Transcript of interview with Kate Hausbeck Korgan by Claytee White, February 3, 2010

An Interview with Kate Hausbeck Korgan An Oral History Conducted by Claytee White Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas © Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood University of Nevada Las Vegas Libraries 2010 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries, Director: Claytee D. White Project Creators: Patrick Jackson and Dr. Deborah Boehm Transcriber and Editor: Laurie Boetcher Editor and Production Manager: Barbara Tabach Interviewers: Suzanne Becker, Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White ii Recorded interviews, transcripts, bound copies and a website comprising the Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood Oral History Project have been made possible through a grant from the City of Las Vegas Centennial Committee. Special Collections in Lied Library, home of the Oral History Research Center, provided a wide variety of administrative services, support and archival expertise. We are so grateful. This project was the brainchild of Deborah Boehm, Ph.D. and Patrick Jackson who taught at UNLV and resided in the John S. Park Neighborhood. As they walked their community, they realized it was a special place that intersected themes of gender, class, race/ethnicity, religion, sexuality and gentrification. Patrick and Deborah learned that John S. Park had been listed on the National Registry of Historic Places and that original homeowners, local politicians, members of the gay community, Latino immigrants, artists and gallery owners and an enclave of UNLV staff all lived in the neighborhood. Therefore, they decided that the history of this special place had to be preserved, joined with the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries and wrote a grant that was funded by the Centennial Committee. The transcripts received minimal editing that included the elimination of fragments, false starts and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the narrative. These interviews have been catalogued and can be found as non-circulating documents in Special Collections at UNLV's Lied Library. Deborah A. Boehm, Ph.D. Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholar 2009-2010 Assistant Professor, Anthropology & Women's Studies Patrick Jackson, Professor John S. Park Oral History Project Manager Claytee D. White, Director Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries iii Interview with Kate Hausbeck Korgan February 3, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee White Table of Contents Introduction: born in Buffalo, NY. Describes her family. Wonderful memories of growing up in Buffalo. Buffalo in the 1970s: a community attempting to redefine itself in the wake of a struggling economy. People left. Industrial plants closed. Social transition encouraged her to become a sociologist. 1 Attended University of Buffalo, earned PhD (Sociology), entered the national job market, accepted position at UNLV (1995). Feelings about moving to Las Vegas, NV and what the city has become to her in fifteen years: family, community, and friends. 2 How she moved to the John S. Park Neighborhood: friends who lived downtown and got to know this "little slice of East Coast community and diversity and trees and older homes and history" in Las Vegas. Moved to Fifth Place, in the heart of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood. 4 What she loves about the John S. Park Neighborhood: tree-lined streets of older homes, history of the community, diversity, knowing her neighbors, "sense of belonging," "strong sense of community and organization," central location, neighborhood association instead of HOA. 5 Participation in community issues through neighborhood association: push to identify the John S. Park Neighborhood as a historic district: opposition to and resentment of historic designation, misperceptions of the process, desires of some residents to sell out to commercial interests. Social relationships that arose through building alliances with neighbors, meeting neighbors for the first time, becoming aware of the history of the community. 6 Description of her house in the John S. Park Neighborhood: only inhabited adobe house in Las Vegas, Spanish Eclectic style, built in 1936 by attorney Mr. Gamble. History of the home from the Gambles to her purchase of the house. 7 Diversity in the John S. Park Neighborhood: a truly multidimensional community in race and ethnicity, age, socio-economic class, diverse professionals, artists. Connection of the arts community to UNLV and First Friday. Development of First Friday and the arts community downtown. 10 Religious influence in the John S. Park Neighborhood: "very much anchored in the community" historically. Has not experienced religious influence in community quite as much in recent years. 12 Community recreation then and now: going to the park as part of the family narrative. Participation in the planning of Circle Park. Closing of Circle Park and loss of sense of community. Involvement with the reopening of Circle Park. 13 iv John S. Park Neighborhood as a walkable community: lack of sidewalks, danger from traffic, johns and prostitutes. Luv-In at Luv-It Frozen Custard to support the neighborhood. 