The Neon Boneyard: A Quirky Trip into Vegas’ Past
There’s more to Las Vegas than gambling, eating and shopping. And partying.
There are shows. (Chippendales is still around.) There are music festivals. (Whatever.) There’s the Hoover Dam. (Not quite in Vegas, but a short drive or chopper ride nevertheless.)
There’s golf. (Which I’ll get to someday once I’ve graduated past the driving range and putting course.) There’s people watching. (More like pointing at people and then laughing at them.) There’s the Bellagio fountain show. (If you don’t mind crowds.) There’s even the Mob Museum (which I’ll blog about in the coming weeks.)
And then there’s the Neon Museum (a.k.a. The Boneyard), where signs from a bygone Vegas era go to die retire or await restoration. Located just North of, uh, “colorful” downtown LV, the ginormous shell-shaped former lobby of the old La Concha Motel (concha is Spanish for shell) serving as the museum’s entrance beckons the visitor to take a trip back to a time when mobsters ran Vegas and people came to Vegas for divorces and cards.
For those of you too young to remember a time before iPads: before there were plasma screens, there was LED. Before there was LED, there was neon (and argon and helium and a host of other elements) that lit up this part of the desert. Bright, glowing invitations to a world unlike anywhere else, neon was slowly phased out for newer, cheaper, more efficient technology.
These signs, along with the establishments that gave way to bigger, flashier, modern iterations of themselves, became unwanted or obsolete. But thanks to the Neon Museum, opened in 1996, these old remnants of a Vegas few people remember anymore have a chance to be restored or at least preserved.
I’d been wanting to visit the Boneyard for years but couldn’t tear myself away from blackjack make the timing work (after all, many of my Vegas trips are last-minute unfortunate decisions.) I finally had the foresight to do some planning and schedule a visit – the park is only open on specific days (you’ll have to check their calendar for availability) – and then I bought two tickets: one to visit at night, another for the daytime.
I recommend doing both, however. While the night tour is the best setting to see the neon (duh), not all signs are in working order. Coming back during the day allows you to see things that you will miss in the dark, but definitely take up their offer of borrowing a free umbrella and say yes to the chilled bottle of water. (Despite coming for the earliest tour that day, it was still burning hot.)
So, now, this has become my favorite place in Vegas. Because I have a special place in my heart for old, unwanted things.
The old La Concha Motel lobby serves as the entrance
If you get lost, just look for this remnant from the now-defunct Silver Slipper casino; it’s on the street median right in front of the Boneyard
The silver slipper at night
The welcome sign incorporates various Vegas elements… can you name them?
The old Sahara marquee… but next to it is the upside down horseshoe from Binion’s
The Frontier was the first hotel I ever stayed in in Vegas. My high school tennis team made the state finals and our coach was friends with a manager there and we got a discount. This brought back fond memories of underage high school girls bribing guys to buy us liquor and walking up and down the Strip pantsing each other. (This is what kids did before cellphones.)
My mom had most of his albums.
The Ss in Sassy Sally’s were shaped like dollar $igns. Nobody pays this kind of attention to detail anymore.
This duck isn’t from a casino, but belonged to Ugly Duckling Car Sales. On the contrary, I think he’s cute!
The Ugly Duckling in the daytime
A four-leaf clover from Fitzgeralds, which means something to me because we used to brunch at Fitzgeralds after church on Sundays. My parents let me sip on champagne and my dad let me pick the Keno numbers.
The lamp from Aladdin (which is now Planet Hollywood); and the Stardust stars
The gigantic pirate from Treasure Island (you should look this up on Google Maps, satellite view, if you want to see something freaky)
Not from a casino, this belonged to Standard Wholesale Supply. I just like it because it hit me like a vintage wrecking ball.
The old El Cortez sign. The hotel is still around, and from what I hear, a good value for downtown lodging.
My favorite of the bunch: a smiling anthropomorphic t-shirt from a drycleaning business (rumor has it it used to have a cigarette dangling from its mouth)
Doc and Eddy’s Pool Hall pool player; he’s impressive whether you see him at night or daytime
Walking through the boneyard in the daytime feels a little like swimming in alphabet soup. I mean that in a good way.
Yes, millenials, color TV used to be a big draw. There was a time when not everyone had it.
Someday, I’m gonna buy this, put a chain on it, and wear it as a necklace. Like. A. Boss.
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