Las Vegas Then and Now: Revised Fifth Edition (Then and Now)

Las Vegas Then and Now: Revised Fifth Edition (Then and Now)
Author: Su Kim Chung
Publisher: Then and Now
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-11-22
Genre:
ISBN: 9781911682813

Las Vegas Then and Now pairs vintage shots from 100 years of the city's history with the same view today. 'Las Vegas Then and Now' captures the city's evolution from a desert railroad outpost into the gambling and entertainment capital of the world. Pairing historical photographs of the town with specially commissioned views of the same scene today, this book provides the reader with an intriguing look into the history of a city that has become a cultural icon. Historic Fremont Street, which has recently undergone a multi-million dollar renewal programme, presents the most vivid contrast between the dusty desert town of the 1920s and the pulsating entertainment city we know today. Las Vegas is ever changing - the popular Mermaids and Vegas Vicky on Fremont are gone, but further down the Strip, the High-Roller has arrived, one of the world's tallest observation wheels befitting this thrill-seeking town. Casinos on the Strip have changed too. The Sahara closed in 2011, re-opened as SLS which also closed, and has now re-opened as The Sahara! Experienced 'Then and Now' photographer Karl Mondon takes to the skies of Vegas to get some inspiring comparison shots, while author Su Kim Chung once again points out the changes to a city she has written about for the last twenty years. 'Las Vegas Then and Now' truly captures the buzz of a city where the only constant is change. Sites include: Allegiant Stadium, Circa, Arts District, Fremont Street, Railroad Depot, Union Pacific Station, Arizona Club, Golden Nugget, El Portal Theatre, Nevada Hotel, Sal Sagev Hotel, El Cortez, Vegas Vic, The Mint Hotel, Las Vegas Post Office/Mob Museum, El Rancho Vegas, Last Frontier, New Frontier, Little Church of the West, Flamingo, Thunderbird Hotel, Desert Inn, Sahara Hotel, Sands Hotel, Stardust, Riviera, La Concha Motel, Dunes Hotel, Caesars Palace, Hacienda, Tropicana, MGM Grand, Aladdin, Boardwalk, International, Landmark Hotel, Las Vegas Convention Center, Moulin Rouge and much more.

The Strip

The Strip
Author: Stefan Al
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2017-03-03
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 026203574X

The transformations of the Strip—from the fake Wild West to neon signs twenty stories high to “starchitecture”—and how they mirror America itself. The Las Vegas Strip has impersonated the Wild West, with saloon doors and wagon wheels; it has decked itself out in midcentury modern sleekness. It has illuminated itself with twenty-story-high neon signs, then junked them. After that came Disney-like theme parks featuring castles and pirates, followed by replicas of Venetian canals, New York skyscrapers, and the Eiffel Tower. (It might be noted that forty-two million people visited Las Vegas in 2015—ten million more than visited the real Paris.) More recently, the Strip decided to get classy, with casinos designed by famous architects and zillion-dollar collections of art. Las Vegas became the “implosion capital of the world” as developers, driven by competition, got rid of the old to make way for the new—offering a non-metaphorical definition of “creative destruction.” In The Strip, Stefan Al examines the many transformations of the Las Vegas Strip, arguing that they mirror transformations in America itself. The Strip is not, as popularly supposed, a display of architectural freaks but representative of architectural trends and a record of social, cultural, and economic change. Al tells two parallel stories. He describes the feverish competition of Las Vegas developers to build the snazziest, most tourist-grabbing casinos and resorts—with a cast of characters including the mobster Bugsy Siegel, the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, and the would-be political kingmaker Sheldon Adelson. And he views the Strip in a larger social context, showing that it has not only reflected trends but also magnified them and sometimes even initiated them. Generously illustrated with stunning color images throughout, The Strip traces the many metamorphoses of a city that offers a vivid projection of the American dream.

Las Vegas Then and Now

Las Vegas Then and Now
Author: Su Kim Chung
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2022-11-24
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 1911670107

Las Vegas Then and Now pairs vintage shots from 100 years of the city's history with the same view today.

Las Vegas, 1905-1965

Las Vegas, 1905-1965
Author: Lynn M. Zook
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780738569697

Everyone thinks they know the story of Las Vegas: the showgirls, the gambling, the mob. But Las Vegas has always been much more. Families have lived here since its founding in 1905. After 1931, legalized gaming became the big tourist draw, and following World War II, the town began to market itself as "America's Playground." That is when the famed Las Vegas Strip came into its own and downtown was dubbed "Glitter Gulch." These vintage postcards show how Las Vegas evolved from a dusty railroad town into the "Entertainment Capital of the World," while remaining a city filled with families and pioneering souls.

