Modern Marvels: How Las Vegas Became a City Like No Other (S2, E3) | Full Episode | History

from the arid nevada deserts  brings a glittering spectacle   it's medieval england it's caesar's role  it's ancient egypt it's new york city   it's 11 of the world's 12 largest hotels  gateways to the biggest playground in the world   now enter the fantasy in the desert  las vegas hotels on modern marvels so in las vegas form follows fantasy  and in all of these fantasy environments   you find ideas emotions that tap into some very  deep feelings of the mass market there's a desire   for a sense of meaning of narrative being  able to put yourself into these different   stories whether it's pirates or ancient  egypt or south sea islands or the old west the storytellers behind las vegas hotels have  proved the truth of build it and they will come   between 1990 and 1996 the city added 33 000 new  hotel rooms and an equal number of new visitors   flocked to occupy them what other city in the  world from the moment you arrive you become part   of a fantasy we're the world's largest adult theme  park where you recognize you're going to come   and for three to five days you can be anywhere  you want to be in anyone you choose to be the jolly roger these buildings are not monuments  they sometimes are getting perceived as monuments   but they're not we're going to change them we are  going to change these buildings i mean i have been   doing this for 20 years and even i have torn down  things that i have built in in that short of a career the fantasy that never stops began life  as a way station in the timeless nevada   desert located on the rail line between  los angeles and salt lake city las vegas   was established in 1903 as a sober working  class community to support the railroad the tiny hamlet went about its quiet ways  until government actions transformed the area   in 1931 gambling was legalized   the same year construction began on the  boulder dam just 30 miles from the city limits the dam later renamed for herbert  hoover flooded the area with   thousands of workers eager for a place to  spend their paychecks on saturday nights the population expanded because of so many  thousands of workers working on the dam   but also las vegas have never  seen itself as a resort community   and so many hundreds of thousands of people came  to see this huge magnificent project going up   this was the time when las  vegas first began to see itself   as possibly a resort destination so the  dam played a very crucial role in that in the early years what las  vegas thought it had to sell   was the old west the mythical american  west featured saloons and gambling halls   and in vegas one could find  something close to the real thing you could drink and carouse  like an old-time cowboy   enjoying authentic liquor and a  campy tongue-and-cheek atmosphere the big breakthrough came in 1941 with  the opening of the el rancho hotel   a rambling ranch house it transplanted  the imagined splendor of the old west   to casinos and brought lavish decor and thematic  architecture to the strip a year later the last   frontier developed a couple of miles further out  the strip old-timers at the time were shaking   their heads and saying las vegas is simply not  large enough to accommodate two resort hotels but vegas and its western theme flourished over the next decade gambling houses  with evocative names like hotel apache   and the golden nugget sprang  up across the desert landscape in 1951 the casino pioneer club  introduced a neon icon named vegas vic   his arm was animated and he had a cigarette in his  mouth that kept flickering and originally as well   his voice said howdy partnered a friendly   lanky cowboy type which became from the  early 1950s on real logo of las vegas while the western theme sold well california   investor billy wilkerson dreamed of attracting  a more sophisticated clientele to the desert in 1945 he began construction on the  flamingo hotel only to run out of money   before completing it mobster bugsy siegel  stepped into the breach buying the flamingo   and sparing no expense in making it the most  modern most luxurious destination in vegas history   here was a swank hollywood nightclub  transported to the nevada desert the flamingo had a special attraction  flamingo had a showroom and it brought   some serious name entertainment to las vegas  they became an attraction unto themselves   people came for the entertainment i  remember my first show that i ever   saw in a nightclub was at the flamingo and i  saw lena horne and i was absolutely astounded despite its star power the flamingo at first   floundered under its then unheard of  six million dollar construction costs his mob patrons blamed bugsy for  the slow return on their investment   just seven months after his hotel opened  he was gunned down in his hollywood home   bugsy was singularly unsuccessful until he  died and i think people came to las vegas   to see what this guy created what  had gotten him in so much trouble   that his business associates had eliminated him the flamingo's first owner had gone bust   its second had spent other people's  money with abandon and paid the price yet in time their joint vision was vindicated as  the flamingo became a money maker and established   a whole new style for las vegas attracted by plush  surroundings and top entertainment men in tuxedos   and women in evening gowns came to gamble away  their riches the sophistication of the flamingo   just broke open the market for las vegas it  was no longer just this western dude ranch   easy-going sort of place it up the ante it was  a much more glamorous and sophisticated place   bold entrepreneurs and timely government  projects had transformed the desert into   an oasis the glitter of ancient rome would soon  invite the wonderland to new heights of hedonism with the success of the flamingo hotel las  vegas entered