New York-New York still makes me giggle. The sheer audacity of the place, in a town famous for its sheer audacity, is both a wonder and a perfect testament to the Las Vegas sensibility that has made this town great in the last decade or so.

The hotel opened in 1997 and immediately raised the bar for hotel theatrics. Start with the exterior - it has a recreation of the New York City skyline with 1/3 scale replicas (as high as 45 stories) of the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the New York Public Library, and Ellis Island to name a few. There's also a Statue of Liberty complete with faux rust stains and the Brooklyn Bridge and miniature scale fireboats that spray water.

It is quite an accomplishment both visually and artistically but apparently the designers didn't think the place looked quite busy enough so they threw in a roller coaster that winds in and around the buildings.

Inside is even more fun with several blocks of Greenwich Village streets complete with graffiti covered mailboxes and steam coming out of the manhole covers in the cobblestones. This area is where you'll find a variety of eateries, small shops, the two theaters that house the Rita Rudner show and Zumanity, a sexy Cirque du Soleil production, and the ESPN Sports Zone restaurant and bar.

The main casino is done up to look like Central Park with trees, gazebos, foot bridges, and babbling brooks battling slot machines for space. It is easy to just stand and stare but even here be sure to look at the small things: the recreation of Times Square complete with a ball that drops every night at midnight; the stunning art-deco inspired touches to the lobby and other public areas.

On the second level are more shops and restaurants, plus the Coyote Ugly nightclub, a giant Coney Island kids arcade, and more.

Rooms are very attractive with more of that art deco decor in a bunch of different floor plans. Since the rooms are inside the city skyline replica, they are, for the most part, very unique in terms of layout - something I consider to be a bonus when compared to the cookie-cutter hotel rooms in the rest of this city. Most are average size but some are restricted by the architecture and are on the small side.

They are very well equipped with comfy and well-tended furniture, lighted armoires for the TV with pay-per-view movie options, phones with dataports, irons and boards, in-room safes, hair dryers, and various bath amenities.

The pool is out back and in addition to not being terribly well landscaped or decorated it is adjacent to the main drive and the parking garage. As if that weren't enough, the roller coaster screams by directly overhead. Peaceful poolside respites are probably not an option here.

Until places like Bellagio and Mandalay Bay opened and raised the price bar, NYNY was considered to be one of the more expensive places in town. It still can be, with weekend rates in the mid to upper $100 range. However, during slow times you can often get some good bargains here with off-season weekday rates advertised as low as $59 per night.

And despite the events of September 11th, 2001, this particular version of New York has done a good job of moving on. For awhile after after the tragedy they kept the murals and photos that depicted the World Trade Center, but now those representations are gone and I think it's for the best. I'm all for tributes (and the streetside Tribute To Heroes is lovely) but Las Vegas is about escaping the kind of harsh realities that these images evoke and the last thing I wanted after a night of big fun and Vegas style entertainment was to come back to my room and be faced with a photograph of a place where thousands of people died.

It's still impossible for most people to think of New York without thinking of that terrible day and so it will be with New York-New York. That's too bad, because this hotel, like the city that it celebrates, is a great place.

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