Search Results
Photographs of Mermaids Casino signs, Las Vegas (Nev.), June 24, 2016
Date
Archival Collection
Description
Site address: 32 Fremont St
Sign owner: Derek and Greg Stevens
Sign details: Shutdown in 2016, opened briefly June 28th, 2017 for 8 hours to abide by gambling license law, was torn down shortly after. 2.76 acre lot, originally built in 1949.
Sign condition: Signage was removed from building during deconstruction
Sign form: Decorated shed
Sign-specific description: Covering all the sides of the Mermaids facing Fremont street, gives the feel of New Orleans during Mardi Gras with its bright vibrant colors, drums, maracas, and other items. Skeleton neon was used to accentuate features of the sign like details in the drums, outlining the word "Mermaids", and a good portion of the sign was internally lit as well. Giant TV screen hung in the middle at the corner of the building, giant Sun shaped pinata thing above the TV screen adding more to the theme.
Sign - type of display: Neon, LED screen
Sign - media: Steel and fiberglass
Sign - non-neon treatments: LED screen
Sign animation: Animated with an LED TV screen and some neon would flash on and off
Sign environment: Downtown on Fremont Street, part of the Experience. Surrounded by other casinos and gift stores.
Sign - date of installation: c. 1999
Sign - date of redesign/move: Torn down Summer 2017
Sign - thematic influences: Southern party themed, Mardi Gras.
Sign - artistic significance: American South and Mardi Gras.
Survey - research locations: Vital Vegas, Assessor's website
Surveyor: Danny Jacobs
Survey - date completed: 2017-09-09
Sign keywords: Neon; Steel; Fiberglass; Flashing; Video screen; Sculptural
Mixed Content
Transcript of interview with Elaine Galatz by Barbara Tabach, April 22, 2015
Date
Archival Collection
Description
Interview with Elaine Galatz by Barbara Tabach on April 22, 2015. In this interview, Galatz talks about growing up in Wisconsin. She attended the University of Wisconsin where she was an English major and active in Hillel and the Sigma Delta Tau sorority. She met her husband, Neil, while traveling through Las Vegas on several occasions, and sparks finally flew when she visited him in Tucson on a whim. She describes Neil's background in law, moving to Las Vegas together, and her job teaching second grade. She describes the small Jewish community in the 1960 including the Katzes, Brookmans, Freys, Molaskys and Greenspuns, and the current direction of the Jewish Federation. Galatz discusses raising her children, some of the cases that Neil worked on, their group of friends, and her love of horses.
Elaine Galatz was raised on a farm outside Madison, Wisconsin. Her father was a Russian immigrant father and her mother a young American born bride. Her father died when she was a teenager and her mother remarried a man who enjoyed gambling and that would lead her to first encounter with Las Vegas. Las Vegas would coincidentally become the center of her life when she and her husband of 51 years, Neil Galatz moved here in 1961. Elaine taught school briefly and worked in Neil's successful law firm for a number of years. Neil was a significant litigator in the MGM fire and PEPCON explosion cases. The couple also shared in the growth of Las Vegas Jewish community. Elaine served as Jewish Federation president, the second woman to hold that office. Among their favorite shared family activities was a love of Morgan horses, which continues to present day for Elaine.
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Regional subject files, 1859, 1908, 1970-2015
Level of Description
Scope and Contents
The regional subject files include materials collected by anthropologist Katherine Spilde about Native American gaming, Native American communities in the United States, and the US and international gaming industries. The materials date from 1859 to 2015, with the bulk of materials dating from 1990 to 2010. Materials dating from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are a reproduction of a federal treaty and an ethnohistorical essay. The majority of the materials document Native American gaming following the passage of the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The papers include research and subject files created by Dr. Spilde during her employment with the National Gambling Impact Study Commission (NGISC), National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA), and Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development (HPAIED). The materials document Native American gaming enterprises both on and off reservations, the socioeconomic impact of gaming, the political history of gaming in the US, and international gaming. The series includes socioeconomic reports, testimonies, correspondence, memos, press releases, photographs, audiovisual materials, promotional materials, brochures, fact sheets, summaries, booklets, pamphlets, advertisements, tourism materials, journal articles, legal briefs, legislative documents, court opinions, notes, presentations, conference materials, periodicals, community newspapers, and newspaper articles.
The collection contains documentation on a number of Native American nations, including the Misi-zaaga'iganiing Anishinaabeg (Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Mille Lacs Band); Gaa-waabaabiganikaag Anishinaabeg (Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Band); Forest County Bodéwadmi (Forest County Potawatomi Community); Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin; Mashantucket Pequot Indian Tribe; Mohegan Tribe of Indians; Tulalip Tribes of Washington; Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation; Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North and South Dakota; Mandan, Hidatsa, and Sahnish (Arikara) (Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota); and Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. Other communities are also represented in the series, but to a lesser extent. In addition to materials about gaming and casinos, Dr. Spilde also collected documents, photographs, and audiovisual materials about Native American culture in general. The series documents regional and national trends in Native American gaming, and the greater gaming industry. Materials trace federal and state relationships with individual Native American nations, specifically concerning gaming enterprises.
Archival Collection
Collection Name: Katherine A. Spilde Papers on Native American Gaming
Box/Folder: N/A
Archival Component
Transcript of interview with Arthur "Art" Lurie by Cheryle Bacot, April 25, 1986
Date
Archival Collection
Description
Interview with Arthur "Art" Lurie by Cheryle Bacot on April 25, 1986. Lurie talks about his family and upbringing with Kenny Washington, who was the first African American to sign with the National Football League. Lurie discusses knowing everybody in Las Vegas in the 1950s, being in the service/retail sector and watching the city grow. He operated several businesses including grocery stores and the liquor department at Wonder World. He talks about his love of boxing, serving on the boxing commission, and advantages of living in southern Nevada.
Arthur C. Lurie lived in Las Vegas for 33 years at the time of this 1986 oral history. He and his wife Eleanor had relocated from Los Angeles area to help run his brother-in-law's food market. Over the years his career would include the grocery, bar (Art's Place) and restaurant businesses; including being co-owner of the liquor store at Wonder World. He shares memories of adjusting to the more laid back culture of small town Las Vegas and how he feels like a native after watching the city grow over the past decades. Art was a founding member of Temple Beth Sholom, where he served as an early vice-president. Being in the non-gaming sector provided gave him the opportunity to work with youth programs and he started the Golden Gloves gym in Las Vegas. He judged over 40 title fights and had a long career on the Nevada Boxing Commission. Arthur Lurie past away in 2014 at the age of 96.
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Transcript of interview with Pamela Hicks by Elaine Broniecki, February 16, 1979
Date
Archival Collection
Description
On February 16, 1979, collector Elaine Broniecki, interviewed local Clark County School District teacher, Pamela Calos Hicks, (born in Dayton, Ohio, on November 23rd, 1946) in her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. This interview covers Hicks’ recollections of Las Vegas from 1955 to 1979. Hicks’ also lists the addresses of where she has lived within Las Vegas.
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