a golden age of expansion   self-contained casino resorts sprang up as  fast as they could be built by the mid-1950s   highway 91 in the middle of nevada had become  a glittering three-mile tribute to hedonism what followed the flamingo one after another  were bigger and more hotels more of everything   and they were all little mini oasises   each new pleasure palace was determined to top the  rest in 1953 the flamingo was forced to remodel   to compete with the ultra-modern sands hotel  the casinos vied to attract top entertainers   and gambling revenue allowed them  to lure talent like frank sinatra   with paychecks of fifty thousand dollars  a week one of the biggest draws was a   series of atomic bomb tests conducted  over the las vegas proving grounds las vegas learned how to use the nuclear bomb  for publicity they would have things like   miss atomic bomb contests they would have mushroom  hairdos there was a contest for atomic cocktails   and even the hotels on the then emerging las vegas  strip would publish schedules of nuclear tests   would invite their guests to take box lunches  up to the mountains and in the pre-dawn hours   they would be able to see the sky light up  in those pretty mushroom clouds float away the entertainers the atomic picnics the  resort amenities all were merely devices   to draw customers into casinos inside  then as now there were no clocks windows   or easily found exits creating an air of unreality  that treated gamblers like bouncing pinballs they   tended to not be straight axes through casinos  you kind of had to wind your way through   you didn't know what was left right he barely knew  what was up and down because you could use mirrors   every place to confuse you with that one and you  certainly didn't know whether it was night or day in the 1950s and 60s las vegas was a completely   car oriented environment one could drive the  entire strip without spotting a pedestrian   and with nary a sidewalk cars were used  even to travel to a neighboring building   hotel architecture adjusted to accommodate the car   providing ever flashier signs  designed to be read from the highway in las vegas they took the neon sign and they  made it something completely unique completely new   it was this image of the neon  sign which told you everything   you needed to know about the building and  why you should be there it drew people in built in 1958 the stardust  sign was three stories high   with lights bursting into a cosmic explosion that  progressed through a 20-minute animation sequence   a purely decorative piece of architecture totally  made out of light the whole building created the   illusion that it was just one big light show  it was like the modern kind of computerized   extravaganzas and led signs we see today at  places like times square way before its time in las vegas of the 1960s builder jay sarno  stood out as a showman and a visionary   he took the notion of thematic  architecture and raised it to a new level   with caesar's palace in 1966 when caesar's  palace opened they brought a special kind of   magic caesar's had a very very special quality  to it it had a theme a real honest-to-god theme caesars was actually a hodgepodge of roman  greek baroque and even modern architecture   the building presented no particular period in  time it represented a mystique of casual elegance from the swimming pool shaped like a roman bath  to the heroic statues strewn about the casino   this was the most completely themed  casino las vegas had ever seen good design good architecture whatever it might  be is consistent the more consistent it is the   the easier it is to understand you don't want  the experience to be a cerebral experience you   want it just to happen you don't want anybody  to think about it you want them just to enjoy it   from the moment they walked in the door guests  at caesars enjoyed the feeling of being special   and they happily paid a premium for the experience   caesar's palace there's no apostrophe in there  it's plural caesar's and sarno explained this   as everyone who comes there is a caesar he wasn't  talking about any one caesar who had this palace   any visitor any gambler who came to caesar's  palace was the caesar this was theme architecture   it was creating an entire environment which would  transport people to another time another place while sarno was busy constructing caesars  another maverick came to town billionaire   howard hughes had a mission to rid  las vegas of its shady underworld aura from 1965 to 1970 he lived in the penthouse floor  of the desert inn going so far as to buy the hotel   when they threatened to evict their eccentric  tenant without ever emerging from his room   hughes bought a series of casinos and threw his  support behind the corporate gaming act of 1969 prior to 1969 all owners of a hotel had to be  licensed and that would have been impossible   with a broadly held company after 1969 of  course corporations like holiday in mgm   valleys and so forth could provide enormous sums  of money for the future development of las vegas   fueled by deep corporate pockets  vegas turned to mega hotels   huge structures with thousands of rooms these  hotels were among the largest in the world   their use as casinos only added to  the difficulty of designing them   they're buildings that operate 24 hours a day  seven days a week that brings a whole nother   multitude of problems that need  to be dealt with in a facility   that that never sleeps it never closes down  unique design problems for the 21st century caesar's impresario j sarno had shown  the limitless potential of hotel theming   howard hughes had cleared the way for corporate  america to invade the world of gambling backed by imagination and money vegas  hotels were poised to reach for the sky howard hughes left las vegas for good in 1970  leaving behind a legacy of corporate money   in his wake international