Vegas Days Gone By: Bill's/Barbary Coast

Speaking of Bill's Gambling Hall, which we mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm going to miss this Victorian-themed casino that sat on the corner of Flamingo and Las Vegas Boulevard, currently being overhauled as part of the Linq project. Formerly the Barbary Coast, it was all stained glass and chandeliers red velvet drapes. They had low table minimums for blackjack, too. But what I'll miss most was the drive down from the parking garage: a steep spiral descent that was the best thrill ride in town.

Vegas Days Gone By: The Western

On our last visit to the El Cortez, I looked out over the balcony and said, "Hey, look, it's a casino I haven't visited yet. How did I overlook it all these years?" But it was something of a mirage. (Just not, you know, The Mirage.) The "BINGO" sign for the Western Hotel and Casino keeps flashing 24 hours, as does a portion of the "Cocktails" sign, but like the "Girls! Girls!" sign that lights up outside the late lamented Library on Boulder Highway, it's deceptive. A sign behind the chain-link fence informs us the Western, owned by the same group as the Plaza and the LVC downtown, has been closed, apparently for a while now.

Vegas Days Gone By: The Sahara

I have a deep and compelling interest in abandoned casinos, but one whose loss hit me especially hard is the Sahara, an institution on the northern end of the Strip that closed its doors a few years ago. For starters, it was one of the grand casinos from Vegas's Gilded Age, alongside legendary names like the Sands, the Dunes, and the Desert Inn, frequented by the likes of Elvis and the Beatles, Marilyn and the Rat Pack.  For another thing, I went there many times over the years and, even if the carpeting was a little threadbare, I loved its vaguely delapidated charms. The circular driveway with its minarets was a Moorish marvel. I vividly recall one of our local friends dropping us off there early one morning and watching a casino as its day started, having pastries in the coffee shop and watching other folks have their breakfast, read their paper, or take their morning constitutional around the palm-lined pool area.

It was a fun place, where you could play real $1 blackjack, and play a bonus bet that spun a wheel whenever you hit a blackjack to find out how much you would win, up to fifty bucks! You could scan your player's card and win something, like a free buffet. I walked in once and checked out their lounge, where a rocking band with a fiery redhead singer was running through "Break Out," and she waved me in to join them.  The daughter of Louis Prima and Keely Smith played there, too.

It's being rebuilt as the SLS Casino, which didn't implode or demolish the structure but gutted it and is remodeling it, and adding what look like gigantic glass-and-steel hotel towers, emulating the likes of the Cosmopolitcan and City Center no doubt. While I'm always glad to have a new player's club to join and (hopefully) get some free stuff, I miss you, Sahara. The Strip will never be the same, but then, it never is.

In the Neon Boneyard with the Electrical Dead

You've seen it in movies a million times: that big lot out in the desert where all the old neon signs from the abandoned and demolished casinos go to die. In the last year, the Neon Boneyard Park on N. Las Vegas Boulevard, just north of Downtown, has finally been opened to the public. We decided to check it out on a recent visit, and as luck would have it, while we were inquiring about ticket prices, one of the swell folk at Zappos.com walked up to us and said, "Hey, our group had a couple of extra tickets. Want 'em?" Bless the good folk at Zappos.com; we will hear from them again.

Even the vistor center is recycled: It was salvaged from the La Concha Hotel, an Atomic Age design by noted architect Paul Revere Williams. Nice selection of Vegas-themed books in the gift shop, too.

Our docent Denice with the first neon sign in Downtown Las Vegas, for the Golden Nugget.

Lettering from the Moulin Rouge, the first integrated club in Vegas, which flourished briefly in 1955 until annoyed mobsters forced its closure to forestall competition. Designer Betty Willis studied old French manuscripts to come up with the perfect font. (You might recognize another of her designs: the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign.)

The original sign for Binion's Horseshoe, one-time home of the World Series of Poker.

There's statuary, too, like this finely detailed vintage pool player, down to the fingernails and mullet.

Once the coolest thing on the Strip, this fearsome skull-and-crossbones adorned the sign at Treasure Island, until its owners foolishly revamped it into TI and replaced it with yet another generic Jumbotron. Now it spends eternity on its back silently screaming at the sky: "WHY?!?!"

Space Age sign for the Stardust, which for a while was accompanied by a giant mushroom cloud.

Finally, an especially sad one for me: the sorely missed Sahara. We may go back sometime to visit it at night; the tickets only cost a couple dollars more...but the signs light up.