Gist it for me? Last week, the City of Las Vegas lit up a new pair of 50-foot-tall showgirl signs at Main Street and Las Vegas Boulevard — “a popular spot for photos and selfies,” according to a city promo video. They replace a previous pair of 25-foot showgirls. “I felt they were way too small,” Mayor Carolyn Goodman says in the video.
Their purpose? “These gorgeous signs will continue to elevate Las Vegas’ image as a world-class travel destination beloved by people around the globe.” — Goodman
Facts and figs? Each 50-foot showgirl is 15 feet wide and weighs 6,800 pounds. They’re illuminated with white LED; the headdresses, approximately 5 feet tall and 6 feet wide, are “designed to scintillate or twinkle.” Cost: $630,000 for the pair.
Sounds like showgirls must be a richly symbolic part of downtown history! Hardly. They aren’t particularly endemic to casino entertainment. Historian/author Larry Gragg recollects no mentions of them from the 1940s-50s, the era of las Vegas he studies. Nor later, says longtime LV show journalist Mike Weatherford. Adds author/historian Su Kim Chung: “There were dancers, but I doubt there were many showgirls.” The difference: Showgirls like the ones the signs are modeled after “wore huge headdresses and costumes,” so they don’t dance much. "They would move gracefully and sensually around the stage.” Weatherford: “Downtown never had a large enough showroom for a splashy showgirl revue.” Only the Strip did.
So why showgirls? They seem to have one real pretext to exist: “They were modeled after showgirls that would accompany former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman (Carolyn's husband) to events,” the Review-Journal reports. Of course. One could be forgiven the cynicism of thinking that the showgirls arise from the confluence of two City Hall priorities: creating marketing-ready settings for all-important social-media impressions — and underlining Oscar Goodman’s legacy.
Or, as Las Vegas Weekly journalist Geoff Carter put it, “None of this would be happening if Oscar had a big f*ck-off stadium named for him.”
Our takes:
Host Dayvid Figler? Not a fan. (@OyVegas/Twitter)
As for me, I find the showgirls an overly cutesy touch that doesn't offer much real connection to their setting — and, ironically, they'll probably remind global viewers of the Strip, not downtown.
What about the originals? They’re being placed at Fourth Street and Las Vegas Boulevard — in the Arts District, where showgirls will surely seem even more out of place.