hotel chains  moved in erecting larger versions of   their typical buildings it changed the  atmosphere of las vegas you didn't have   these individual crazy entrepreneurs with a vision  who were able to force through something like   caesar's palace who were able to force through by  their own will something like the flamingo hotel   high rises began dominating the strip dwarfing and  replacing the great neon signs that had defined   las vegas a single hotel casino might service 3  000 guests along with nearly as many support staff   demanding a vast infrastructure you have to take  into consideration the fact that there has to be a   huge amount of redundancy so you never rely on one  water source you never rely on one power source   things that are at the heart the energy that the  building requires for its physical demands are   engineered in a completely different way because  of this factor of never closing the building down   i mean that is the mortal sin never to close  the building las vegas new corporate masters   soon realized that size meant little without  a story line behind it the way to a customer's   heart and his wallet was to create the best  costume party around and ask him to join the fun what we do in las vegas is that we put you  on stage we invite you to come onto our stage   what we'd like to inject into the whole thing is  romance the way romance makes us feel we never get   tired of so if we can incorporate romance into  something then i will have you back and back   many many times and enjoying yourself and feeling  wonderful about yourself for the last 20 years las   vegas architects have faced a daunting challenge  to make their hotels bigger than the rest   to imbue them with a consistent and  involving theme and to build them fast   with so much money at stake and  constant pressure to relieve   a fickle public of their hard-earned dollars these  steel giants leap skyward with astonishing speed   if we were to wait until we actually had  the end product designed these buildings   would be taking four and five years to build  instead of two and three years to build   so what we've had to do is we've had to go after  a more universal structure by universal structures   i mean spaces that have far less columns in them  buildings that have much higher ceilings in them   which give designers much more flexibility as to  how they're going to arrange the non-structural   or non-bearing walls inside the movie set i mean  that's what these are these are not historical   buildings people will not be coming here two  thousand years from now and looking at these   buildings this is one large movie set that  continually evolves and continually changes   suddenly in 1978 las vegas faced its worst  nightmare when atlantic city new jersey legalized   gambling in the years since gambling has spread to  scores of reservations riverboats and localities   contrary to original fears the competition  has actually benefited las vegas   as it has grown over the years las  vegas has become the place to come   it's the mecca for gamblers there are so many  other things going on around the country but   basically all that does is wet the  appetites for people to come to the mecca   the original mgm grand opened  in 1972 was both quasi film set   and brassy evocation of 1920s movie palaces  presenting grandeur with a popular flair   it offered children the magic of movies  and adults the nostalgia of a bygone era anticipating huge crowds the mgm architects  turned a dilemma into an opportunity designing   a massive port cochair an outdoor awning  capable of covering scores of limousines at once decorative and functional the port  cochair created the grand entrance an elegant   ceremony presided over by costume doorman this  started a trend you'll see in a succession   of hotels after that each port kosher got larger  more glamorous more glitzy throughout the 1970s in 1980 tragedy struck when a deadly fire  swept through the mgm grand killing 84 people   during the blaze some gamblers on hot streaks  refused to leave the football field-sized casino   and were finally herded out just minutes before  advancing flames consumed its 1 000 slot machines today high-tech monitoring systems make las vegas  safety procedures among the most stringent in the   world and there is much to monitor a lone  mega hotel consumes 15 million gallons of   water and 7 million kilowatts of electricity  each month enough to service over 3 000 homes technology helps also to safeguard the profit   margin as eye in the sky cameras  capture the play at gaming tables pictures of every table are  flashed to a giant control center   where they're examined 24 hours a day   anyone on a hot streak gets a closer look and  has his photo preserved for future reference with an even greater concentration of huge  hotels las vegas has gradually become an urban   environment in the town where carr was king  people now walk between competing attractions   the hotels have literally put their  front doors right out on the edge of   their property with some kind  of big moving sidewalk like   into the mirage or into caesar's palace that  scoops you up right at the very edge of the   sidewalk and whisks you into the casino the funny  thing about that is of course that those moving   sidewalks only work one direction it isn't like  in an airport where you can take a moving sideway   going both directions in vegas you can only go  in you're on your own getting out whether on foot   or in a car visitors to the strip frequently find  themselves trapped with mobs of fellow fun-seekers personally i think gridlock is good i think  gridlock is part of the reason people come to   las vegas they love to be with other people this  is times square almost every night of the year   like times square in recent years las vegas  hotels have decided to clean up their act   beginning with circus circus in 1975 