As much as we like looking forward, it seems that we can't resist looking back. If you need proof, take a look at all of the end of the year "Best Of" lists, including mine (which will be in next week's column).
But the end of the decade brings about a whole different set of lists, reaching back even further to pick out the best, the worst, the silliest, and/or the most influential. Bowing to the peer pressure, I have put together my own list for Vegas.
I didn't want to do a simple "best of" list; instead, my list is a mixture of the things I really liked, the things that I really miss, and the things that I think made a difference in the landscape of Las Vegas.
Vegas changed a lot in the last ten years, for better and worse. We saw the city's fortunes soar and crash. We watched as the crowds grew and changed and then went away. And we couldn't help but notice that Las Vegas grew up, in ways both good and not so good. Here's a look back at the winners and losers for the first decade of the 21st century in Vegas:
Winner: Caesars Palace
For most of the '90s the default position on older hotels was to blow it up and build something bigger, better, and more expensive in its place. That concept certainly still existed in the 2000's but whether it was out of a nostalgic strategy or simply a lack of money to do anything else, older hotels started to find ways to reinvent themselves while still respecting their history. Nowhere was that more evident than at Caesars Palace, which certainly grew up (and out) but did so in a way that proved you don't have to start from scratch.
Losers: Luxor and New York-New York
On the other end of the spectrum you had these two fancifully designed hotels whose corporate owners apparently decided that the only way to stay competitive would be to strip away virtually every bit of the whimsy that made them famous in the first place. Luxor's remodel turned what had been a fun, kitschy Egyptian wonderland and turned it into a cold, blue sea of blandness. New York-New York didn't go quite as far - some of the silliness still exists inside - but enough of it went away that it just isn't as much of a jaw-dropping spectacle as it used to be.
Winner: Wynn Las Vegas
Quick: name a brand new from the ground-up hotel that opened on The Strip during the last decade. If you can think of anything other than Wynn Las Vegas you're more of a Vegas nut than I am. Yes, there were other hotels that opened in the last ten years (Palazzo and Planet Hollywood to name a couple) but Wynn Las Vegas and its sister Encore stole the show in more ways than one. Mastermind Steve Wynn upped the ante on what a Vegas hotel could be, turning it into a synonym for the word luxury.
Loser: Downtown Las Vegas
As fortunes continued to soar on The Strip, things went downhill for Downtown Las Vegas. Glitter Gulch became an afterthought for everyone but the most budget-conscious of travelers and the hotels and casinos along Fremont Street suffered as a result. True, The Golden Nugget is a beautiful property regardless of its address and several other Downtown hotels have done a good job keeping up with the times, but for a part of town that used to quite literally BE Las Vegas to become a place that most Las Vegas visitors don't even think about is kind of sad.
Winners: Green Valley Ranch and Red Rock Resort
Forget about their parent company's money woes for a minute (they aren't the only ones these days) and focus instead on two properties that completely redefined what a local's hotel could be. Up until they opened their doors, most neighborhood hotels were low-budget, no-frills, lucky-to-have-a-pool-by-the-parking-structure affairs and the casinos, restaurants, and entertainment attached to them had a similar cost-conscious ethos. Green Valley Ranch and Red Rock Resort changed all that by creating true destination resorts; beautifully designed, gorgeously appointed, and yet, somehow, still affordable at least in comparison to similar offerings on The Strip.
Loser: Lake Las Vegas
It was designed to be a playground for the rich and nearly rich, with luxury hotels, casinos, mansions, golf-courses, boutiques, spas, and more. Instead what we got was one truly great hotel and a bunch of other stuff that no one really cares all that much about. The Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas is a terrific property, but even its owner went bankrupt along with many of the other businesses in the area (including one of the now-closed golf courses). With hotels, gambling, shopping, recreation, and restaurants as good (if not better) at places like Green Valley and Red Rock, why would anyone want to drive all the way out here? Mind you, I'm not saying that's a good or correct thing - Lake Las Vegas is still worth your time and energy - but it certainly hasn't lived up to its promise.
Winner: CityCenter
The list of multi-billion projects that was supposed to open by the end of this decade (or close to it) was fairly staggering, expecting to add tens of thousands of new hotel rooms to The Strip alone. In the end, only CityCenter has made it to the finish line as expected (well… mostly). Fighting off threats of bankruptcy and ruin, the folks at MGM Mirage pushed through the global economic collapse to bring Las Vegas what could very well be its most audacious, game-changing development since The Mirage opened twenty years ago. Of course we might be looking back at the end of the next decade with a different perspective, but for now, CityCenter definitely belongs in the Winner column if for no other reason than it opened its doors, unlike…
Losers: Fontainebleau, Echelon, Cosmopolitan, The Plaza
All of these hotels may still open their doors in some form or another eventually, but none of them will be what they were originally envisioned to be… and in many cases not run by the people who were originally going to run them. Every one of these multi-billion dollar developments ran into problems from bankruptcy to lawsuits to simply not having the money (or perhaps the will) to make them happen. Fontainebleau and Echelon went so far as to shut down construction completely, while The Plaza, which should've been under construction by now, never even started. Call it bad timing (how would you like to be building a $5 billion hotel when the whole world's economy goes into the crapper?) or call it hubris ($5 billion? Really?) but regardless, the places that were going reinvent the Las Vegas skyline in this decade are going to have to wait until the next to make their impression.
