Requiem for the Sahara Hotel

My oldest friend Bill is in Las Vegas, staying at the Paris hotel with some other guys, all of whom are probably now in bed or maybe ingesting the kind of breakfasts that ought to be served by a team of paramedics, just in case. As I try to get a nascent freelance copywriting business going, my own days of going to Vegas are on hold. I write this, though, not to lament my absence during Bill’s current trip, but to say a few words about the Sahara Hotel and Casino.

I live in Boston and Bill lives in D.C. Every year from 2001 to 2010, we met in Las Vegas for a weekend of low-roller gambling, heedless eating and drinking, and watching and betting on sports. We always stayed at the Sahara, and logged many hours at its craps and blackjack tables. Last month, he sent me an email with a link to an article indicating that the Sahara will shut down tomorrow (May 16) for the same reason that all businesses shut down: it’s losing money.

The announcement upset me for personal reasons, since an enjoyable if minor tradition has officially ended. But the Sahara’s announcement is also cause for a more general sadness, in part because of its role in Las Vegas’s short but fascinating history. Built in 1952, the Sahara is one of the oldest surviving hotels on the Strip. During its heyday, it was a genuinely hip and relevant place. Behind the front desk, there are framed pictures of Elvis Presley at the Sahara. Frank Sinatra stayed there, and Louis Prima played in its lounge. I just read that Abbott and Costello may have performed their final show at the Sahara. Marlena Dietrich performed there. The first Ocean’s Eleven movie was shot there. And on and on.

But as everyone knows, times change and they change particularly quickly and irrevocably in Las Vegas. Elvis may have stayed at the Sahara when women wore white gloves and men drove cars with fins, but whatever celebrity appeal the place once had is now long gone. Over time, the Sahara exchanged glamor for forgettable restaurants, cheap gift shops, and an overall humdrum air. It is almost impossible to imagine a celebrity of any stature setting foot in the place now, even to ask for directions to the nearest emergency room. One imagines that they would rather die of wounds on the sidewalk than risk being associated with such a colorless, middlebrow establishment.

Of course there is or should be a place for colorless, middlebrow establishments in any town, even Las Vegas, provided they offer a service. Bill and I loved the Sahara’s recent incarnation not because it was sexy or exuded a sense of history, but because it was a good value. We sometimes looked into other lodging options, but we always came back to the Sahara. It offered easy access to both downtown to the north and the glitzier casinos on the southern end of the Strip. Even more important, it was within walking distance of our favorite Las Vegas restaurant, the justly renowned (but also rather colorless) Lotus of Siam.

The Sahara’s rooms were clean. I was never once awakened by the sounds of my fellow guests, indeed never even heard a TV from the next room. The table minimums were the lowest on the Strip and as low (or lower) than any of the downtown joints. The beers were free, though you were seldom tempted to break your wedding vows on account of the youth and hipness of the waitresses who bore them, sometimes a little too slowly, to the tables. But those waitresses were usually pleasant and appreciative of a dollar-per-drink tip. And I gambled there for dozens, maybe hundreds of hours and only once encountered a rude dealer. I am sorry to think that those hard-working and professional people will soon be out of their jobs.

I wonder if the Sahara’s closing might not be another indication of the polarizing of American society, of the so-called squeezing of the American middle class. I am probably a typical Sahara customer; I’ve certainly been a loyal one over the last decade. I would have liked to go back one final time before it closed, but last summer I was laid off from my own job of fifteen years and as I’ve already hinted I am now what is often called “underemployed.”

So I won’t be going back to Las Vegas for the foreseeable future. My wealthier friends all still have their jobs, and people in the higher income brackets will likely continue to book their trips to the Bellagio or the Wynn or one of those, taking advantage of the relatively low rates now in place. Maybe those places are safe, even in this downturn. The grittier downtown casinos will probably always have a steady stream of local, low-roller customers, and maybe they’ll weather the recession too. But the Sahara, with its low margins and belt-tightening, out-of-town, middle-class clientele, is doomed. I hope that when the economy finally does recover, some similarly unflashy but reliable establishment fills the void it will have left, and that there will be a lot of unflashy but gainfully employed people to fill its rooms and tables.