The Strip (The MIT Press) by Stefan Al

Author:Stefan Al [Al, Stefan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: 2017-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

The Volcano Shutdown

A stroll down the Strip used to take pedestrians past buzzing neon and swaths of asphalt. In 1989, enter Steve Wynn’s lagoon and eight-story volcano, spewing columns of smoke and burning flames.

Steve Wynn successfully ran his family’s bingo parlor in Maryland, moved to Las Vegas, bought a stake in downtown’s Golden Nugget, and managed to stage a takeover. In 1973, at the age of thirty-one, he became chairman and president of the Golden Nugget. He then wanted to build a Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, but lacked the necessary capital. Wynn’s cousin’s college roommate, Michael Milken, entered the picture. Milken happened to be the legendary king of junk bonds—below investment-grade loans at high interest rates. In 1979, he raised $160 million from Mormon bankers, the highest amount ever loaned to a casino. When his casino became the most profitable in Atlantic City, Milken then backed Wynn with $535 million worth of bonds for a new $630 million Las Vegas Strip hotel, the Mirage, which would open in 1989, the world’s most expensive casino-resort. But Wynn needed a million a day in revenue to service the debt alone. It was the skeptics’ heyday.

With this budget, Wynn could spend $30 million just on a volcano to “hook” people away from Caesars Palace. Lighting designer David Hersey, who had had initially been charged only to light the exterior of the hotel tower, came up with the idea. A 12-foot-tall prototype was made so that it could be tested. Hersey explained: “Steve’s first reaction to the volcano was concern that it would look like a cigarette lighter going off.”6 The source of the flame was a pipeline delivering 400 million BTUs of natural gas, guaranteeing a 40-foot blaze. Edward Lewis, director of Rock and Waterscapes Inc., said: “The volcano is just a pipe with gas in it.”7

Lewis’s firm was charged with decorating the pipe with rocks. Wynn wanted the rugged formations from the Santa Rosa Mountains near Palm Springs. They made a mold of the rocks and built the mountain out of fiberglass, adding a few layers of paint to achieve a “natural” rocky look. Lewis explained: “You get a very artificial appearance with real rock.”8 A landscape architect, charged with constructing a river to flow over the rocks, quoted Wynn: “Steve told us, ‘I need the cascading water to be white so I can light it. Niagara Falls has white water, and I want white water.’”9 They poured water over the fake rocks to see when it would go perfectly white. 128,000 gallons of water a minute did the trick.

All of this was enhanced with sounds of chirping birds, giving way to roaring thunder at punctual fifteen-minute volcano eruptions. To simulate the lava, water spewing up from the lagoon appeared to be on fire, thanks to underwater gas jets. But the gas also gave off a smell of sulfur, which could frighten guests. An artificial scent was added, to make the volcano smell like piña colada.

“It’s what God would’ve done,” Wynn joked, “if He’d had the money.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.