How Las Vegas, Nevada Lost its Status as the #1 Worldwide Gambling Destination

In April 2012, I continued my travel from Los Angeles to Mesquite, Nevada. Already that day, I had taken the Pearblossom Highway to Interstate I-15 North. After observing the new industrial desert at Ivanpah Valley, California, I crossed the state line at Primm, Nevada. Approaching Las Vegas, I had planned for a Las Vegas Freeway “drive by”. Since I was pulling my travel trailer that Thursday afternoon, a drive up Las Vegas Blvd. (The Strip) was out of the question. By the time I approached the city, with rush hour well underway, I took a deep breath and prepared to run the traffic gauntlet that is I-15 through Las Vegas.

Until the 1970s, old U.S. Highway 91, Las Vegas Blvd. and The Strip were all the same road. In North Las Vegas, the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street was also the historic intersection with U.S. 93 (the Salt Lake Highway) and U.S. 95 (the Reno Highway). Other than at The Strip in Las Vegas and in tiny Mesquite to the north, 1967 marked the completion of I-15 in Nevada. Until the 1974 I-15 bypass of The Strip, however, old U.S. highway intersections Downtown were the nexus for all traffic entering or leaving the Las Vegas.

Lost in Nevada history is why it took seven years to build less than five miles of freeway around The Strip. With I-15 truncated at either end of The Strip, the final off ramps connected directly to Las Vegas Blvd. In those days, The Strip was famous for offering every pleasure or vice known to humans. Some might call the freeway delay good marketing. Others might call it shortsighted to delay opening the last I-15 gap in Nevada.

Whatever windfall Las Vegas experienced during the seven-year delay cannot compare to the unending drag that the strategy placed on the economic future of Las Vegas. The 1960’s and 1970’s were the heyday of Las Vegas, growing from a railroad and highway town to the premier international gambling destination. Money goes where it is comfortable and it is now six times more comfortable in Macau than it is on the Las Vegas Strip. In 2012, monthly gaming revenue figures for Las Vegas top out at $530 million. In Macau, a gambling-friendly enclave on the Chinese Mainland, April 2012 saw gaming revenues of $3.13 billion. From today's perspective, a traffic noose tightened around twentieth century Las Vegas left it gridlocked and unprepared for twenty-first century revenue opportunities.

When the I-15 Las Vegas bypass opened in 1974, it was already obsolete. By then, I-15 through Las Vegas should have been well into its first phase of widening and improvement. As a legacy of the old highway plan, I-15 North still makes a tight S-curve as it skirts Downtown. There, it utilizes a highway corridor designed to handle the traffic of the 1960’s. With its grimy bridges and tight turns, you know that you are on an old section of highway. As a consequence, for decades now, one of the few constants in Las Vegas culture is the rush hour traffic tie-up near Downtown on I-15 North.

Despite every lane-addition that highway engineers could manage, at least twice going northbound, the two right-side lanes of the freeway must exit. After years of traffic frustration, local drivers jockey for any possible advantage. At first, they keep to the right and then jam their way back on to I-15 North at the last second. Uninitiated drivers find themselves either shunted off the freeway or forced to act like locals, bulling their way back into traffic. Either way, a weekday afternoon trip on I-15 North through Las Vegas is a guaranteed white-knuckle ride.

From I-15 North, what once was a giant glass pyramid in the desert, the Luxor Hotel, now looks tiny and almost lost on the horizon. Now that I-15 carries far more traffic than The Strip, the latter has become an architectural showplace, beckoning to I-15 motorists. With ever grander and more iconic buildings, The Strip offers a welcoming message to harried freeway drivers. Nearing Downtown, buildings named Wynn, Encore and Trump, stand as high-rise monuments to outsized luxury and gaming revenue. With its combination of overheated traffic and fantastic architecture, a transit north on I-15 through Las Vegas reinforces it own self-image. I can almost see Frank Sinatra, his Rat Pack and the Mob in the 1960s deciding over drinks at the Sands Hotel that everyone should continue to drive The Strip.

