Thunderbird Hotel mystery photo
Our pal Dennis McBride, the Curator of History and Collections at the Nevada State Museum, needs your help. He is hoping that you can help identify one or more people in this photo.
Here is what Dennis has to say about the photo:
This
photograph comes from the Martin A. "Marty" and JoAnn Zwerling
Collection at the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas [collection no.
0011:0217].
It was taken in 1952 at the Thunderbird Hotel and Casino and purports to include the hotel's owners and guests. From left to right: unidentified; unidentified; unidentified; boxer Jack Dempsey; JoAnn Zwerling; unidentified; unidentified; unidentified; Marion Hicks; unidentified.
If you can help identify the unknown people in this photo let us know!
LasVegasLynn
in Current Day, Las Vegas History, Las Vegas Strip
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Las Vegas to honor visionary Jackie Gaughan
The city of Las Vegas honors the legendary Jackie Gaughan, a man who did so much to re-invent Fremont Street from the late 1950s through today:
MAYOR OSCAR GOODMAN PRESENTS JACKIE GAUGHAN WITH KEY TO THE CITY
WHAT: Casino legend Jackie Gaughan will be presented with a key to the city of Las Vegas by Las Vegas icon Mayor Oscar Goodman. Gaughan is being honored for his many contributions to downtown, Las Vegas, and the casino and gaming industry. Gaughan is an innovative thinker and originated promotions such as fun books and complimentary meals, while being a pillar in the downtown Las Vegas casino scene for over 40 years.
WHEN: Monday, Oct. 13
11-11:30 a.m. Mayor Goodman will present key to the city to Jackie Gaughan
WHO: Casino pioneer Jackie Gaughan and Mayor Oscar Goodman
FACTS: Gaughan has owned or operated several hotels and casinos throughout his career including the Flamingo, Showboat Casino, Union Plaza Hotel & Casino, Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas Club Hotel & Casino, Gold Spike Hotel & Casino, Western Casino and the El Cortez Hotel & Casino.
Gaughan recently made his foray into semi-retirement by selling his shares in the El Cortez.
On most days, Gaughan can still be spotted playing poker on the El Cortez casino floor.
Mayor Goodman is the self proclaimed “happiest mayor in the universe” and he has focused many of his efforts as mayor on revitalizing downtown Las Vegas by creating an urban village filled with small businesses, boutiques, fine restaurants, bookstores and an art component where the public can have social dialogue and exchange ideas.
The Cabana Suites will set the new standard for style in downtown Las Vegas with a retro design that is timeless yet modern, featuring chic boutique style in the Fremont East Entertainment District (slated for completion in early 2009.)
WHERE: Entrance to El Cortez Hotel & Casino’s Cabana Suites (formerly Ogden House)
651 E. Ogden Ave.
Las Vegas, NV 89101
LasVegasLynn
in Current Day, Fremont Street, Las Vegas History
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The Plaza lawsuit resolved
From Liz Benston at the Las Vegas Sun:
The Plaza trademark infringement lawsuit wasn’t, from a legal standpoint, about whether the famed Plaza Hotel in New York is more popular than or superior to the Plaza in downtown Las Vegas.
Yet in a broader sense, that’s what it was all about. Tamares Las Vegas Properties’ lawsuit against El-Ad Group again confirmed a Las Vegas truism — that buzz, reputation and name recognition are all-important.
Tamares didn’t want its casino property to end up being known as “the cheap Plaza.”
The jury, which deliberated for nearly two days, on Monday affirmed El-Ad Group’s right to use the Plaza name for its proposed $5 billion-plus replica of the New York landmark on the Strip, defeating Tamares’ attempt to block El-Ad’s use of the name. (El-Ad has delayed construction of the resort until early 2010.)
Jurors also rejected Tamares’ claim that the dispute had set back plans to redevelop the downtown property by at least a year, resulting in $29.4 million in damages.
“We are obviously disappointed in the jury’s decision,” said Kenneth Landfield, Tamares U.S. Real Estate’s chief operating officer. “We are currently exploring our legal options in this case.”
The jury never got around to considering another aspect of the case that appeared to be the most contentious of all: whether confused consumers would think a superluxury Plaza hotel on the Strip could come from the same company that runs the downtown property.
