Quick and Dirty: a notebook of news and politics

N.Y Times exposes Vegas underbelly

The New York Times is printing a six-part series about Las Vegas this week. It's called "American Dreamers: The Lure of Las Vegas," and it doesn't paint a pretty picture. This is the poignant Las Vegas, the one you don't see on the Travel Channel. Which is fine, because Las Vegas gets more than enough positive PR already.

Knowing you may not have time to digest the entire package, here's a brief breakdown of the first three parts (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday). We'll give you the upshot of the latter three parts next week.

Part 1: The Times hangs out at the Budget Suites, where it finds all kinds of hard-luck stories--and persistent hopes that things will get better. Denny Cowie, a Budget Suites resident, describes the ugliness and desperation he sees around him, noting, "People can get devoured in this city."

The story says that while thousands of people move to Las Vegas every month, a lot of them end up leaving. "You have people bouncing in and bouncing out," demographer Jeff Hardcastle says.

Las Vegas is a struggle for some, but a feast for others. The real estate market is red hot, the Times notes, and Las Vegas delivers at least part of the American dream for those stepping into a good job. But for those who come to Las Vegas and can't land that good job, it's a struggle.

"I have no idea why people keep coming," Ann Sheets, a single mother of three, says. "I tried for two years, even working two jobs at a time. There's no dream here."

Part 2: The Times goes to school, marveling at the rapid pace of campus construction and teacher hiring. The main story focuses on the harried educational environment in the northwest 'burbs, where teachers are changing schools with a moment's notice and student rosters are changing almost daily.

A sidebar quotes school district boss Carlos Garcia: "Living in Las Vegas is like living in the future. It's kind of like Field of Dreams. They say, `Build it and they will come.' Here it's, `You better build it, because they're already here.'"

Part 3: Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle is profiled. He sees the troubled kids in court, and he's also had to cope with his own teenage daughter's problems, some of the blame for which he places on Las Vegas' corrupting influence.

"I wouldn't come here again," Hardcastle says. "I won't retire here. There's a lack of social control. The kids don't have dreams. I ask them, `What do you want to be?' They tell me nothing." Later in the article, Hardcastle adds: "Las Vegas is a difficult place to raise a child. Go home or bad. You've got women's butts on billboards. Your kids are on their own while you're busy earning a living. If you bring your children here, be warned."

A second story notes that Nevada ranks poorly for teenage afflictions such as violence, drug use, pregnancy, suicide and dropout rates. It then offers the ready-made cliché that teenagers here don't care about high school and college because they can become valet parkers "making $100,000 a year."

Not all the parents and kids are headed down a dark road, however, and the Times is nice enough to give this a mention. Jannie Poulos, a bartender at a northwest tavern, says you have to know what your kids are doing at all times. "I grew up here, so I know better," she says. "It's the kids from Iowa getting caught up in the moment. If you're going to raise a kid here with these kinds of influences, you have to know what your kid is up to. You have to care about them, basically."

The Times series has a provocative and important premise that is woefully underreported locally: The "chaos of growth" has serious negative effects. It's an important story the county's Growth Task Force, for one, has almost completely ignored.--GS

This isn't your father's historic post office

The city's Historic Preservation Commission received a proposal last Wednesday from Chattel and Goldstein, the firm in charge of revamping downtown's old post office at 301 Stewart Ave. In some ways, the presentation, "The Post Modern," was the usual dim-the-lights-and-boot-up-PowerPoint affair--until the actual presentation started.

If wow was ever to be uttered in reference to a Historic Preservation Commission meeting, this was the time. Imagine a historic building dressed up with neon, surrounded by art and draped in projected images, home to both history and innovative exhibits. Indeed, the firm proposes turning the post office, which was built in the early '30s, not into some dusty museum brimming with staid exhibits, but rather a dynamic space that balances history and art and invites controversy. Some of the proposal involved old-fashioned rehab work, such as restoring the lobby to its original look, saving the old post office boxes and the stately bathrooms. But much of the proposal also centered on turning the old building into a community gathering center; Carol Goldstein tossed out ideas such as radio broadcasts from the site, a cafe, pitching rooftop VIP receptions to wedding parties and conventions, visually anchoring the building with a definitive outdoor sculpture and devoting different floors to interactive exhibits on Southern Nevada history, from the Kefauver Hearings on organized crime in the '50s to the state's role in the nuclear arms race.

The proposal has many hurdles to clear before becoming a reality, but if it can wake up a roomful of attendees at a Historic Commission meeting, that's a good sign in itself.--AK

La Concha lobby may be saved after all

When Lorenzo Doumani announced plans for a ambitious, upscale hotel-casino on the site of the La Concha Inn--to the crunch and smash of construction equipment tearing the back building apart--Andy Kirk started getting calls to save the building's famous conch-shaped lobby. Many of those calls fielded by the UNLV history prof and director of Preserve Nevada came from out of town.

"When [historic preservation group] the L.A. Conservancy called and pointedly asked me, 'What is Preserve Nevada doing to save La Concha?' my gut reaction was that it just does not seem possible," says Kirk. Nearly six months later, Kirk has discovered that he had more people on his side than he thought. Now he thinks preserving the Strip landmark, designed by renowned Southern California architect Paul Revere Williams, is pretty likely.

He can count among his cohorts the Doumani family. "The Doumani family seem very in tune with the history of their own business, and have really demonstrated a high degree of enthusiasm and knowledge of the place," he says. While the family was willing to donate the lobby for free, preserving it in its original place would prove impossible in light of development plans. Now Kirk is in talks with the Neon Museum, which he says has agreed to take the building to use as art space, provided Preserve Nevada can come up with the money to pay for moving the building, which Kirk estimates to cost about $100,000. Preserve Nevada has until January to convince the city's Centennial Commission to foot the bill for moving the lobby two miles north to the Neon Museum site. Kirk is hopeful, especially considering the chain of pleasant surprises so far--such as the Doumanis' support for saving the structure, a rarity among developers.

"The Doumanis have been enthusiastic about helping to have it moved, and it's not really the norm for developers," he says. "A lot of time they think it's a hassle, but [the Doumanis] really seem to have an interest in this icon being preserved."

And a bit of national buzz didn't hurt. "What surprised me was the amount of national attention this got," he says. "I've changed my mind. I now feel it's really possible [to save the La Concha]. It'd be a shame and an embarrassment if we couldn't come up with some money."--AK