Email James McGillis

The Mojave Desert - Where the Pearblossom Highway and the Palmdale Road are One & The Same

In mid April 2012, I began a trip from Simi Valley, California to Moab, Utah, which is a distance of 745 miles. My plan was to stay overnight at the halfway point, in Mesquite, Nevada. The following day, I would drive the remainder, arriving in Moab before dark. I planned to take the Pearblossom Highway (CA-138E/CA18E) as a shortcut north of the Los Angeles basin. By doing so, I would save a few miles and avoid an ascent of treacherous Cajon Pass on Interstate I-15.

For the uninitiated, the Pearblossom Highway can be an enigma. Whether you start your drive near Palmdale, heading east or from Victorville heading west, there are anomalies. The unincorporated town of Pearblossom is less than half way from Palmdale to Victorville. Even so, “Pearblossom Highway” long ago became its accepted name. At its I-15 off-ramp in Victorville, road signs identify the same highway as the “Palmdale Road”.

Why have different names for the same highway, depending on your direction of travel? The simple answer is that the highway changes numbers mid desert. To make things more confusing, the western end of CA-18 is at that same “Y” intersection in the Mojave Desert. From that obscure and desolate intersection, CA-138E becomes the Antelope Highway, bearing southeast, while CA-18E continues in an eastbound beeline to Victorville.

Ironically, the two highways meet again at the eastward terminus of CA-138 near Crestline. Adding to the confusion is the fact that CA-18 shares pavement with I-15 through the City of Victorville. With so many names and numbers to deal with, I can understand why CALTRANS opted for the name “Palmdale Road”. Palmdale is a far-flung destination to which westbound travelers might relate.

Calling the westbound road the Pearblossom Highway implies that the road might end in that high desert town. In an effort to bypass much of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, would you take a misnamed two-lane road into the Mojave Desert? If identified as the “Victorville Highway”, the route might attract more motorists and more confidence in its eastern terminus.

Despite my fifty-five mile per hour Pearblossom Highway route being shorter and faster than other alternatives, both Google Maps and my Magellan GPS failed to utilize it. Most map databases assume that motorists would rather take a freeway than to save time and distance. I wonder how much time and fuel we might all save if routing software recognized the Pearblossom Highway/Palmdale Road as a legitimate shortcut. Perhaps it is the local moniker, "Deathtrap Highway" that keeps Google and Magellan from recommending it.

For years, the Pearblossom Highway name, with its nostalgia and small town feel, had baffled me. Having made repeated trips through over I-15 and the Cajon Pass, I finally decided to try “the old road” on during a recent transit. At that time, I was not familiar with the road signs along I-15. Nor did I understand the on-again, off-again nature of CA-18 and CA-138. Consequently, my first attempt resulted in a great circle route back to Barstow on Old-66. A week later, I viewed a GM OnStar TV commercial in which a young couple’s unseen advisor safely directs them back to the elusive Pearblossom Highway. 

Email James McGillis

Mulholland Drive - From Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley

During our driving tour of Hollywood, Carrie McCoy and I had already experienced several adventures. First, we had viewed a LACoFD training exercise at the Hollywood Bowl. For lunch, we stopped at Legendary Paul Pink’s Hot Dogs on La Brea Ave. After lunch, we drove toward Mount Lee to take pictures of the Hollywood Sign. Then, we departed Hollywood, via the Yellow Brick Road, better known as Mulholland Drive.

In its first mile, Mulholland Drive climbs from Cahuenga Pass to the crest of the Hollywood Hills. A quick series of switchbacks and hairpin curves introduces the neophyte motorist to the full Mulholland Drive experience. As Jim Morrison once sang in Roadhouse Blues, "Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel." If you do not, you could easily leave the roadway or mix with oncoming traffic. Until you pull over to let them pass, many drivers will tailgate you there at any speed. Over the decades, auto and motorcycle racing on Mulholland Drive has cost many lives. Since we were on a sightseeing tour, I pulled aside often, thus allowing traffic to clear.

