Since it’s Halloween, and in keeping with the death theme from yesterday’s website debacle of posting my death notice too early, let me tell you about dead things brought back to life.

I was in Las Vegas last weekend shooting a television pilot. One of the locations for the shoot was the Neon Boneyard at the Neon Museum. The place is open for tours all day and into the night. We were there at sunset, which lent some interesting lighting and ominous shadows to the signs.

Heh heh…. he said “boneyard.”

From time to time, the casinos, bars and hotels of Las Vegas removed their signs in favor of newer, shinier versions. The old signs were then carted off to the desert, like Joe Pesci in the movie Casino, and laid to rest. Here at the boneyard you can see many famous old signs, like the El Portal sign or the PAPSNOTASAA sign. Wait…what?

Bring your cameras! And your tetanus shots.

Parts from various signs are stacked willy nilly around the yard, making it feel like someone is putting together a giant ransom letter. Well, someone extremely illiterate, I suppose.

We have your rsbab hostage. Wait, how do you spell “child”? Dammit.

 

Some signs are from casinos that are still around. But some are a glimpse of Vegas’ past, like this huge light-up lamp from the defunct Aladdin Casino. It’s a big Aladdin’s lamp made up of many tiny, smaller lamps. It looked like it was a pain to change the burnt out Aladdin’s lamp’s lamps, which probably led to its demise.

The decorations at the Aladeen Casino would have looked like this, but with a beard.

It’s not only signs from casinos, bars and hotels that make it to the boneyard. Check out this creepy sign, happy to be given a second life:

Ah, the Joyful Anthropomorphic Oxford Shirt Casino was my favorite place before it was torn down.

Actually, I would bet that all the signs were as happy as the shirt sign to be given a second life. In a way, the Neon Boneyard is like Scatman Crothers in the Steven Spielberg segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, giving new life to the old folks who were left to die at the Driftwood Convalescent Home.

The Scatman, ’bout to get all Hong Kong Phooey on this old man’s ass.

Hour-long guided tours are available at the Neon Museum. Hit them up here to book a day or night tour.

Share This