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Transcript of interview with Joe M. Wilcock by Claytee White, April 17, 18, & 30, 2014

Date

2014-04-17
2014-04-18
2014-04-30

Description

Chef and longtime gaming executive Joseph “Joe” Wilcock was born in Detroit and raised by his mother, Ruby, and stepfather, Ross Johnson, in Sarasota, Florida; Gary, Indiana; and Harlan, Kentucky. After he graduated from high school in Gary he moved to Chicago to attend Washburne Culinary Institute. While attending Washburne Joe worked at Chicago’s Drake Hotel and lived at the Sears YMCA. After earning his certificate from Washburne, Joe worked at the newly opened Holiday Inn in Chicago, the Sea View hotel in Bal Harbour, Florida, and a resort at Blowing Rock, North Carolina. At Blowing Rock he heard about the new School of Hotel Management at UNLV and in August 1969 23-year-old Joe headed for Las Vegas with $400 in his pocket. Las Vegas was a disappointment. Joe could not get a job as a chef without first joining Culinary Workers Union Local 226-which he could not afford to do. Also, because he ran a poker game and cooked at the Chuck Wagon Diner during high school his high school grade point average was roughly a C-, which hindered his admittance into the School of Hotel Management. Undaunted, Joe found a job bussing tables at the Frontier Hotel and joined the Culinary Union so he could work as a chef. He also took three classes at UNLV that semester, earned an A in each, and was admitted to the School of Hotel Management. While at UNLV he affiliated with Sigma Chi fraternity. In his career Joe has worked in all facets of the gaming industry in such Las Vegas properties as the Flamingo Capri, the Frontier, Caesars Palace, the Tropicana, the Dunes, the Golden Nugget, the Mirage, Treasure Island, the Sands, MGM, and the Downtown Grand. He learned the business from the ground up. He also worked at Caesars Tahoe and at different times owned and operated a sandwich shop and a bar. Joe married his wife, Linda, 38 years ago in Las Vegas, in 1976. He is currently employed as a casino shift manager at the Downtown Grand hotel and is affiliated with the House Corporation of Sigma Chi Alumni, UNLV Rebel Golf, the Las Vegas Natural History Museum, and Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation of Nevada.

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Brian Greenspun interview, 2018: transcript

Date

2018-01-10
2018-01-24
2018-02-21
2018-03-20

Description

Interviewed by Barbara Tabach. Publisher of Las Vegas Sun, child of Hank and Barbara Green. Part 1 Subjects: Las Vegas Sun, Greenspun family, Israel gun running; Part 2 subjects: Journalism importance, Las Vegas Sun, Watergate tie-in with Hank's safe, October 1 shootings reflections; Part 3 subjects: Hank and Barabara Greenspun. Talks about Jewish visionaries of Las Vegas that includes Art Marshall, Jack Entratter, Sheldon Adelson, Nate Mack; Part 4: Interviewed by Barbara Tabach. Las Vegas Sun newspaper publisher and native Las Vegan talk about events and people from Las Vegas' years of him growing up. From watching pink smoke from test site to hanging out with friends in the John S. Park neighborhood to racial riot of 1969 to playing golf as a kid.

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Transcript of interview with Flora Mason by Barbara Tabach, December 8, 2014

Date

2014-12-08

Description

Flora Mason (1940- ) is a Las Vegas, Nevada philanthropist and community leader. She was born Florica Esformes to a Sephardic Jewish parents who emigrated from Greece to New York. This Mediterranean influence can be seen in the meals she serves for the Jewish holidays. Flora?s grandfather had a pushcart business in New York and her father became a produce broker, which led the family to Miami, Florida. She graduated from high school in Miami and also met Stuart Mason there. The young couple married in 1958. They had been married for 58 years when Stuart passed away in 2012. In this oral history, Flora recalls her life?from witnessing signage that read: no blacks, no dogs, no Jews in the South to meeting her husband while a teenager to raising her three children in Las Vegas. Along the way, she has always found time to form fast friendships and to inspire productive community organizations. v For example, Flora and Stuart founded the Las Vegas Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation in 1970. It was a disease that their daughter Deborah had suffered from. They also established the Mason Undergraduate Peer Coach Program at University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries in 2006. Flora was the first woman elected by the general membership to serve on the Temple Beth Sholom Board of Directors. She has served on the National Board of Directors of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, been involved with the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas, the Anti-Defamation League among many other Jewish and non-Jewish community organizations. Flora?s college education began at the University of Miami and focused on completing both her undergraduate and graduate degrees at UNLV, where she majored in English literature. She then became a lecturer in the UNLV English department from 1985 to 1993. Flora and Stuart Mason had three children: sons William and James who joined the family?s successful three-generation commercial construction business Taylor International, and daughter Deborah. In this oral history, Flora shares the joy of being a grandparent, her love of travel, and the opportunities of meeting Israeli dignitaries over the years. She also candidly reflects on dealing with grief and the Jewish rituals surrounding death.

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Transcript of interview with Gary Sternberg by Barbara Tabach, February - April, 2015

Date

2015-02-12
2015-02-15
2015-04-07
2015-10-20

Description

In this oral history, Gary explains how the family came to live in the United States?Cleveland and Los Angeles. In 1957, he married Noreen and they eventually came to live in Las Vegas where Gary worked for Sears selling washing machines, had a repair business and an importing business with Noreen. Gary was an entrepreneurial soul and inventive much like his father. He owns three patents.