Our first stop was at the Hollywood Bowl Overlook. Although the view down-canyon to the Hollywood Bowl was disappointing, the view east to Hollywood and Downtown Los Angeles was classic. In the foreground were the Hollywood Freeway and the Capitol Records Building. Seven miles east was the Emerald City, better known as the skyline of Downtown Los Angeles. From the overlook, on that clear day, we could see the LA Basin in all of its glory.

With tour buses often crowding the small lot, Hollywood Bowl Overlook parking is limited. Just west of the overlook, there is adequate, if crumbling street-side parking. From there, however, one must cross through traffic to see the views. Like many places with limited parking and extraordinary views, people tend to linger. For them, it is like owning the view without having to pay for it. I walked in, looked around, took my pictures and returned to my vehicle.

While walking back to my car, I looked up to see an infamous, yet iconic single family home. Designed by architect Harry Gesner, the "Haynes House", as it was originally known, came to roost on its prominent hillside location in 1975. Although another of Gesner’s houses inspired the Sydney Opera House, the Gesner house at 7000 Macapa Drive has inspired more scorn than praise.

With its Gesner-signature roof design, what I call the "Paraglider House" is the antithesis of Frank Lloyd Wright's “organic architecture”. According to FLW, building atop the crest of a hill destroys the hill. Viewed from the Hollywood Freeway below, the structure looks like an overgrown beach shack, silently screaming, “Look at me. Look at me”. I would prefer a house above the Hollywood Bowl Overlook that could project itself into group consciousness with less blatancy.

The public record on the Paraglider House is mixed. In early 2010, the owner had listed it for $2,695,000, or almost exactly one thousand dollars per square foot. Apparently, it sold later that year for $2.0 million. Even that was expensive for a thirty-five year old, three-bedroom, three-bath house encompassing 2,698 square feet. In essence, someone bought the view, not the house. In October 2011, a Google Street View showed the house stripped to the studs and under reconstruction. As of this writing, construction was ongoing.

As one might experience anywhere on Mulholland Drive, our sojourn west included many tight turns and a few confusing street signs. Needing a rest, we stopped at one of many turnouts provided along the road by the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy. By then we were well away from Hollywood and approaching the San Fernando Valley. Having grown up in Burbank, California, I knew how hazy the sky could be in The Valley. From our perch atop the Hollywood Hills, we marveled at the clear sky and long views.

To our right, we could see Mt. Lee, famed for its Hollywood Sign and named for early Los Angeles car dealer and broadcaster Don Lee. At the top of Mt. Lee stands a communications tower that dates back to at least 1941. In the late 1930s, the first Los Angeles television broadcasts emanated from that tower. During my high school days in the 1960s, you could still drive to the top of Mt. Lee and enjoy a 360-degree view of Los Angeles and the Valley. Today, a gate far below prevents traffic from surmounting Mt. Lee. From our vantage that day, we could see an end-on view of the Hollywood sign, clinging to the far-right slope of the mountain. My father's memories of Los Angeles television history follow below.

Dr. Loron N. McGillis: “The call letters for the first Los Angeles television station were W6XAO. They transmitted from the communication tower atop Mt. Lee. When the station came on in the early evening, we watched on our 7" Motorola TV. During the day, they broadcast the traditional Indian Head test pattern, with emanating black and white bars. There was also a news tape running across the bottom of the screen. In 1948, the station became KTSL and in 1951, they changed again, to KNXT. In the 1980s, they changed again to the current KCBS TV.”

Panning my camera to the left, Spokesmodel Carrie McCoy appeared in my rangefinder. With lush vegetation behind her and a smile on her face, I could not resist taking yet another picture of the original “Valley Girl”, from Burbank, California. “Look”, Carrie said, “From here, you can see Universal City and Warner Bros. Studios”.

