Oh, MAN, that place!
I did trade show work – COMDEX, CES – from 89 - 95.
This was before Las Vegas got really corporate, and it was full of delightfully tacky stuff and real bargains. Like loss-leader prime rib dinners, and coupon books that let you load up on free souvenirs, like hats and decks of cards and such. Circus-Circus had a satellite casino, Slots-O-Fun, which had a snack bar right up front where you could get horrible foot-long hot dogs or a shrimp cocktail for a buck. (The plastic cup the shrimp cocktail came in got more and more full of chipped ice through the years, until there was just a thin layer of tiny shrimp and sauce over the ice.) Many hotels had buffets where you could eat bad-to-OK food really cheap. I’m talking $2.00 for breakfast.
“Vegas World” was past the the official end of the strip, where a long corridor shabby souvenir shops, cheap motels, and low-rent casinos (the “Thunderbird” was across the street, as I recall) began. I went a few times, because the outer space theme was so wonderfully tacky. On the outside, there were lamps with flickering rocket exhaust lights at the base. Inside, space murals and a hanging model or . . . Apollo-Soyuz? It has been so long!
Anyway. I returned to Las Vegas to meet up with college friends in the early Oughts, and dropped by the Stratosphere Tower. The view was impressive; you could see great swathes of “classic,” tacky Las Vegas going down and the new generation of huge corporate Vegas going up.
I won a jackpot of something like $96 in quarters at the Stratosphere casino that day. (Back when the machines still took and dispensed coins!) It kind of felt like a last harrah of Vegas for me. They charged so much for everything, even buffet meals.