15 Changes in the John S. Park Neighborhood since 1995: "ebb and flow of community engagement" around shared issues; evolution of community ties and activities as residents moved from childlessness to having families. 16 Conclusion: participation in the community Flamingo Club. What the community means to her: community and neighbors that are like family keep her in Las Vegas. 18 V Preface Kate Hausbeck Korgan was raised and educated in Buffalo, New York. In 1995, after receiving her doctorate in sociology from University of Buffalo, her job search brought her to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It was a great fit and she tells of falling in love with the school, the city, and the John S Park Neighborhood. Kate retells the story of the house where she and her family reside. It's original owners were the Gambles who built the house in 1936. It was the second house built in the neighborhood and is the only inhabited adobe house in the city. The house is located on the fringe of John S. Park Neighborhood, about a block off the Strip. Though the location creates traffic that she doesn't like, it is not enough to cause her to move. She describes the newer generation of residents and the changes as the number of school aged children increased. Kate's perspective includes what she describes as the ebb and flow of the community, the beginning of First Fridays, the importance of the parks, and the evolution of the religious influences. vi ORAL HISTORY RESEARCH CENTER AT UNLV Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood Use Agreement Name of Narrator: Name of Interviewer: I use nKiccmciii - f 4 liu'sk&tk-' •mmL T). We, tlie above named, give tor the Oral History Research Center of UNLV, the recorded interview(s) initiated on 13 r^O !0 as an unrestricted gift, to be used for such scholarly and educational purposes as shall be determined, and transfer to the University of Nevada Las Vegas, legal tide and all literary property rights including copyright. This gift does not preclude die right of die interviewer, as a representative of UNLV, to use die recordings and related materials for scholarly pursuits. There will be no compensation for any interviews. Signature of Narrator ^ -23-/0 Date Library Special Collections 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 457010, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-7010 (702) 895-2222 Interview with Kate Hausbeck Korgan February 3, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee White This is Claytee White. It is February 3rd, 2010, and I am here on [the University of Nevada, Las Vegas] campus in the office of Kate Hausbeck Korgan. Tell me a little about your early life, where you grew up, and then in that by bringing me to Las Vegas. I was born in Buffalo, New York. Buffalo is a wonderful town and a great place to grow up and I grew up in a little suburb just on the edge of city. You know, you wouldn't know that you were in or out of the city. It was sort of right there. And I have wonderful memories of growing up in Buffalo. It has a very bad reputation for being a cold, snowy, desolate place, and it is indeed cold, and it is indeed snowy but not as snowy as people think. Most of the snow comes to the south of town, what we in Buffalo call the Southtowns, and you look at national news and they'll be showing, you know, "Six feet of snow in Buffalo," and we'll have a little inch of snow out in the front yard, but the Southtowns will have a storm. So it's a little bit of a marketing problem for the city. But amazing restaurants and amazing community and culture and community organizations and parks and museums and just quite a wonderful place. That's great! How many in your family? Well, my sister and I. Then my mom and dad were divorced and both remarried and I have a stepbrother. Then of course, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, all that fun stuff. The whole family was in Buffalo but I obviously left as have several of my [family]: my sister and my cousins, and part of that is of course Buffalo is part of the industrial zone. 2 That became a Rust Belt, largely in the 1970s, and so I grew up in an economy that was struggling, in a community that was redefining itself, [with] an unbelievably large number of displaced workers, which means really not just displaced workers but displaced families and communities and churches and neighborhoods. Buffalo was always a working-class town and a very diverse city, but as it went from a hub of industrialization to the Rust Belt, to a zone of de-industrialized industry and really hurting communities, lots of us left. Was there just one industry, a major industry? The steel industry was here. Like Pittsburgh [Pennsylvania]. Like Pittsburgh, like Detroit [Michigan], Lots of automakers and industry. And I remember that as a little child, the beginning of the closing of the plants, and I grew up in the midst of that my whole life, and of course I went on to become a sociologist, I think in large part because I lived through such an interesting social transition in my own community and in my own family and neighbors and friends. So, you know, I think I'm sort of forged out of that steel and that rust and all else. When I finished my PhD, I went on the national job market. Where did you go to school? The University of Buffalo. I was planning on leaving town and then I sort of fell in love with the big university. I'd gone to a small private high school, and I went and