As I looked down from a curve on Mulholland Drive, the most prominent building in view had a huge sign that read, “NBCUniversal", with no separation between those two iconic names. In a not-so-subtly way, the resident media giants NBC and Universal Studios had melded into one. It reminded me of the dark days in the 1970s, when executives briefly renamed Warner Bros. Studios, “The Burbank Studios”. When the next intergalactic mega-media firm takes over NBCUniversal, that prominent office tower will display yet another in a long list of corporate logos.

Even in Los Angeles, few people remember who built what we now call the NBCUniversal Building in Universal City. In the 1970s, at the height of his wealth and fame, oilman J. Paul Getty commissioned the building as the Getty Oil Company headquarters. Although the building looks rectangular to the casual observer, its narrow lot and adjacency to the Hollywood Freeway dictated a trapezoidal shape. Although any form other than rectilinear creates triangular offices and wasted space, Getty and his oil company had money to burn. To make the edifice look more impressive, Getty specified an exterior clad in Italian marble. In 1976, prior to completion of the building, J. Paul Getty died.

In 1984, when giant Texaco Oil purchased Getty Oil, the building became the Texaco Building. In 1985, when Texaco lost in court to Pennzoil, that smaller company became sole owner of both Getty Oil and the Getty Building. If there was ever a Texaco sign at the top of that building, it did not last for long. As with media companies, Old Energy oil companies come and they go. Only their buildings remain to hint at their former glory. Exactly how the Getty Building morphed into the NBCUniversal Building, I cannot say. If history foretells anything, that building will not be the NBCUniversal Building forever.

Panning to the right of the Getty/Texaco/Pennzoil/NBCUniversal Building, I realized that I was looking down upon both Universal Studios and Warner Bros. Studios. In the 1960s, Universal Studios was a relatively small affair, with a concentration of buildings and activities on Lankershim Blvd., in North Hollywood. With the advent of the Universal Amphitheater, the Universal Studios Tour and Universal City Walk, most of the “back lot” succumbed to development. For reasons unknown, there is only one exception to that over-development.

On a hillside lot, overlooking the corner of Barham Blvd. and Buddy Holly Drive, a haunted house once stood. Having sneaked up to the house with my high school friends, I know that it was haunted. At night, we could see a dim light glowing inside the house. As we approached from below, I tripped over a half buried headstone and fell headlong down a muddy slope. Using a flashlight, we read the names and dates of death on several tilting headstones. After determining that one grave was that of a child, we scrambled back to our car, never to return. That haunted house is gone now, but remnants of the circular driveway are still visible on Google Earth.

All good ghost stories and all good Hollywood auto tours must end. Carrie and I still had one last stop to make at the intersection of Mulholland Drive and Interstate I-405. There, we planned to visit with Coney the Traffic Cone, where he stood guard over the missing bridge lane at Mulholland Drive in Sepulveda Pass.

Email James McGillis

Two Hollywood Mystery Locations - The Hollywood Sign and the Gateway to Mulholland Drive

Continuing our January 2012 driving tour of historical Hollywood places, Carrie McCoy and I departed Paul Pink’s Hot Dogs on La Brea Ave. heading north toward Hollywood 28, as it was known in the old days. The beautiful residential streets in the lower slopes of Hollywood mesmerized us. We emerged from that bubble at the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Argyle Ave. As I turned right on to Sunset Blvd., I caught a glimpse of the Hollywood Sign, several miles away.

After stopping the car, I got out and took several long shot images of the Hollywood Sign. Panning to my right, I recognized the Hollywood Palladium, a Streamline Moderne Hollywood theater built in 1940. According to the marquee, “Bassrush Presents” hosted a sold-out electronic music event there the previous night. From the Big Band era to  Nero, the return of Funktion and the 12th Planet's “The End is Near Tour”, the Palladium has seen and heard it all.

Continuing north on Argyle Ave, I stopped to view the iconic Capitol Records Building. When it opened in 1956, both the public had mixed opinions about the building. It had been a while since a new Los Angeles building had made a whimsical statement through its architecture. Although its statement was not as literal as the old Brown Derby, the building’s cylindrical structure did evoke a stack of 45-RPM records. This thirteen story turntable featured a roof pinnacle that looked like a soaring stylus.

