Since Nevada Gov. Fred Balzar legalized gambling and loosened divorce laws in 1931, Las Vegas has matured (regressed?) into one of the oddest, most lascivious cities in the world.
Its name is Spanish for “the meadows,” but it is a concrete-and-neon oasis in the middle of the Mojave Desert. The city is loved or loathed, or both. Its population – 64,000 in 1960 and 1.5 million now – makes it the fastest-growing metropolitan area in America for 10 years running, with 5,000 more people moving in each month.
But most people walking the Strip in the year-round heat, traversing the complicated series of escalators and dodging the smut-peddlers, aren’t locals. The city’s massive and incredibly coordinated tourist flush is unparalleled.
More than 37 million people vacation in Vegas annually, creating more than $32 billion in yearly revenues in its restaurants, casinos, theaters and 135,000 hotel rooms – many of which can be found in the Strip’s many gigantiplex hotels, eight of which are among the world’s 10 largest.
Funding all that excess is Las Vegas’ No. 1 industry: gaming. From the stale, depressing $1 blackjack tables at Slots-A-Fun to the lush, velvety high-stakes rooms at the Venetian, this is gambling’s world headquarters, the home to a multibillion-dollar industry of chance and poor odds – something that presents a problem for those of us who don’t gamble.
Or does it?
The revolutionary axis upon which Vegas was built was prepared for the nongambler, people who, like this writer, can count their times at a table or machine on a single hand. Man cannot live on gambling alone, and so Vegas sprouted theaters and brought in topless revues. It lured high-profile chefs from New York and San Francisco, and the city’s bold names used their immense buying power and undeniable celebrity to acquire art collections that rival even some galleries in the world’s most intense art centers.
Las Vegas also has grown into the role as a world destination for shopping, nightlife and theater. Many East Coasters now bypass Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive in favor of The Forum Shops at Caesar’s.
While Vegas nightclubs a decade ago were splashy, extravagant fun, only recently have they grown into world-class institutions.
Theater, meanwhile, has exploded with a Vesuvius-like fervor. You can see the ironic, whip-smart Tony-winning puppet musical “Avenue Q” only in New York and London – and Las Vegas at the new Wynn (its run ends May 28). The only permanent productions of “Hairspray” are in New York and Las Vegas, at the Luxor.
An abbreviated, 90-minute version of “Phantom of the Opera,” the most successful show in the history of Broadway, will open at its own theater in the Venetian this spring, and “Spamalot” (the musical version of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”) will open at the Wynn in the next few years. The rumor mill has “The Producers,” winner of more Tony Awards than any other show, opening at Paris in coming years.
And that’s not even addressing the goliath wonderment of Cirque du Soleil, a French-Canadian artistic property so fiercely dazzling it will have five full-blown shows running in Vegas by the end of 2006.
Las Vegas is Disneyland for adults. And even without spending your mornings on the nickel-slots, your afternoons with the video poker bar insets and your evenings at the tables, it’s still a city with enough density to entertain you for a solid three- or four-day weekend. (Although we have a hard time recommending Vegas for any longer than four days, even if you do gamble.)
Funny, “destiny” isn’t a word often legitimately paired to Las Vegas. It’s the single-most superficial spot in the U.S. – even more so than L.A., because it maintains a higher percentage of falsities – and that makes for a beautiful dichotomy of juxtapositions, which shine brighter than the MGM Grand at midnight.
This shallow yet sometimes- substantive playground is absolutely unique, absolutely American, and for this, we love it.
Staff writer Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
