Neon Nostalgia

Monday, February 10, 2025

We visited the Neon Boneyard tonight. I have always wanted to see this and was not disappointed. It is a non-profit organization that restores and keeps the history of Las Vegas through neon signs. The docents were terrific; everyone was very willing to help and tell stories.

The La Concha motel sign is from the building that serves as the entrance to the museum. It was cut into eight pieces and moved here after it was donated. The large pieces (with sea horses and Lost Vegas) were made for Tim Burton when he worked with the Boneyard to do an art installation. The sea horses are what he remembered from swimming in the pool at the Dunes Casino – you can see little Tim swimming in the lower left. He thought the sea horses were aliens, and when real aliens attacked (as they certainly would) they would come to Las Vegas first because of nearby Area 51. His movie, Mars Attacks, is represented on the rest of the piece.

The Moulin Rouge sign was one of the first we saw. It is over 90 feet long and very impressive. The Moulin Rouge was the first desegregated casino. It opened in 1955 and lasted only 5 months. All other casinos of the time were for whites only – unless you were a performer like Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr., or Nat King Cole – or staff. The reason it closed was given as bad management.

For Black History Month, they had up lots of signs combining Black History, Vegas, and Neon. They were all very interesting. I thought it was a really nice addition to the regular information. Keith liked the fact that the signs were lit using music stand lights. Notice the clips holding them to sign have music notes. 🙂

This Plaza sign is a lot bigger than you think, and it was very blinky and therefore sparkly. I should have a video instead of a picture.

I walked under that Riveria sign a lot of times, entering and exiting the hotel while we attended WJF juggling conventions.

The Happy Shirt dry cleaner sign had no words, but you knew it was a happy shirt, didn’t you?

I believe steamed heat is as good as conditioned air.

Just to the right of center is a motel sign topped by a local character known as Vegas Vic – or Nevada Nic, as Keith was calling him.

I liked the Yucca motel sign, so here I am with it.

The Tropicana sign was by the gift shop. I was shopping for a good deed-ness, since they are a non-profit organization. I tried on two shirts and didn’t choose either, so I was trying to fold them to put them back. I just went right behind the counter and asked the lady to show me how to do it well. It was great fun. My hair is messy because of trying on shirts. Or just because it is messy.

We checked into our hotel late last night after driving back from Death Valley and going grocery shopping. We got upgraded from a one- to a two-bedroom place. It has more room than we need for sure. I wish we had some extra people in our pocket. As of now, his cornet has its own room. Keith worked today and I started watching Sho-Gun. Keith likes that we have two bathrooms, so he didn’t have to come in and maybe wake me up. He started work at 6am and I woke up at 8am.

This is the view from our room.

Before going to the Boneyard, we went to the Post Office. We needed postcard stamps. I used the end of my 100-stamp roll in Hawaii. It took 4 years to send 100 postcards. We were chatting up the people in line to use the self-service machine. One guy was waiting just to weigh a Valentine. It ended up 1.1 ounces, so he needed extra postage. I gave him one of my stamps. He had a super cute Peanuts stamp on it and mine from the machine were just UPC codes. Darn! But he was happy, and I was happy and Valentines in the mail are nice.

This is the view of the strip from a distance, outside the post office.