FRANKLY SPEAKING by Frank Legato
This Modern World
Every so often , something happens to remind me how old I am . Like the news a few weeks ago that The Mirage , bought by Hard Rock International , will soon disappear .
What ’ s replacing it is going to be major cool , I ’ m sure — they ’ re building a giant guitar-shaped hotel tower like they have at the Hard Rock in Hollywood , Florida , and there ’ s nothing like a collection of rock ’ n ’ roll memorabilia to draw baby boomers like myself like moths to a porch light .
I loved the old Hard Rock Las Vegas , now the Virgin Las Vegas . Here ’ s hoping the new Hard Rock will be half as cool as that property was back in the day .
But here ’ s the thing : They ’ re considering razing the entire Mirage property to create the new Hard Rock from scratch on its ruins . The famous erupting volcano , the dolphin habitat , the live lions and tigers left there by Siegfried & Roy — all gone . That got me thinking about how Las Vegas periodically erases its history entirely .
When I first arrived in Las Vegas as a gaming writer working for Public Gaming magazine , it was 1984 . They had just cleaned the mob out of the old Stardust . I went to places like the Landmark , the Riviera , the Hacienda , the old Showboat , the old Sahara . When I saw Siegfried & Roy , it was at the New Frontier .
As we all know , each of these properties has been wiped completely off the Strip landscape and replaced by something new .
( Well , they made a new Sahara , but they bill it “ SAHARA ”— all caps , in the clever branding gimmick of the day — and it ’ s nothing like the old Sahara , which had what is still my all-time favorite Vegas restaurant , Don the Beachcomber .)
Now , all of those old places exist only as signs in the Neon Museum “ boneyard .” They were systematically replaced by the new Las Vegas Strip , which began when Steve Wynn unveiled The Mirage in 1989 , on the site of the former Castaways . I never visited the Castaways , so there was no weepy nostalgia over its demise . ( Unlike when they demolished the Stardust and Westward Ho , two joints I always loved .)
But man , do I remember the debut of The Mirage . In fact , I don ’ t know how many articles I wrote about landscape architecture and the creation of that volcano by Don Brinkerhoff and his Lifescapes International . ( Soon thereafter , I was writing about any manner of casino supply . I used to be able to tell you who made a certain artificial tree , or casino chair , or ashtray . Pathetically , it looms large in my legend .)
The Mirage guided the path forward for the Las Vegas Strip , setting the stage for all that came after , beginning with Wynn ’ s second masterpiece , the Bellagio . That one was built on the site of the old Dunes , which debuted in 1955 with the photo opp of Frank Sinatra wearing a turban , seated on a camel . ( Everything was a stereotype in the good old days .)
My point , as if I had one , is that the groundbreaking Mirage stuff should be preserved somewhere besides the neon boneyard . MGM Resorts has retained the name , logo and intellectual property of the place , so maybe someday , there will be a new Mirage with all the old attractions .
A nostalgia place for ancient people like me . It would be better than stuffing the tigers and putting them in the boneyard . Heck , the volcano probably wouldn ’ t even fit there .
Moving on , as you will see with the special section in this issue , crime in casinos has evolved even more than the nature of the casinos themselves . In fact , now you can get pinched for even thinking about a casino crime .
I ’ m referring to a story from station KWTX in Texas about an arrest just over the border in Oklahoma ’ s WinStar World casino . According to the story , a Texas man is in jail “ accused of planning to rob a jackpot winner from WinStar World , and of planning to sell Xanax at the casino .” That ’ s all the story says . We ’ re left to speculate how police knew the guy was “ planning ” to do all this stuff . Did he notify security ? “ You know , I ’ m going to take all the money from that jackpot winner , as soon as I sell a few hundred Xanax tablets to those gamblers over there .”
Apparently , you can now be arrested for thinking about misbehaving , like the nuns used to tell us in Catholic school about committing sins . If you thought about it , you were already guilty . ( It certainly complicated matters for us all .)
Maybe they ’ ll put the volcano in WinStar World . Now there , it would fit .
VICTOR RINALDO
FEBRUARY 2022 www . ggbmagazine . com 49