they  have actively pursued the family market   gone are most of the semi-new dancing girls  in are the arcades and the animal acts   in the grand tradition of las vegas entrepreneurs  the transition from adult fantasyland to family   resort was spearheaded by one man wynn had a  vision that las vegas could be something more   than just casinos with hotel rooms he showed the  industry that they had only just begun to grow   he was the catalyst that began the building boom   where every casino had a new and bigger and better  idea on how to entertain our tourist population in 1977 vegas pioneer steve wynn bought the old  golden nugget casino he promptly added his first   hotel wing threw in a dash of salesmanship  and revived it as a money-making operation   quiet beginning to what became a very loud empire steve wynn is probably the most  demanding client i've ever had   he's also the best client i ever had he's willing  to put some money up and he supports everyone on   the design team and he's pushing all the time  and always always looking for a better way to create the mirage hotel in the late 1980s  wynn raised a then unheard of 700 million dollars   he was building the most costly hotel in las vegas  history and gambling on selling a new concept with the opening of the mirage las vegas  took an entirely different direction   where it wasn't just about gambling it was about  each hotel being an attraction in and of itself when envisioned the mirage  as a south seas paradise   an irresistible tropical playground sprung  from the nevada desert with the mirage wind   promised a complete environmental experience to  dwarf even caesar's palace rather than simply a   pleasant backdrop to gaming this thematic  design was its own form of entertainment wynn boldly presented his new kind of casino by  building the first major street side attraction   in town a 40-foot erupting volcano the volcano  at the mirage was a challenge that steve nguyen   put on the table and that was to say that not even  walt disney has attempted a volcano yet and that   was our mandate he wanted to see a volcano that in  fact everyone would believe it was a real volcano   this volcano had to erupt safely and spectacularly  every hour regulating the amount of natural gas   and triggering it with an electronic ignition made  the explosion controllable attention to detail   included scenting the blast with a pina colada  aroma that was both pleasant and suggestive of   the south seas what was hard was lighting  it that's what was hard because you have   the light number one from the explosion but  in between the explosions the lighting effect   on the tumbling water and on the stone work  that was by far the most challenging thing for much of the mirage decor wynn and his  design team went with the theory that god   is the best architect bring in real tropical  landscaping believing also that nature can   always be improved upon they lit the  trees with artificial yet romantic glow   when you see these beautiful growing living  things lit so sexy so subtle so wonderful   that's when the imagination begins to happen and  that's when architecture is at its highest point   for the mirage high-rise one of nature's most  precision elements would be used to create a   glittering facade each of its 3000 rooms look  out through glass containing 24 karat gold   real gold glass doesn't turn green when  the blue sky is reflected off of it   the gold glasses made from copper when the sun  or the sky is reflected off of it look green   we didn't want the building to  be green we want it to be cold   in 1993 wynn unveiled a larger-than-life version  of every boy's fantasy treasure island hotel and   casino here the sidewalk attraction was buccaneer  bay a disney ask pirate village that the pirates   of old would have built if they could have  afforded it every 90 minutes each night a   full-scale theatrical presentation plays out in  the bay audiences find themselves right in the   thick of the action as pirates battle a british  frigate your bloody colors locker not before   while steve nguyen was busy transforming  las vegas into his version of disneyland   others began to realize a hidden secret behind  the magic kingdom if you really look at disneyland   disneyland is a shopping center people plan  vacations around going to a shopping center   meaning that if you really take a second  look at disneyland it is full of retail   and it is full of food and beverage eager to match  disneyland's success las vegas hotels have vastly   expanded their shopping facilities the forum  shops at caesars palace lead the new trend   offering an array of upscale shops tied  together by the setting a mock roman street the lighting speeds through a 24-hour cycle every  three hours suddenly heightening the excitement freely mixing ancient tales and modern technology  the euro mall features a statue of bacchus that   leaps to life in full animatronic splendor and  in this emporium lack of tradition is a virtue gambling for dad shopping for mom dolphins for the  kids by the 1990s las vegas had nearly perfected   the family resort in 1993 steve wynn tore down  the dunes to make way for his newest hotel the pirate ship at treasure island fired a  simulated cannonball across town to the dunes   where the famed sign and hotel were  time to implode with the canon blast it was a unique show and a spectacular  symbol of out with the old in with the new   wind's innovations have opened  the floodgates to bold new ideas   and the next generation of hotels would  meld form and fantasy as never before modern las vegas is the number one resort  destination in the country and the mecca   for serious gamblers casinos still vie for the  business of high rollers the super rich who think   nothing of losing a million dollars in a weekend  the ornate pompeii suite at caesar's palace lists   at seven thousand five hundred dollars a