Developers blasted away more and more of the hillsides to build mansions. The cost of housing had become unattainable. Safeway was replaced by Whole Foods. And people whose idea of "off-road" was the driveway, suddenly began to consider driving an Escalade or a Hummer as a necessity.
Paul and I began to feel like Las Vegas had become exactly the thing that we had moved there to escape. Traffic was miserable. Prices were astronomical. Life had become an uphill battle and it was clear to us that the house of cards that built Las Vegas was about to fall. We sold our house and after two years of soul searching have relocated to Denver.
On a recent visit to Las Vegas, I found myself sitting beside an older woman who like us, had become a regular fixture at the casino bar we used to frequent. I asked her how she was doing and the look on her face was devastating. Her husband, a project manager for the biggest hotel developer in town, was soon to be out of work. The value of their house had plummeted to its lowest level in ten years. Their 401k had been nearly wiped out. Tears began to well up in her eyes and she said, "We're sixty six years old and we've lost everything. We'll never be able to retire." I was overcome by sadness, not only for my bar acquaintance, but also because the city that won my heart had come apart at the seams.The city had done to its citizens what it had once reserved only for its visitors. It had fooled them into believing that fantasy was reality and it took their money while they were too busy staring at the lights.
Mark my words, one day soon Las Vegas will be back. It will completely reinvent itself, perhaps once again into a destination where the common man can be treated like a king. I look forward to returning to the city that I love, to gaze at it's blinding lights and feel it's electricity coursing through me while simultaneously being soothed by it's warm desert breezes.
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Great coverage on the transition of LV. I too was surprised by the end of the fantasy when upon my last trip to Vegas I sat down the one of the main bars in the Bellagio to play and ordered my favorite (expensive) beverage. I was totally shocked while playing happily to be brought a bill for $8.00! Turn out the lights, the party's over.
Las Vegas will return to its roots and founding. And once again the crowds who built it will become a force to be reckoned with. And there will be a b... for every seat.
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