Ghost stops on literary tour, and a plea for preservation

By Kristen Peterson (contact)

Friday, Oct. 12, 2007 | 7:25 a.m.

Writers love to write about Las Vegas.

Praise us. Berate us. Fiction or nonfiction, we're covered.

It would seem , then , that a literary tour of Las Vegas would be a never-ending, riveting romp - a chance to experience the voice and place in the same moment.

Not so much.

In assembling the first literary tour of Las Vegas, host and reciter Gregory Crosby realized that most of the literary landscape is gone, if not long gone.

So the tour, a preface to the Vegas Valley Bookfestival downtown Nov. 2-3, is somewhat of a ghost tour that winds through the verse of Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and even Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.

"We'll be going past a lot of spots where things used to be and read a voice from somebody out of the past," Crosby said by telephone from New York City where he now lives. "The theme, the thread is going to be the constant change that Las Vegas embodies. It's very different than what I initially had in mind."

But it's not so forlorn . Saturday's free tour on a double decker bus will include a dozen stops where Crosby, a writer who grew up in Las Vegas, will do "some kibitzing" and recite from various texts, including more current works by Las Vegas writers Dave Hickey (site: Eureka Casino) and Dayvid Figler (site: Olympic Garden strip club ).

And, of course, Circus Circus still stands. "There is Circus Circus in all of its tawdry, tacky glory," Crosby says.

Other remnants exist. The old MGM Grand that served as headquarters in Stephen King's "The Stand," is now Bally's. Binion's, which was gutted of its cowboy charm and is no longer the Horseshoe that A. Alvarez wrote about in "The Biggest Game in Town," still carries a whisper from the past.

And there will be more.

"The great Las Vegas novel remains to be written," Crosby says. "The city has never really had what James Joyce did for Dublin ... It's still really wide open. It's just a matter of time."

Details: "A Literary Tour of Las Vegas," 2-5 p.m. Saturday. Bus departs from the Arts Factory. Reservations are required. Admission is free. 229-5431

Going, going...

Speaking of Las Vegas' vanishing past, the Atomic Age Alliance, a mid-century modern preservation committee, has targeted its first "Urgent Action Issue": saving the old Federated Employees of Nevada building at 2301 E. Sahara Ave. The single story office building, a n example of Googie , or space-age, architecture built in 1962, is slated to become retail and restaurant space.

The owner and a representative were to go before Las Vegas planning commissioners Thursday night with requests to reduce the number of parking spaces and alter land buffers. A report states that owner Jay Dapper plans to demolish the building. Calls to John David Burke, project architect, were not returned.

Atomic Age Alliance, which has a local and national mailing list of 3,000 , has not contacted the owner, but plans to approach the city regarding the value it sees in the building.

"It is a very fine piece of architecture and we have very few remaining examples of mid-century modern architecture left in this city," says alliance founder Mary Margaret Stratton. "Our concern is that they tear it down and try to flip the land" for quick resale.

Stratton says the group would like to see the building saved on site or raise the money to move the building. Another option is that the owner could save part of the building's facade, she says.

In January , the group published a mid-century modern tour guide of Las Vegas and gave a formal tour in conjunction with a national conference. The book includes the Federated Employees of Nevada building.