Winner: Celine Dion
You can draw a connective line from Celine Dion to Elton John to Bette Midler to Cher to Prince to Garth Brooks and now, maybe, to Beyonce - all superstars who have set up camp in Las Vegas for an extended run of shows, something that was virtually unheard of for anything other than B- or C-level talent in previous decades. Dion did the unthinkable: she gave up the lucrative (but often punishing) touring schedule and settled down at Caesars Palace, much to the "this can't possibly work" derision of a lot of people (including me). We were proved wrong and her success made it possible for the big names that followed her to be successful as well.
Loser: Showgirls
Yes, Bette Midler's production has them, but the classic Las Vegas showgirl is becoming an endangered species. After 50 years, Folies Bergere at the Tropicana finally closed, leaving one real showgirl extravaganza in Jubilee! at Bally's. Although their big headdresses and skimpy costumes will always be a symbol for the city, you may not be able to see them anywhere other than billboards and the occasional ribbon cutting ceremony.
Winner: Cirque du Soleil
At the beginning of the decade, Cirque had two productions in Las Vegas: Mystere at Treasure Island and O at Bellagio. At the close of the decade they are poised to open their seventh (!) show, Viva Elvis at Aria Las Vegas, with Zumanity at New York-New York, KA at MGM Grand, Love at The Mirage, and Believe at Luxor all coming on board in the intervening years. To say that Cirque du Soleil revolutionized the idea of what Vegas entertainment could be is, perhaps, the understatement of the decade.
Loser: Broadway
It makes sense… take a popular, crowd-pleasing, big-budget Broadway show and move it to a place that seems to feed off of popular, crowd-pleasing, big-budget shows. But transplanted Broadway productions have had a spotty record at best in Las Vegas. Mamma Mia! did well for five years at Mandalay Bay and The Lion King is getting off to a good start in its place. Phantom seems to be chugging away at The Venetian. But in between those perceived successes is a litany of Tony-Award winning shows that should've worked but didn't: Hairspray, Avenue Q, Spamalot, The Producers… the list is so long that someone could write a musical about it.
Winners: Celebrity Chefs
The decade before this one saw the emergence of the celebrity chef driven restaurant in Vegas but it was the years between 2000 and 2010 that solidified, broadened, and deepened the trend. Emeril Lagasse and Wolfgang Puck are probably the biggest names in lights, each with multiple restaurants around town, but now you have a veritable Who's Who of epicurean masters. Mario Batali, Alain Ducasse, Bobby Flay, Charlie Palmer, Julian Serrano, Thomas Kellar, Michael Mina… if you don't know who those people are then you probably don't like food. Heck, even Joel Robuchon, considered to be one of the finest, most celebrated chefs of all time, came out of retirement to open a restaurant in Vegas. Them's good eating.
Loser: Cheap Eats
While foodies have reason to celebrate in Vegas, if you're a foodie without much money you're pretty much out of luck. Restaurant prices went sky high in the last decade, with several places offering up meals that will run you $300 or more per person! The days of the $4.95 prime rib specials had gone away long ago but now even the once cheap all-you-can-eat buffets can induce sticker-shock. Even the McDonald's on The Strip is going to cost you more than the McDonald's where you live. Yes, you can still eat cheap in Vegas but it's harder and harder to eat cheap and eat well, especially on The Strip.
Winners: Party People
There were nightclubs in Vegas before this decade but there is no comparison between the relatively straightforward vibe of places like RA and Studio 54 to the anything goes hedonism of places like Tao, Pure, LAX, Tryst, and the seeming endless list of clubs we have now. Vegas casinos became, in many ways, extensions of the nightclubs they operated and if you didn't have one you may as well not have existed. The party set moved in and took over. You know who I mean: those twenty-something women with their impossibly high shoes, hair, and hemlines and impossibly low cut dresses and the men (of all ages) who lust after them. Vegas became their playground in the last ten years, often to the exclusion of…
Losers: Everyone Else
If you weren't one of those party people it may have felt like there was no place for you to go on The Strip anymore. Forget about finding a place to go out for a drink and a dance, even the casinos were overtaken by people much younger, much thinner, and often much more drunk than you were. If the prices on The Strip didn't drive away the Average Jane and Joe, the people they had to share an elevator with certainly did.
Winners: Some of the Best of Vegas
Things that made a difference in Las Vegas over the last decade include Siegfried and Roy, the original Pirate Battle at Treasure Island, Caesars Magical Empire, Hannah's restaurant, The Casino Legends Hall of Fame, Clint Holmes, The Chicken Challenge, Danny Gans, The Chocolate Swan, and Commander's Palace.
Losers: Us, Because Those Things Don't Exist Anymore
We lost all of the above list for one reason or another and I, for one, miss them.
Thank you to all of my readers who stuck with me for the last decade. Here's hoping we're all still around to reconvene on a new Winners and Losers list in 2020!
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