They blew up the last bits of the Riviera. I thought about it. I was sad. Then I thought about it some more. I was angry. Then I thought about it some more, and it made sense. I share some of that journey in my latest Green Felt Journal:
It’s a Vegas tradition, this sacrificing the past for a prospective future. Las Vegas is about today, not taxidermy. Even if the Riviera were still open today, it would be almost unrecognizable from the nine-story high-rise (the first in the state!) that Liberace opened back in 1955. Most of the Riviera’s physical plant dated from the 1970s or later. The iconic “No Ifs, Ands, or …” Crazy Girls sculpture dates from 1995.
Read more: The Riv’s Quiet End – Vegas Seven
The point I wanted to make was that it’s easy to just say we want to roll back the clock to happy, simpler days, but we need to ask ourselves, “Happier for who? Simpler for who?” I can’t find any easy answers.