On August 25, 1931, Augusta and Herman Sternberg welcomed their second child, Gerd (aka Gary), into the world of Cuxhaven, Germany. Augusta was a devout Christian of Polish ancestry who had fled Russian persecution. Herman was a German-born Jew salesman and inventor. The couple fell in love and had two children, Gary and Ruth who was a year and half older. By 1938, German politics were targeting Jews and Herman was ripped away from his Christian wife and children and sent to a concentration camp. Fate and friendship rescued Herman with the option to go to China. And so begins the history of the Sternberg family and how they all would eventually live together during World War II in the confines of a Jewish ghetto in Hongkew, China from May 1939 to July 1948. Gary had an extraordinary career as a dealer. He was not the stereotypical young dealer-to-be: he was in his 40s when he signed up for the Michael Gaughn Dealing School in the mid-1970s. Gary?s charming wit and ease of making friends soon gained him a position at El Cortez and then Caesars Palace. It was the same personality that would sustain his stellar thirty-one year career at Caesars. He was employed there from April 1974 until his retirement May 8, 2005. Though Jewish tradition would identify Gary as Christian, he self-identified as Jewish, officially converted and has been an active member of the Jewish community. Among his anecdotes-and he has many-is one about securing a $30,000 donation from Frank Sinatra and Jilly Rizzo for Congregation Ner Tamid.

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Transcript of interview with Blaine Benedict by Barbara Tabach, November 12, 2015

Date

2015-11-12

Description

Throughout this interview, Blaine shares stories of his father, Alvin Benedict. Al owned and operated Benedict and Remy Plumbing Business for a few years before entering into casino management. He is considered to be the first college educated executive and had an illustrious executive career at the MGM. He also was a co-founder with Susan and Irwin Molasky of Nathan Adelson Hospice.

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Transcript of interview with Carolyn Goodman by Barbara Tabach, August 18, 2016

Date

2016-08-18

Description

Carolyn Goldmark Goodman (1939- ) is the mayor of the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. She began her first four-year term in office on July 6, 2011 and was re-elected for a second term in April 2015. She succeeded her husband of 50 years, Oscar B. Goodman, who served three terms as mayor. Carolyn founded The Meadows School in Las Vegas in 1984, the state's first nonprofit, college preparatory school for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. She oversaw planning and daily operations of the school for 26 years, retiring in 2010. Carolyn and Oscar Goodman arrived in Las Vegas in 1964. Carolyn Goodman started out working in the hotel industry, and later earned her master's degree in counseling from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) while raising four children. As mayor, Goodman has focused on improving public education and the local economy. She is a board member of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and serves on the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance (LVGEA). She is actively involved in the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), as a member of its Advisory Board, vice-chair of its Task Force on Education Reform, and chair of the Mayors? Business Council. In 2014 Goodman received the UCSM?s Large City Climate Protection Award. As leader of the Meadows School, Goodman was recognized nationally by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the National Association of Independent Schools in 2006 with the Seymour Preston Trustee Award for Leadership. She has also been honored by UNLV, receiving the Distinguished Nevada award in 1989, an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree (PhD) in 2006, and Alumni of the Year in Education in 2010. In this interview, Goodman talks about her family background and touches upon her childhood in New York City and attending Bryn Mawr College, where she met Oscar. She discusses the growth of the Las Vegas Jewish population since arriving, efforts to build Jewish community, and her involvement, including with Temple Beth Sholom and the Jewish Federation. In addition, Goodman talks at length about her husband?s political career as well as her own, both dedicated to developing Las Vegas into a safe and prosperous city, with quality education, health care, and arts and culture offerings. She also discusses establishing The Meadows School.

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Transcript of interview with Walter Weiss by Claytee White, November 2, 2010

Date

2010-11-02

Description

In this interview, Walter Weiss discusses how Judaism and boxing kept him out of trouble in his youth. Weiss grew up in the Boston area, and started boxing as a teenager. Weiss talks about his boxing training, becoming a runner for a bookmaker, and coming to Las Vegas in the 1950s to be a bookmaker for the Stardust Hotel, and working the slot machine floor. He had several different jobs in various casinos, and discusses different people involved in the gaming industry in Las Vegas.

Walter Weiss life story begins in a Malden, Massachusetts during the Great Depression. His early background was a blend of observant Judaism, secularism, and the effects of the era. He was a troubled youth whose older brother encouraged him to join him in boxing. As Walter explains: I was a wild kid and ... boxing saved my life. His aptitude for boxing led him to be a sparring partner in New York City's famous Spillman Gym. There he met and worked out with some of the greatest fighters of the era, including Rocky Marciano. He recalls how he turned professional while attending the University of Miami and how he first came to Las Vegas in 1958 to escape his personal troubles and find work with a local bookmaker. Thus began his diverse employment history in the casino industry. He details his various positions and the cast of famous and infamous characters of the times. For six years he return to New York and worked as a Wall Street broker before arriving back in Las Vegas in 1973. He talks about his property ownership, lobbying for an amendment to Senate Bill 208, his personal religious changes and a sundry of observations about the changes that occurred as the state took over gaming.

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Interview with Bruce Lee Wilhelm, June 22, 2005

Date

2005-06-22

Description

Narrator affiliation: Mining engineer, Project manager, Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company (REECo)

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Hotel room brochure from Caesars Palace, circa 1969

Date

1968 to 1971

Archival Collection

Description

Bound booklet with concierge information for Caesars Palace. The guide provides entertainment and dining information about the resort and casino, including room service menus and a telephone directory.

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Oscar and Carolyn Goodman oral history interview: transcript

Date

2014-10-18

Description

Oral history interview with Carolyn G. and Oscar B. Goodman conducted by Claytee D. White on October 18, 2014 for the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. In this interview, Carolyn G. and Oscar B. Goodman discuss their early childhoods and education. They tell the story of their marriage, family life, and careers. The Goodmans go into further detail on the growth of Las Vegas, Nevada as a community as well as a tourist destination.

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