visited the university and I loved being in a huge, diverse, massive environment. You know, I used to joke that in high school, you'd sneeze and the whole school would say, "God bless you." And I loved going to a university where no one knew my name. And it wasn't so 3 much about not wanting to be known or not wanting to be part of community as it was just wanting to be in such a big mix that you had too many options to choose from. And I loved that, and I would've found it at any big university, but since I found it in my back yard, you know, I was quite happy to stay. I moved out of my parents' house and so that was the experience of going away to college because I moved out and stayed fairly close to home at the university. In any case, I finished my PhD, went on the national job market, and ended up taking a job here at UNLV. How did your family feel about Las Vegas? Well, I mean, I was kind of shocked and dubious about Las Vegas, to be honest [laughing], and I had some other job offers, but frankly there was something about this position that just called to me. It felt like the right combination of colleagues here at UNLV. It felt like other places wanted me to fit in a very narrow and clearly defined box, what I would teach and what I would research, and here I felt like I was moving into a community of scholars who really wanted another scholar who was like-minded, who was ambitious and passionate, and I could sort of have some room to teach what I wanted to teach and research what I wanted to research. And so that ultimately won me over, far more than Las Vegas did. And so it was the job and the university and my colleagues that convinced me that I should come to Vegas for my first full-time academic job. I really frankly thought it would be short-term; I wasn't someone who ever even wanted to visit Vegas, and so the thought of living here was a little bit odd, and I wasn't yet convinced that this would be a place that I'd call home for very long. And then of course that was in 1995, and here I sit in 2010. So fifteen years or so later, I've obviously stayed and built family and community and friends, and so Vegas has become something much more to me than I ever expected. Yes. Have you fallen in love with the city? I have fallen in love with parts of the city. [Laughing] Aspects of the city. Yes. Good. Tell me about the John S. Park Neighborhood. How did you get there? One of the things I fell in love with. I will say that for the first two years here, I told everyone that I was esthetically disoriented, I mean spatially confused, because it doesn't look like what space looks like to me. Coming from Buffalo and the East Coast, I'm used to tree-line streets and brick buildings and two-story buildings and a certain kind of spatial and architectural esthetic that just wasn't here. I learned very quickly to appreciate what was here. I would always focus my eyes on the horizon and on the mountains, and to me that was wonderful. And I'd kind of push all of the peach and pink and coral cookie-cutter houses with gates out of my line of sight, and I'd push all of the strip malls out of my line of sight. But I kind of craved someplace that felt more like home. I fairly quickly had friends who lived downtown, and fairly quickly got to know the John S. Park Neighborhood, and of course fell in love with it because to me it was a little slice of East Coast community and diversity and trees and older homes and history sort of buried right here in the middle of this otherwise busy, new, crazy, low-lying, strip-mall-ish place that we call Las Vegas. So that's how I found John S. Park, through friends who lived down there and visiting for social events and parties and get-togethers with friends. And so I moved down there into a home that we rented in the late Nineties, and then bought a home and moved into the home I'm currently in, which is 1111 Fifth Place, right in the heart of the 5 historic district of John S. Park, although it wasn't yet the historic district then. And, you know, John S. Park is all I hoped it would be. I do love it. Wonderful. What do you love about it? Well, some of the things I've already mentioned. I love that it's a diverse community. I love that you know neighbors. I love that there is a sense of belonging, an identity. I love that it does not have a homeowners association [HOA]—that's a separate conversation, I suppose, but I was thrilled that it doesn't have one—and yet has a strong sense of community and organization and neighbors talking to each other and sharing information. I think the best parts of an HOA are present just in the fiber of the community, and the worst parts, the most sort of repressive parts of an HOA, are just nonexistent. I love that it's centrally located. I love that it's old and historic, and every house has a story and so many of the people who lived there have stories. And, you know, I like the esthetics of this space. You talked about the homeowners' association. What about the neighborhood association? Did you find that attractive? Absolutely. I didn't know it existed immediately when I moved into the neighborhood, and then, as is often the case in communities, I became aware of the neighborhood associations and they became a unifying force in the neighborhood and very visible and present when the neighbors unified together in opposition to development around the edge