Lost in Las Vegas

Lost in Las Vegas
Author: Avery Cardoza
Publisher: Cardoza
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012-10-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781580427135

This offbeat, dark comedy follows two hapless vacationers in Las Vegas as their world collapses around them and their lives spiral downward into the treacherous underbelly of Sin City. This offbeat, dark comedy follows John and Ludo, two hapless vacationers in Las Vegas, through a series of misadventures as their world collapses around them and their lives spiral downward into the seedy and treacherous underbelly of Sin City. As the result of a dangerous infatuation with a mysterious woman, this bad-luck and no-luck duo—in just twenty-four hours—find themselves hunted by the mob, FBI, six ferocious killers, police, and the Rat, a psychopathic ex-husband, in a world where nothing is as it seems. And from there, things go downhill—they’re broke, homeless, and wander the streets with no way to get out of town. Bickering every step of the way, they cross paths with eccentric and colorful characters inhabiting the shadows of Las Vegas casinos, strip clubs, and downtown streets. John and Ludo don’t quite know who is who and what is what as they desperately try to keep one step ahead of their pursuers and fulfill one very simple dream—get the hell out of Vegas.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas
Author: Mitch Barker
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 1467130664

Las Vegas, New Mexico, is 70 years older than the Nevada city of the same name. Eleven years after its founding in 1835, it was the first settlement in Mexico reached by invading US troops in the Mexican-American War. In later years, it was an intensely violent place, an equal to Dodge City and Tombstone. Gunmen such as Billy the Kid, Mysterious Dave Mather, Doc Holliday, and others walked the streets of Las Vegas. The town also built grand houses and mercantile buildings. It rivaled Albuquerque and Santa Fe for importance and boasted one of the state's two streetcar systems. Here, Teddy Roosevelt announced his availability to serve as president, and Tom Mix filmed his earliest movies.

A Short History of Las Vegas

A Short History of Las Vegas
Author: Barbara Land
Publisher:
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2004-03
Genre: History
ISBN:

Today’s Las Vegas welcomes 35 million visitors a year and reigns as the world’s premier gaming mecca. But it is much more than a gambling paradise. In A Short History of Las Vegas, Barbara and Myrick Land reveal a fascinating history beyond the mobsters, casinos, and showgirls. The authors present a complete story, beginning with southern Nevada’s indigenous peoples and the earliest explorers to the first pioneers to settle in the area; from the importance of the railroad and the construction of Hoover Dam to the arrival of the Mob after World War II; from the first isolated resorts to appear in the dusty desert to the upscale, extravagant theme resorts of today. Las Vegas—and its history—is full of surprises. The second edition of this lively history includes details of the latest developments and describes the growing anticipation surrounding the Las Vegas centennial celebration in 2005. New chapters focus on the recent implosions of famous old structures and the construction of glamorous new developments, headline-making mergers and multibillion-dollar deals involving famous Strip properties, and a concluding look at what life is like for the nearly two million residents who call Las Vegas home.

Las Vegas Radio and Television

Las Vegas Radio and Television
Author: George Thomas Apfel
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2021
Genre: History
ISBN: 1467106445

The history of broadcasting in Las Vegas began with the first radio station, KGIX, to crackle the airwaves in the 1920s, started by J.M. Jack Heaton, who ran the Las Vegas railroad operation. By the 1940s, the railroad was no longer a major factor; instead, legalized gaming and the Strip drove the growth of the city and, consequently, radio and television. Maxwell Kelch, who was responsible for leading the effort to publicize Las Vegas as a tourist destination, launched the second and oldest existing radio station, KENO. Radio and TV personalities such as Coffee Jim Dandy, Red Mcilvaine, Hal Morelli, Hank Thornley, and Walt Reno were household names to Las Vegans in the 1960s and 1970s. From the 1940s and 1950s, when every radio station called a Strip hotel home, to the mega-consolidation of the mid-1990s, when big corporations took control of many of the Las Vegas signals, the world of radio and television in Las Vegas has evolved significantly. Today, Las Vegas is the 30th largest radio market in the United States.

Greetings from Las Vegas

Greetings from Las Vegas
Author: Peter Moruzzi
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Total Pages: 476
Release: 2019-09-03
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 1423651774

This book of vintage Vegas ephemera offers a guided tour of Sin City’s rise out of the Mojave Desert to become a major entertainment destination. Greetings from Las Vegas tells the story of Las Vegas during its golden age in the first half of the twentieth-century. The city’s miraculous evolution comes alive through a fun and diverse collection of vintage photos, picture postcards, matchbooks, ads, and other ephemera. This beautifully illustrated volume captures the glamor of Fremont Street and the Las Vegas Strip, landmarks such as the Sands and Riviera hotel casinos, and the cream of Hollywood glitterati, including Frank, Sammy, Dino, and the rest of the Rat Pack. Author Peter Moruzzi’s sharp and irreverent commentary provides essential context for the visual treats as well as a unique historical take on the evolution of this desert playground.

Vegas and the Mob

Vegas and the Mob
Author: Al W Moe
Publisher: Al W Moe
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2017-02-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1483955559

Las Vegas was the Mob's greatest venture and most spectacular success, and through 40 years of frenzy, murder, deceit, scams, and skimming, the FBI listened on phone taps and did virtually nothing to stop the fun. This is the truth about the Mob's control of the casinos in Vegas like you've never heard it before, from start to finish. Two of the nation's most powerful crime family bosses went to prison in the 1930's: Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. Frank Nitti took over the Chicago Outfit, while Frank Costello ran things for the Luciano Family. Both men were influenced by their bosses from prison, and both sent enough gangsters into the streets to influence loan sharking, extortion, union control, and drug sales. Bugsy Siegel worked for both groups, handling a string of murders and opening up gaming on the west coast, and that included Las Vegas, an oasis of sin in the middle of the desert - and it was legal. Most of it. The FBI watched as the Mob took control of casino after casino, killed off the competition, and stole enough money to bribe their way to respectability back home. By the 1950's, nearly every major crime family had a stake in a Las Vegas casino. Some did better than others. Casino owners watched-over their profits while competing crime families eyed each other's success like jealous lovers. Murder often followed.