News Features
The Latest (National)
Sarah Speaks!
Palin comes to New York, but her message still remains unclear
February 24th, 2011
Since her controversial turn as John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin has leveraged her polarizing personality into a lucrative quasi-campaign premised on exactly those questions. The intrigue has allowed Palin to milk her moment for six-figure speaking fees and a gold-plated contract as a Fox News contributor. But her high-wattage tour of America, while officially not about 2012, has attracted presidential-level attention for a reason. It has essentially put the Republican primary process on hold, as other candidates, as well as major operatives and donors, wait to see what she’s going to do before moving too aggressively to commit themselves in any direction. Despite her middling poll numbers, the mere threat of her candidacy has become the main event. Read more »
Feature
Making it Work
A gallery of Las Vegans struggling to deal with our new economic reality
February 10th, 2011
Inspired by Richard Avedon’s photographs and Stud Terkel’s book Working, I spent six sweltering months in my studio photographing lost souls for this ongoing project. Some of them were friends, but most of them were just strangers with a story to tell. Read more »
Feature
The Golf Course at the End of the World
At Coyote Springs, where recession has stalled a mega-development, a golf course endures in magnificent desolation.
January 6th, 2011
You drive out on Interstate 15 going north past the airbase and the speedway, the city trailing off like a radio losing its signal. You can still feel it, though, at your back. By night there’s its galactic yellow glow, by day its white noise. But then you turn off at U.S. 93 and you’re in a different world altogether, a long line of asphalt drawn on a bead over the harsh and mysterious and preternatural beige desert floor and leading, it seems, to infinity. Read more »
Feature
The Education of Henry Chanin
Behind the largest jury award in Nevada history is the story of a man who helped shape modern Las Vegas
December 16th, 2010
Henry Chanin was just stepping out of a gondola in Venice, Italy, when the weariness descended. “I was weak as a puppy,” he remembers. “I couldn’t walk. I had no idea what was going on.” Chanin and his wife, Lorraine, were experienced travelers and urban walkers, but the mile and a half to Hotel Bonvecchiati, just off St. Mark’s Square, may as well have been a marathon. Henry walked 10 steps, sat down, walked another 10, stopped. By the time they arrived, the Chanins realized their vacation was over. Read more »
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
Only Connect
The Cosmo opens itself up to the city, and the city is better for it
December 9th, 2010
In its architectural elegance and sheer scale, the 67-acre, seven-building CityCenter may have opened the door for 21st-century urbanism on the Strip, but its new neighbor, the slender Cosmopolitan, may prove to be the real model for urban development moving forward. Read more »
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
A Shot at the Brass Ring
John Unwin is tasked with making the Cosmopolitan a success in a daunting market. Is he the man for the job?
December 9th, 2010
John Unwin’s not quite moved into his new office—the artwork’s still waiting to be hung and the shelves are mostly bare—but he’s right at home as the Cosmopolitan hurtles toward its Dec. 15 opening. As of this writing, it’s 14 days, three hours, 47 minutes and eight seconds until the curtain officially rises, according to the Strip-front clock. For the CEO, life and work will be controlled chaos until then, and probably for some time afterward. Read more »
Why Not?
Why not re-seed the Strip with neon?
December 2nd, 2010
Um, did we miss something here? Weren’t “the aughts” supposed to be the decade of returning to our ring-a-ding-ding roots? Frank and Sammy and all that? Seems a lot like lip service when we entered the decade with the Stardust and Frontier signs intact and we left it with them, or pieces of them, anyway, in the Boneyard. Read more »
Why Not?
Why not create a public vocational college?
December 2nd, 2010
Southeast Career Technical Academy has done a great job for years at the high school level, and the Valley has a growing assortment of private trade schools. The College of Southern Nevada teaches some trades, but its core mission remains academic. What Nevada needs is affordable public higher education that trains adults for the kind of hands-on, high-skill jobs that fall outside the bounds of traditional education. Read more »
Why Not?
Why not repurpose derelict properties?
December 2nd, 2010
These are painful times, so let’s begin with a painful metaphor. The recession has been some sort of horrible dental drill, boring through the surface of the city, hitting nerves and leaving plenty of empty spaces: Shopping centers and office buildings with unoccupied suites, mixed-used developments that wound up neither mixed nor used. Read more »
Why Not?
Why not set aside the notion of luring a major league team and concentrate on proving that we can be a first-class home for the sports we already have?
December 2nd, 2010
Now that might lure a major league team. Without either substantial refurbishment or replacement of Cashman Field, we’re in danger of losing Triple-A ball. Without a paved parking lot at Sam Boyd Stadium, the football fan experience remains an exercise in exurban hiking. UNLV baseball, on the verge of a renaissance with new coach Tim Chambers, needs our support. Read more »
