Frontier Aftermath, Sentimentality November 14
I was up early today, as I seem to be doing more and more lately for some odd reason, and I wanted to get out of the house. I was in the Las Vegas Strip area so I thought I should ride over by the New Frontier’s property and take a look at the aftermath from the implosion. Wow.. I know I can be a bit stupidly sentimental but there was this sort of sad pile of rubble laying there all forlorn. On the top of the pile were a couple of reflective remains of what used to be the huge letters that spelled “Frontier” on top of the structure - the only thing that’s left of the tower where so many millions of people stayed throughout the many years of its operation. For me, it’s a little personally sad, because on a big trip to Las Vegas from Houston, Texas back in the late 70’s, my Mom and Dad stayed there. They actually stayed at the New Frontier two nights and at the Desert Inn one night on their trip. The Desert Inn is long-since gone and the property is now the amazing Wynn Resort. Since my Mom died several years back and I ultimately ended up moving to Las Vegas, it was the only place I could go on rare occasion and take a little bit of solace in the idea that my Mom had once been here, walked these same halls. Now it’s gone. Alas, time must march on and progress with it…
The owners of the property seem to be in high gear to move on with the construction of the new hotel and resort that is going to be built on the property. They own the venerable Plaza Hotel in New York City and are said to be building it’s twin here on this parcel of land where the New Frontier once stood. While I’m excited about a place as storied as The Plaza going in here in Las Vegas, I always cringe whenever I see or hear of developers putting in new buildings that mimic the other great cities of the world’s finest properties. Las Vegas is a world class destination in its own right and we should never be imitators, in my humble opinion, but we should lead the world in architectural style by creating places and spaces that the world would want to imitate. We don’t need to build mini New York Cities or mini Eiffel Towers, but I digress. I’m sure the place will be lovely and employee lovely people who serve lovely guests for decades to come. I just wish that people would lose the whole “themed resort” mentality altogether and let’s build the future without mimicking the past.
Melanie Dec 5
Yeah, it’s really sad. Because the New Frontier was a landmark of Las Vegas as Plaza Hotel remains in New York City. But things get changes. Anyway, it’s a pity they can’t simply reconstruct the well-known and that much loved New Frontier’s.
John Mar 23
Since so many properties are now being de-themed ( Luxor, TI, Allidan is now Planet Hollywood ) and Venetian will gradually be seen as a power cousin to Pallazo, you’re right about the absurdity of recreating a loved New York landmark in a way overgrown, larger than life multi-towered monstosity that is supposed to evoked the original Plaza Hotel.
I was kind of pleased to read that Vegas Plaza project is rumored to be in jeapardy. They need to come up with something else. The original Beaux-Arts design of The Plaza New York was supposed to be balanced, symmetrical, formal city design to bring order to the chaos of 19th century cities. The other projects like City Center are more like a 20th century urban design that promotes crowds and conjestion as long as the buildings relate to each other in interesting ways. The Plaza Las Vegas took the original hotel design and just morped it into a scewed it into a multi-tower mess.
John