Companies often file trademark lawsuits to protect their brands against potential infringers with less sophisticated products and services. Second-class products often attempt to trade on the popularity of major brands. In this case, the high-end brand was playing defense.
The high-stakes showdown between two Israeli billionaires — El-Ad’s Yitzhak Tshuva and Tamares’ Poju Zabludowicz — began less than three months after El-Ad announced plans last year to purchase the New Frontier from Phil Ruffin and build a Plaza Las Vegas megaresort on the land. Weeks before Tamares filed suit against El-Ad, in August 2007, the company filed trademark applications to protect what the company believed were its exclusive rights to use the Plaza name for hotels in Nevada.
Tamares claimed the name has been used to brand the property since it opened in 1971. (Tamares bought four downtown hotels, including the Plaza, from Jackie Gaughan in 2004.)
The downtown Plaza, known for its cheap booze and buffet, has seen better days in spite of its status as a local landmark.
The problem for the property isn’t that people wouldn’t notice the obvious differences between it and a multibillion-dollar megaresort on the Strip. The problem, according to Tamares attorney Dennis Kennedy, is that the tourist at the airport who asks to go to the Plaza might instead end up at the Strip property.
In court last week, Kennedy said El-Ad is usurping a homegrown brand with widespread name recognition.
“You don’t win this case by saying ... our customers are richer than yours,” he said.
And yet, that distinction is important to Tamares executives as well. In court, Landfield admitted he didn’t want the downtown property to be known as “the cheap Plaza” compared with a Strip resort with the same name.
Attempting to establish the company’s claims, Tamares’ attorneys showed publicity photos with signs featuring the Plaza name, including banners hung outside the property.
El-Ad, using testimony by gaming experts, argued that the property was officially known as the Union Plaza until at least the early 1990s, when Gaughan took sole control of it and phased out “union” from the name. Moreover, El-Ad has a federal trademark on the Plaza name for hotels dating to 1986. The trademark applies nationally and has been used since the New York hotel opened on Fifth Avenue more than a century ago.
Tamares argued in court that the dispute had put a planned $100 million overhaul of the Plaza at risk and said a legal victory would kick-start development.
El-Ad attorney Steve Morris said spending that kind of money in a declining downtown market, amid a tanking economy, “defies common sense.”
“There’s no evidence (the company) is interested in redeveloping the property other than keeping it alive,” he said.
El-Ad’s attorneys produced letters addressed to Tamares from Larry Woolf, who ended his management company’s contract to run the Plaza and Tamares’ other downtown properties in summer 2007. In the letters, Woolf indicated money for basic repairs and upgrades to the property wasn’t forthcoming and that Tamares “seemed to enjoy making us ask for money.”
The Plaza needs “substantial” redevelopment with a joint venture partner to improve its prospects rather than a “band aid approach,” one letter read. “Improvements needed to bring this property into the 21st Century haven’t been made.”
Unfortunately for Tamares, its lawsuit, by establishing the superiority of El-Ad’s rights to the Plaza name, could end up bringing legal trouble to Tamares, should the company eventually upgrade the downtown Plaza.
If El-Ad believes the downtown property, in going upscale, is trying to trade on the name of the Strip resort, the company could sue Tamares or future owners for trademark infringement.
OJ Simpson Guilty in Las Vegas
On the 13th anniversary of his acquittal in the murder case of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, a Las Vegas jury found OJ Simpson guilty on all 12 charges from the break-in at the Palace Station last year.
The kidnapping charge alone should send him away for at least ten years.
There will, of course, be appeals on these charges but for the time being both OJ Simpson and his co-defendant, Clarence Stewart, have both been found guilty of all charges.
LasVegasLynn
The jury deliberated yesterday for 13 hours before returning to the courtroom late last night with their verdicts. The kidnapping guilty verdict carries a minimum of 15 years with parole eligibility after 5 years.
Compared to his demeanor 13 years ago when he was acquitted of murder charges, OJ Simpson, last night, looked like a man who suddenly realized that he was not above the law after all.