To some, it was a reference to vinyl as state-of-the-art in the recording industry. Others hailed the building’s energy-saving features. There were exterior metal sunshades, which surrounded each of the floors. In contrast to the trend toward sealed glass towers, the building’s windows were operable. The combination of shade and afternoon sea breezes allowed workers to enjoy fresh air, without the need for constant air-conditioning.

Still heading north, but now on Gower Street, we approached the Hollywood Freeway. Poking above both the skyline and the freeway was the original 1929 Hollywood Tower Apartments. Its tower sign is visible to thousands of motorists driving north each day on the Hollywood Freeway. Is it any wonder that Walt Disney Company, under Michael Eisner expropriated the historic name Hollywood Tower for an attraction at their California Adventure theme park in Anaheim?

As freeway drivers curve gracefully around the faux French Normandy concrete monolith, few realize that highway engineers created that jog in the Hollywood Freeway in order to avoid the landmark. In its early days, and into the 1980s, many writers and actors called the Hollywood Tower Apartments home. From the tower itself, they could lord over all of Hollywood, so long as they paid the rent.

Continuing up Gower Street, we followed the path towards Hollywood’s Holy Grail – the Hollywood Sign. As with all things Hollywood, the simple, direct path may not lead to your destination. In the upper reaches of Gower Street, the terrain screens the Hollywood sign from view. In the lower canyon, there are several good, if distant views of the sign.

If you seek a close-up view, consult with Google. By the way, the residents of North Beachwood Drive would prefer that you stay away. Parking is almost nonexistent and the road is narrow. Although we did step out on to lower Gower Street to photograph the fabled sign, we soon turned back and headed for equally fabled Mulholland Drive.

Hollywood is full of secrets. One of best kept is how to access Mulholland Drive at its source, just north of the Hollywood Bowl. Traveling from Hollywood, the directional signage is of little help. Google Maps gets the route correct HERE and gives an alternate route using the Pilgrimage Bridge HERE. I have no interest in conspiracy theories, unless they are my own, so here are my facts to support the Mulholland Drive Conspiracy.

• The first “Mulholland Drive” sign on Cahuenga Blvd. North directs you appropriately toward the Mulholland Drive Bridge.
• At the Pilgrimage Bridge intersection, the "Mulholland Drive" directional signage is partially obscured by a traffic signal on the left side, as seen in this Google Street View.
• If you turn left across the Pilgrimage Bridge, a "Right Turn Only" sign will direct you unknowingly towards your goal.
• Less than one mile north on Cahuenga Blvd. West, there is a traffic signal, with access to Mulholland Drive, at the point where it actually takes the Mulholland name.

Let us go back and assume that you did not access the Pilgrimage Bridge, instead motoring north on Cahuenga Blvd. East.

• At that point, the obscured sign that you missed seeing leaves you guessing and then shunts you on to the Hollywood Freeway North.
• If you manage to escape the freeway trap, stay to the right and continue north on Cahuenga Blvd. East.
• Soon, you will pass under the Mulholland Drive Bridge itself.
• Without any warning or directional signage, you must then turn right at Lakeridge Place., reversing direction in order to head south.
• Soon, with new energy light shining down as it does in this Google Street View, you will gain access to the original, two-lane, 1940 Mulholland Bridge.
• After crossing over the freeway, you will intersect Mulholland Drive, which was your original destination.

As I indicate above, why should any historic Los Angeles street be so difficult to find? Did some influential residents of Mulholland Drive ask City Hall to remove the directional signage? Did residents pay a private crew to remove the signs? Did adequate directional signage from Hollywood to Mulholland Drive ever exist? In the absence of a simple answer, I cannot yet abandon my Mulholland Drive Hollywood Conspiracy Theory.

In our next article, we will motor along the scenic Mulholland Drive to the new Mulholland Drive Bridge, currently undergoing replacement in Sepulveda Pass.

Email James McGillis