night  but invariably is given gratis to high rollers they lounge about the four-bedroom  duplex amid baroque columns   gilded tapestries and italian frescoes   everything that we design we put a storyline to it  whether it's a restaurant whether it's a shopping   center whether it's a casino we create a story  line so we have a beginning a middle and an end each storyline is complemented  by the latest technology   racing to provide customers  with the hottest new thrills   hotels are constantly upgrading their  attractions to boost sensory stimulation sound systems that are in the casinos and in  the restaurants are extremely complex they're   as complex as what you might find in any good  movie studio and we actually have departments   and divisions of people who look at sound for  these different environments on a continual basis in recent years the best show in town has become  the buildings themselves 1990 brought the 4 000   room excalibur an arthurian extravaganza complete  with moat drawbridge and fire breathing dragon   in 1993 the new mgm grand opened its doors  immediately becoming the largest hotel on earth perhaps the most distinctive building in town is  the luxor hotel an ultra modern take on ancient   egypt its 30 stories and 26 783 glass plates  shimmer in the desert sun standing guard in   front is a new kind of sign a giant sphinx  scaled 50 percent larger than the original   inside its atrium takes up 29 million cubic  feet making it the largest in the world   even going to one's room is an adventure with  elevators that rise at an angle of 39 degrees   to match proportions devised  long ago by egyptian architects at night the pyramid performs a vanishing act   it's like a black hole in the middle of the  strip everything else is lights and waving   all these megawatts at you to  get your attention and suddenly   there's this negative totally negative thing this  big black object it's almost invisible at night   the luxor is topped by the brightest beacon in the  world 40 billion candle power of light shooting   into the night sky ironically since light is only  visible when it hits something and the desert air   is especially clean this super search light does  little but cause havoc for pilots flying overhead the latest leap in las vegas  architecture is recreating   actual modern cities the hotel casino new  york new york takes a place well known to   millions transporting its physical presence  and bustling atmosphere in startling detail the difficulty in creating this project overall  was the fact that you didn't want it to come off   in a cartoonish fashion you wanted the details  to be so substantial and so real that people   could identify with the project and  in new york city inside and outside   the giant facade collected a dozen of the big  apple's most famed towers recreating them at   one third scale the las vegas version of the  empire state building stretches 47 stories high   enough to make it the  tallest structure in the city the idea that it was a very large   project didn't really hit us until we found out  that between this project and the one next door   we had consumed all of the number 11 reinforcing  bars and 14 reinforcing bars in the country   now that's a lot of steel considering that  this is these are largely concrete projects   new york new york is monumental architecture and  perhaps the biggest piece of pop art in the world   it draws people into a unique  environment surrounding them   with art deco details of new york in the 1920s people from new york really like it which is so  wonderful and to have those people come here and   be happy with it and enjoy it we've created  everything except the smells and the muggings   and all the all the litter around we've tried  to eliminate as much of that as possible in some ways this fantasy new  york has surpassed the original   each year three million people crossed the  300-foot brooklyn bridge that leads to its   entrance approximately 20 times the number that  walk the span between brooklyn and manhattan in new york citizens avoid central park at  night for fear of robbery in the central park   that overgrows the casino patrons eagerly line  up for the chance to be relieved of their money new york new york is the largest expression  of the world's greatest theme park   a city with the dollars the imagination  and the whimsy to try anything   las vegas is a city built by people who dream big  dreams entrepreneurs who aren't afraid to take a   risk i even look back when they first built the  mirage and those of us in the business community   were all saying oh how are you ever going to meet  the debt on a 700 million dollar property today   they're building billion plus they're building  suites that in and of themselves are 17 million   dollars to build it's a city that every idea  becomes a stepping stone to a grander idea   it's a city where entrepreneurs are not afraid  to gamble on building a bigger brighter future you

Channel: HISTORY

Views: 165,445

Rating: 4.8308024 out of 5

Keywords: history, history channel, h2, h2 channel, history channel shows, h2 shows, modern marvels, modern marvels full episodes, modern marvels clips, watch modern marvels, history channel modern marvels, full episodes, season 2, episode 3, e3, Modern Marvels S2 E3, Modern Marvels Season2 Episode3, Modern Marvels Season2, Modern Marvels S2, Las Vegas, wonderland for dreamers, wonderland, A City Like No Other, watch modern marvels clips, modern marvels videos, modern marvels episodes

Id: eCgg0Oj4ok4

Length: 43min 15sec (2595 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/hk1080]

Ah, when history channel shows were actually about history.

[u/msxvader]

It was on tv the other day and I got so excited but it was on bacon. I love bacon but I prefer the older episodes

[u/Erock11]

When educational tv was educational tv!!! Now its gold and moonshine and peoples lives....