Immediately after the verdicts were read, both Simpson and his co-defendant, Clarence Stewart, were handcuffed and taken back to jail. The judge denied allowing them to go free or even out on bail until the penalty hearing.
Sentencing for both will be on December 5th.
LasVegasLynn
The night before the jury found him guilty on all twelve charges, OJ Simpson had a quiet evening with friends. He dined with a few friends at Rosemary's Restaurant on West Sahara. He ordered a Johnny Walker Black and Coke.
Twenty-four hours later a jury would find him and his co-defendant, Clarence Stewart, guilty of all charges.
From the Las Vegas Sun:
The cold beige cinderblock walls of Simpson’s tiny cell are a bleak contrast from the warm and welcoming surrounds of the restaurant where Simpson had been the night before the jury returned their verdict.
There is no ambient lighting, attentive serving staff or full-service bar at the Clark County Detention Center. Simpson spends most of his time there in a 12 by 14-foot cell, away from the rest of the prison population.
He gets three meals a day, but they’re hardly gourmet. While Simpson often enjoyed meticulously prepared meals at Vegas’ finest tables during the trial, a typical meal for him now is a far cry from the beef or foie gras that he enjoyed, with a nice glass of Californian chardonnay, after the first week of proceedings.
“He had our beef carpacio, which is thinly sliced beef with blue cheese in the middle, and he had foie gras,” Rosemary’s front of house manager, James Repman, said.
“That was with an orange brioche bread and a Nevada nectarine coulis,” he explained, noting, “It was good, for one of his last meals.”
“He’s come in a couple of other times to just have cocktails at the bar but that was the first time he was in for dinner,” he said.
Repman said Simpson dined alongside his attorneys, Yale Galanter and Gabriel Grasso, and a few close friends who are regulars to the popular restaurant.
“He was a really nice guy, for what that’s worth,” Repman said.
Unlike many of Simpson’s former associates, who have pitched book deals and sold everything from autographs to damning audio tapes, Rosemary’s is not advertising or flaunting their affiliation with Simpson. Repman answered questions about Simpson’s patronage when contacted on Tuesday by the Sun, but made it clear that the owners and staff both did not want to capitalize on their recent guest’s patronage. The bartender who served Simpson his last Johnny Walker Black and Coke declined to be interviewed.
There is no Johnny Walker or Californian chardonnay at the Clark County Detention Center.
“Dinner is served (at) about 4 p.m. and a typical dinner would be an enchilada casserole, Spanish rice, garden salad with dressing, two slices of bread, a cube of margarine, marble cake, and a fruit drink,” Metro Police public information officer, Ramon Denby, said.
“It’s not fancy,” he said.
Breakfast – fruit, toasted oats, sausage hash and a slice of bread – is served at 4 a.m. and lunch is served at 10 a.m.
“A typical lunch would include spaghetti with sauce, a meat patty, green beans, two slices of bread, one cookie and a fruit drink,” Denby said.
Simpson eats his meals alone, either in his cell or in what’s called the detention center’s outer day room. He’s classified as a “protective custody – isolation” inmate, meaning he is kept in strict solitary confinement.
Even his cell is closed off from the rest of the detention center’s 3,000 other inmates. Simpson spends most of his time within those four cinderblock walls with the door locked shut.
“He remains in his room for the majority of the day while the other inmates are out on their free time,” Denby said.
Inside his cell is what Denby describes as a “wooden bunk with a little mattress” and a sink/toilet combination unit.
“He’s allowed two books or magazines in his room and up to five religious books or articles,” Denby said, but nothing else.
The former All-Star running back gets three to four hours of free time a day to eat meals, shower, shave or watch TV.
Denby said Simpson gets one hour in the detention center’s recreation room every day, where there are a few tables, a shower and a TV.
During the trial, Simpson said that he hoped to stay in shape during proceedings by working in training sessions at the Las Vegas Athletic Club. He’ll have to be creative with his work-out regime until his Dec. 5 sentencing, however, as there is no athletic equipment for the 61-year-old to use at the detention center.
“He can walk, do push-ups, jumping jacks,” Denby said, but there are no weights or cardio equipment for him to use.
