Columnist Susan Snyder: What’s really ‘out of place’ in Las Vegas?

Thursday, June 3, 1999 | 10:24 a.m.

Susan Snyder is a Sun reporter. Reach her at 259-4082 or

snyder@lasvegassun.com.

A resident who opposed building plans for a Titanic-themed resort in his neighborhood called the project "a monstrosity out of place in this desert community."

Heavens! Not that!

It simply never would fit in with the artificially thick air and tropical gardens of one Las Vegas Strip resort, the high-flying circus acts of another or the waterfall and erupting volcano of yet another.

We twisted a roller coaster around the Chrysler Building.

We have fountains dancing to striptease music.

We have a pyramid that emits a beam visible from the space shuttle, a knight slaying a flame-spewing dragon 50 yards from a moving sidewalk and pirates sinking a British ship six times a night, weather permitting.

Shoot, we're even going to have the Eiffel Tower.

We certainly wouldn't want to add something that's "out of place in this desert community."

Did someone set some standards while we were sleeping?

Far from the neon ninny parlors of the Strip, a giant Fiberglas genie hawks carpet along one Las Vegas street and a dwarfed Statue of Liberty stands sentinel over a strip mall on another.

Row after row of alpine fir trees and tropical palms line other city thoroughfares -- right next to each other in some places.

Pet stores sell flea remedies in a place that has no fleas. The telephone book lists 222 lawn care services in a place that, by nature, shouldn't have them. A dozen of those include "green" in their names.

Nobody can do what doesn't belong like Las Vegas can.

Take a look at the names of streets and subdivisions popping up like those pesky lawn mushrooms (the kind that grow only in places where it actually rains).

They use polo themes, alpine themes, tropical themes. Any theme will do as long as it doesn't have to do with, you know, this place.

And you have to admit, "Burro Flats" and "Turkey Vulture Estates" wouldn't exactly draw the Del Webb crowd.

"The Breakers" sounds much better, even if we haven't any.

There have been some half-hearted attempts to remind us of where we live, such as one that uses "Desert Shores" in its moniker.

OK, that is its moniker. But what, pray tell, is a desert shore?

Maybe it refers to the swaths of land covered by thirsty grass that encircle the man-made lakes that dot the areas. The lakes are a wonder to behold, if only because they manage to remain free from algae and other stagnation nasties yet remain safe enough for ducks.

Maybe the ducks are fake.

Anyway, one resident up there said the things evaporate at a rate of about 72 inches a year. We don't get that much rain in 10 years.

Don't take this wrong. We like it, or we wouldn't live here.

OK, so maybe you're one of those people who still is here because the new job doesn't pay enough to make the movers take your stuff back East.

But for many of us -- about 1.3 million at last count -- the neon, the silliness, the irony, the have-our-desert-and-palm-trees-too drew us here.

No state income tax doesn't hurt either. But we definitely like our monstrosities. We're good at them. Nobody does monstrosity better than Las Vegas (although that guy in California who owns The Mouse thinks he's a contender).

So the folks who don't want the Titanic hitting an iceberg complete with cappuccino joints in their back yards should just admit they don't want a resort behind them instead of pretending they are offended by what's "out of place" in the desert.

Most folks were out of place until someone invented air-conditioning and dammed the Colorado River.

As a compromise, maybe the developer could build a resort revolving around what Southern Nevada used to look like.

Of course, they'd have all that darned sand blowing into their rose bushes.