of the community. Tell me about one of those. Did you participate in any of those? I've participated in most if not all of them, invariably. Well, good. Tell me about a couple, how it was organized and how you participated. Well, one of the early ones—I'm not willing to say it was the first—I can't quite remember, but an early one was the push to actually identify the neighborhood as a historic district. I was very involved in that process. Lots and lots and lots of meetings and neighbors getting together and strategizing at strategic plan meetings and meetings with the City [of Las Vegas] and in front of the Planning Commission and in front of the City Council. It was a long conversation, but I think it was a rich and a good conversation. I had plenty of neighbors around who were opposed then, and, I think to this day, are resentful of it for a variety of reasons—obviously reasons I don't agree with but I can understand. I mean I think there was misperception then that persists now. I think several of my neighbors thought that if we became a historic district or when we became one, we would be told how our houses have to look and the color of the paint and we wouldn't be able to change anything or have addition. It sounds very much like what homeowners' associations do in other neighborhoods, and of course lots of people move downtown because they don't want to be in that environment; so I completely understand and respect that if that were the case, this would be something to oppose. But I never saw becoming a historic district as being oppressive in those ways. They promised that we would be allowed to make changes to our property and we would have autonomy of decision-making about what we do to our homes, and in fact that has been the case. So that's bome itself out to be true, which I'm very pleased about because that was one of my major arguments is that those things were not things we had to worry about. And I think a few of my neighbors were disappointed because they still hoped to sell out to commercial interests and to see huge profits on their property. Again I 7 understand that rationale and I understand that financial interest, but the neighborhood is special and it deserves to be identified as such. For me, the financial prospect of selling out to become a district full of lawyers' offices was not something that I thought would be attractive, and so it was something that didn't bother me about the historic designation. In fact it helped me fight for the historic designation. So that was one of the battles, and then we've had several other community organizing events, I would say, around development. Did those organizing events flow over into the social? They did. They did because of course you build alliances with neighbors, you meet neighbors that you've never met before, you become more aware of the history of the neighborhood because you meet your neighbors and they tell you about their lives and their homes and what they remember back when. So there was a really positive byproduct that came out of these meetings and it's again building that sort of stronger fabric of community. Describe your house to me. I love my house. My house is, I think, I have been told, the only inhabited adobe house in the city. It's true, I believe, and I found this out actually when I came home one Saturday and there was a tour group in front of the house with flyers, talking about each house as they were walking around. It was organized by the City, and they were in front of my house, and we got chatting and they said, Isn't it wonderful that you live in the only inhabited adobe house in the city? And I said, Well, that's lovely to know. So that's kind of neat. 1 8 My house was built in 1936. It was the second house built in the neighborhood. The first was catty-corner across the street, and that home was built by the then-mayor of the city, and I believe it was his second home. I believe he had a little cottage downtown. Well, his good friend, Mr. Gamble, was a lawyer, and the mayor built his house or began it in 1932; so his good friend Mr. Gamble decided to build a second house for his family as a gift to his wife, and it was catty-corner across the street, and that's my house. Mrs. Gamble lived there. She was a pianist and he had a lovely piano put in. And I believe that they both lived there until the 1950s when he passed away. I don't know exactly the year but Mrs. Gamble then lived in the home alone from the 1950s into the mid-'90s, when she passed away in the house. When she passed away, she didn't have central heat. The home had sustained incredible damage: water damage and damage from space-heater fires and everything had been painted over. All of the original tile and wood had been painted and painted and painted and repainted, mostly in shades of green, interestingly. And so when she passed away in the home, it was she and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of cats. So the home was just kind of left. I guess she had a nephew from far away, another state, who put the home up for sale, and it was bought by a developer who also has a house downtown, close to John S. Park, and he bought it thinking he was going to raze the house and just keep the property, and perhaps build something on it. And when he got in the home, he started to look around and he dug all the furniture out and pulled out