Disneyland is more similar to the Las Vegas of today than the Mob-controlled
Sin City visited by Ian Fleming half a century ago.
“A motorist coming down the highway on the outskirts of the Strip saw
something pink sticking out of the sand among the cactus and tumbleweed,”
wrote Fleming, recalling a local horror story of the time.
“He stopped to have a closer look. A naked arm was sticking out of the ground
and the hand was clenched on three aces. When the police came and dug, they
found the man who belonged to the arm.”
Las Vegas - Spanish for “the Meadows”- was established in 1905 as a water stop
on the railroad between San Pedro and Salt Lake City, thanks to the natural
spring located in what is now the downtown area.
Like most remote railroad towns, Vegas became known for its black economy, in
particular gambling. As the city kept growing, thanks to the construction of
the Hoover Dam and Nellis Air Force Base, so too did the profits of the
casino owners - most of them funded by the mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer
Lansky.
By the time Fleming arrived, however, the casinos had started to move from the
city centre to Highway 91, largely because Highway 91 was outside city
limits and therefore exempt from taxes.
Thus the infamous Strip was born.Fleming spent most of his time on the Strip
at the Tropicana hotel-casino, then new but which is still there, although
in larger and less glamorous form.
The Bond creator also ventured downtown, where he won his lunch at the Golden
Nugget and observed “crew-cut desperadoes with western hats and incipient
stomachs... tugging away at the machines, their sharp, greedy eyes watching
the whirring plums and cherries as if they hated them”. Those people are
still there, as is the Golden Nugget.
The official end of Mob power came in 1988, when the Las Vegas gaming board
blacklisted Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal (so-called because he pleaded the Fifth
Amendment 37 times during a court hearing, refusing even to say if he was
left-handed), driving him out of town.
For years Lefty had run the Stardust Hotel. He had also run the Hacienda,
which used to fly tourists in from Los Angeles on a private airline with
topless flight attendants. Lefty, who inspired the character Sam “Ace”
Rothstein played by Robert De Niro in the 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino,
is now said to be enjoying retirement in Miami.
Fleming was a fan of Lefty's Stardust. He recommended the hotel's “expensive”
Polynesian-themed restaurant, Aku Aku, which closed its doors in 1980.
The casino itself was imploded at a grand fireworks ceremony last year, to
make way for a £2 billion development called Echelon Place. Indeed, most of
the places mentioned by Fleming have recently been demolished in
anticipation of the city's latest growth spurt, which includes the £4
billion-plus CityCenter development, the biggest real estate project in
American history.
Anyone trying to find Fleming's beloved Thunderbird Lounge, meanwhile, would
end up on the construction site for the £1.4 billion Fontainebleau Las
Vegas. However, an homage to the Thunderbird can be found at the pleasingly
low-rent Aruba Hotel downtown, next to the historic John S.Park
neighbourhood, where the kitschy mid-century mansions of the city's former
Mob bosses have been immaculately maintained.
LAS VEGAS
Things to do
Given Ian Fleming's enthusiastic recommendation of a revue at the New Frontier
hotel starring “scores of nude Nipponese”, it's likely he would ignore the
Cirque du Soleil shows around town and head somewhere racier.
Alas, the New Frontier was demolished last year to make way for the £3 billion
Plaza Las Vegas. Which leaves Sapphire
(001 702 796 6000), the largest strip club in the world, with 71,000 sq ft
of pole-space and 6,000 dancers.
Restaurants
Fleming wrote: “Recommended anywhere in Las Vegas are steaks, provided you
will be specific to your waiter or chef, like “charred both sides” or “just
rare”. Steak is still king in Sin City. An offbeat option is Tony
Roma's (001 702 733 9914) on East Sahara Avenue.
Locals swear you can still make out the scorch marks in the car park where
Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal escaped a car bomb attack in 1982. Order a cocktail
on the outdoor terrace of Mix at THEhotel
at Mandalay Bay (001 702 632 9500). The view at night from 400ft above
the Strip - which has come along from Fleming's "twinkling golden river
in the black vastness of the Mojave Desert" - is as thrilling as cities
get. There' s a restaurant, too.
Hotels
Fleming declared the Desert Inn to be “by far the nicest hotel on the Strip”.
The place was demolished in 2001 to make way for one of the nicest hotels in
the world, the £1.3 billion Wynn
Las Vegas (001 702 770 7000), named after its billionaire owner, Steve
Wynn.
Fleming's $25 slot machine jackpot wouldn't impress these days: one of the
Wynn's slot machines has a $10 million prize. If you get lucky, you can make
your way directly to the Ferrari dealership in the hotel lobby. If you go
bust, you'll find a Gideons Bible in your £250-plus room. Visitors with a
“shallow pocket” were instructed by Fleming to head downtown. This remains
sound advice.
Try the Golden Nugget (001 702 385
7111), where Flemming won his lunch. It was recently refurbished as part of
what some claim is a downtown renaissance.
