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World Hotels - Las Vegas: An Unconventional History
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List Price: $40.00
Our Price: $23.56
Your Save: $ 16.44 ( 41% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Bulfinch
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 979.3135
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Bulfinch
Manufacturer: Bulfinch
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: 2005-10-20
Publisher: Bulfinch
Studio: Bulfinch
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Editorial Reviews:
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From Bugsy Siegel to the Rat Pack, Wayne Newton, Vegas showgirls, casinos of epic proportions and light shows that would make the heavens blush, Las Vegas is the most raucous, sinfully fun city in the world. Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of the city, "Las Vegas" documents the rollercoaster-ride history of this most outrageous playground - from the Mormom missionaries who came to the area for the natural springs, the mobsters who ruled the city through the 50s, eccentric millionaires buying up casinos like penny candy, monumental gambles, atomic blasts, to the tourists of today looking for fun that can only be found there.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting!
Comment: "Las Vegas" provides interesting photos and verbiage covering Las Vegas from its initial start, through the building of Boulder/Hoover Dam, establishment as a "suburb" of L.A., attraction for "quickie" (6 week) divorces, the mob's influx, atomic testing, the "Rat Pack," attraction as a "marriage mill," Howard Hughes, Steven Wynn, imploding old landmarks, and finally the building of new hotels with unique tourist attractions (eg. volcano, pirate ship, art displays, fountains).
Ives also provides several interesting statistical tidbits - Las Vegas slot machines have paid out as much as $40 million to a single winner, and by '04 provided about 2/3 of Las Vegas casino revenue; in '76 nearly half the gross revenue of the 163-hotel Hilton chain came from its 2 L.V. properties; L.V. has 20 of the world's largest 23 hotels; and during the '90s non-gambling revenues began exceeding gambling revenues in Las Vegas.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Cool Coffee Table Book about Sin City
Comment: I haven't seen the PBS documentary that spawned this companion book, but the book is worth reading and having if you're interested in the history of Las Vegas.
The book covers the founding of Vegas as a town, the construction of Hoover Dam, the flourishing of the Mob, the testing of the atom bomb (120 detonations around 65 miles of Vegas throughout the 1950s!), the Rat Pack, the Howard Hughes period and the Disney-fication of Sin City.
The obligatory PBS Politically Correct chapter on African Americans in Vegas was actually very fascinating. I knew that Sammy Davis Jr. wasn't allowed to stay in the hotels where he performed in the '50s--which was shameful enough--but to read that the Flamingo drained the pool after the gorgeous Dorothy Dandridge swam in it and Lena Horne's sheets were burned rather than put in the laundry ("We don't want to offend the Texans," was the hotel's lame excuse) is shocking and disgraceful.
Definitely a coffe table book with great photos and thick pages. I wish there had been more photos though. As a regular Vegas visitor, I know that town could provide many, many more.
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