everything that was blatantly water-or-fire-damaged, and then he started to scrape under paint, and he found the most amazing wood, and the most amazing hand-painted tiles, the most amazing hand-made tiles, and doors and doorframes that at the top are cut on a diagonal but they matched perfectly. I mean everything was made by hand. So what he decided, quite wisely (and I'm so thankful for this), is to fix up the house. And so he did most of the renovations, and then turned around and sold it to us and we've continued some of those. And so, fortunately, the house came very close to being knocked down but it was saved. I'm really only the second tenant in the house. It's pretty amazing, really, when you think about it. The developer who bought it, he did have someone rent it from him and live there a little bit while he was working on it, as part of the work team, but that was I guess brief. What a wonderful story that you know about your house. I feel very close to the Gambles. This is a copy of that walking tour. Is your house on there? It was back then. I don't know. I'm looking here. I'm on Fifth [Place]. There's Fifth, and there I am [indicating her house on the walking tour], I am number 29, 1111 Fifth Place, Spanish Eclectic, begun in 1931, completed in '36. That is [it]. Wonderful. So don't be surprised if one day you find us outside of your house taking a photograph. Yet again, yes. [Laughter] That's great. You said it was one of the most diverse areas, and we also believe that. What kind of diversity do you see now, demographically, any kind of diversity you see in the neighborhood right now. Well, I mean demographically diverse in terms of race and ethnicity; in terms of age, there's everything from young couples or young individuals with their first homes all the 10 way to senior citizens who have lived there for generations, you know, for two generations they grew up there and still live there. So, in all of those ways. And then I also really like the richness in terms of the diversity of the types of people who live there: socio-economic class, very economically diverse; professionally very diverse: just an amazing array of occupations. And so it's not your typical sort of gated community where, by virtue of the pricing of the houses and the marketing of the community, they tend to be, you know, uni-dimensional. This is a really multidimensional community, and that makes it really neat. Do you see or experience at all the art community? Absolutely. OK, tell me a little about that. Do you find that different, and how do you find it attached with First Friday? Yeah. Well, it's so fun. Way back when—I was at the first First Friday—and before the first First Friday there was kind of an informal First Friday. There was an interdisciplinary class at UNLV out of [the School of] Architecture but with dance and music and a whole group of professors, including myself from sociology, who participated, some for credit, others just on a volunteer basis with students, and we went down one Friday and did murals on what's now the Arts District, and did improv dance on the street corners and did a whole [event] downtown. I mean it was quite an amazing experience. This was at Charleston [Boulevard] and Main Street, right down at the Arts Factory corner, right around there. And there was lots of buzz and talk about how we have to build up this Arts District and of course, I don't know if you know about Enigma [Garden Cafe] but Enigma had been down there, which was a wonderful [place]. I really 11 believe that Enigma was the first seed of what has become the arts community down there. Unfortunately it wasn't able to make it until, you know, when the First Fridays began and a real identity became attached to that neighborhood. But nonetheless I think Enigma was one of those seeds, certainly the Arts Factory, and then this class, and whole group of people who were a part of that class then were part of, in various ways, the sort of broad and eclectic arts community, which then some other folks formalized and turned into these First Fridays. So yeah, I remember the first First Friday. It's amazing. And right now I mean I have to say, because I have a son and so oftentimes, you know, if it's too hot or too cold or he's too tired, we don't make it down as much as I would like. I would like to be there every month. But when we don't make it for one of those reasons, we can hear the music, we can hear the people, and it feels like a street fair, it feels like a city, you know, it just feels like there's a richness and a layering and a depth to downtown that is just wonderful. Do you think the older members of the community feel the same way about hearing that music? I think it depends, as with anything, you know. I certainly know an awful lot of the neighbors love the First Fridays, even if they don't make it, again just for that same reason of, it feels exciting. It feels like there [are] things happening, and it feels like there's people coming down and community and vibrance, and I think a lot of people really like that. I'm sure that there are others who prefer that strangers not come downtown and the music be turned down a few notches, but it is what it is. I think it's quite wonderful. That's just me. 12 Wow. I like that. Thank you for that answer. Sure. Religion was very, very important in the community, especially early on. When