He also gets 30 minutes of visitation privileges twice a week, but Simpson essentially watches his visitors on TV when they come to see him: they are kept on a different floor of the detention center and communicate through a video telephone.
Attorney visits are allowed in addition to his hour a week of family visitation.
Simpson is allowed outside once a week, but that, too, falls short of the five-star amenities the football legend has grown accustomed to over the years, and is done in solitary confinement.
“It’s basically four concrete walls with a mesh cage on top,” Denby said. “He’s afforded this once a week for an hour.”
Simpson will be sentenced on Dec. 5 and will likely be transferred to a state prison afterward. Simpson’s lawyers have indicated they will appeal the case, as will Stewart’s.
Clark County Museum: Saving Historical Buildings
From our good pal Kristen Peterson at the Las Vegas Sun:
In the Las Vegas Valley, saving historic buildings and artifacts often involves moving them
Tiffany Brown
Motor Court Cabin, left, originally in Las Vegas, is now on Heritage Street at the Clark County Museum, which features rescued historic houses from throughout the area.
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 (2 a.m.)
Las Vegas is always about the next big thing — and a move-it-or-lose-it attitude that pummels the city’s past.
Sometimes we move it. Sometimes we lose it. What’s interesting is when “moving it” means creating another themed attraction by extracting our past from the present and sequestering it.
If preservationists had any sense, they would require developers to replicate today’s buildings and place the doppelganger on the outskirts of town, saving time and money on future historical rescue operations.
A lot of money has been spent on saving the significant works sitting in the popular Neon Boneyard. The rescue of the Stardust sign cost $200,000. Moving the La Concha lobby, one of Las Vegas’ most famous pieces of Googie architecture, from the Strip cost $1.4 million.
Then there is Heritage Street, a tidy tree-lined stretch of gravel road outside the Clark County Museum on Boulder Highway that includes houses and notable buildings from the Las Vegas Valley’s past. Rescued by groups desperate to save Southern Nevada’s disappearing history, the buildings were plunked down in Henderson, restored, decorated and opened to the public. Moving and restoring the homes has come at a hefty price.
The permanent exhibit is a brilliant slice of 20th-century American life, a nice getaway for anyone lamenting the Mediterranean-themed, master-planned communities sprawling across the valley. You can sit on a bench outside the print shop or on the front porch of the Beckley House, a California bungalow built in 1912 for the Beckley family, which owned a clothing store in downtown Las Vegas.
These aren’t replicas. They’re the real deal — filled with authentic furniture, dishes, wall hangings, knickknacks, historical tidbits and recorded music. Each is its own period piece. There is a motor court cabin from the 1930s and the Boulder City Railroad Depot.
Call it a nod to creative preservation in a progressive area.
Themed attractions have made Las Vegas famous. Just when we wondered what would be next, MGM Mirage decides to build the biggest “theme” of all: an urban core on the Strip, an attraction you might say only simulates high-rise living with grocery stores within walking distanced. Eventually, we might tear down CityCenter and replace it with something else, leaving only a whisper of the Stripside urban condo community.
Heritage Street, by comparison, has no such glamour. It doesn’t even have a casino. But it’s a collection that shows where we were and how far we’ve come.
The Neon Boneyard has international fame, but visitors still drive down East Fremont Street to look at the dilapidated auto court motels, many of which have been pillaged.
We lost one of our legendary wedding chapels on the Strip, but the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is helping fund the restoration, along with the State Cultural Commission. Next year is Clark County’s centennial. The chapel and the Railroad Cottage, both on the county museum property, are expected to be restored and displayed by the end of the year.
The Townsite homes, built in the 1940s in Henderson, were meant as temporary housing for war workers. On the other hand, Myron Martin, president of the Las Vegas Performing Arts Center Foundation, says the Smith Center for the Performing Arts is being designed and built to last 300 years. Whew. That’s something, at least.
In 20 years preservationists might be concerned with the Eiffel Tower that stood outside Paris Las Vegas during the heyday of hyperthemed casinos.
Preservationist and historian Bob Stoldal says he’s stood before the Bellagio and asked himself, “What is this going to be in 50 years?”
LasVegasLynn
in Cultural Tourism, Current Day, Historic Homes, Historical
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