I talk to older members of the community, they tell me about the influence of the Catholic church. They tell me about the influence of the Mormon church, the one that was just taken down a few months ago. So do you see any religious influence now or major influence coming from the churches? You know, I can't say that I do. I know that they're very much anchored in the community, and I've heard the same kind of stories about their impact in previous decades. In recent years, you know, I can't say I've experienced that quite as much. I know that there are people who attend those churches. I know that those churches do outreach to various groups of folks in need, which I think is quite wonderful and I very much appreciate. But in terms of the church groups coming in and collaborating with the community or the neighborhood associations, I haven't seen that very much, of late. But I do know the mark that they've had on this community historically and I've heard those stories too. I will say my son does go to a religious school downtown. He goes to [First] Good Shepherd Lutheran [School], which is down on Maryland Parkway, so it's a little bit off the edge of the community but close enough and whole group of kids actually from our neighborhood go to that school, together in fact, and so it's a bit of an extension of the community, and we've all found a real home there. I don't think any of us are practicing Lutherans, to be honest, but the school is quite excellent and it's been a really great place for our kids to be, and it's nice that the kids can be neighbors and friends at school. I don't know. I like that. Again, it adds depth and options. 13 I love that because it sounds like some of the same stories I heard from people who moved there in the Forties, because they talk about going to some of the schools right there in the community, like the John S. Park [Elementary] School and then the high school that just moved out, Bishop Gorman [High School], they talk about all of those schools and how they helped form community. They also though talked about that they had a lot of recreation, not only at the schools but at the churches and the parks. Do you think that we are missing that part these days, especially the parks? I do. I mean we spend a lot of time down at Baker Park on Saint Louis [Avenue], My son loves it. It's fun because we were there just last weekend and he was saying, Remember when I was two and we used to come here? And he's already cracking this narrative about, Remember when I was little and we came to this park, you know, and here's this little six-year-old running around. It's kind of funny. He's six going on sixty-six sometimes, you know. Thinks he's a little man. But back when he was a baby, we used to go there. So it's part of the family narrative and we certainly spend time there and enjoy it. We also, for a period of time, spent a great deal of time at Circle Park and really loved it. I was somewhat part of the community planning of that and one of my very, very dear, best friends, Kasey Baker, was the architect who worked on the community design of that park. She'd be an excellent person to talk to about the history of Circle Park. But I was extremely excited when the park was being renovated, and being in conversations and attending some of those meetings and working with Kasey some. I remember we had a concert down there. We had good times. A group of us would decide 14 to go and have brunch on Mother's Day, you know, just everybody bring something to share and let the kids run around, when the kids were all really little. So, what? That was three, four, five years ago. And then of course the unfortunate incident where the homeless man was killed and the park was closed, and I think that's represented frankly a real bruise on the community, I think. We've lost the park [and] we've lost the sense of community that gathered there. One of the wonderful things about Circle Park is it's situated of course in the center of Maryland Parkway, right between neighborhoods, so it brought both sides of Maryland Parkway together in really important ways and it was a nice meeting point. What are you going to do about that? It was nice that the traffic, people driving through, could see that neighbors were out. Now they see blight, you know; now they see that the park is closed down and there's nothing much happening and I think it sends the wrong message about our neighborhood. So I know that there are groups that are working on getting Circle Park reopened, working with [City Councilman] Gary Reese and the City Council and the Planning Commission. I know Kasey Baker is involved in those conversations. So, you know, I'm willing to be part of that and I've spoken to folks about that very recently, about strategies we could use to change the current state of Circle Park and reinvigorate it, which doesn't, I don't think, involve much of an infusion of money at all. It really involves reopening and providing the appropriate police supervision at the right times and I think some strategic planning of activities would be very helpful in that space. So I would love to see that happen again. And I do think that we're lacking some of those 15 community activities and outlets for neighbors, and Circle Park reopening would at least be a step in the right direction. I agree. Is it still a community that you walk in