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Transcript of interview with Bruce Isaacson by Barbara Tabach, March 24, 2017
Bruce Isaacson was born in 1956 in Castro Valley, California to Betty Griffin and Bernard Isaacson, and spent his childhood in Oakland. He received his bachelor?s degree from Claremont McKenna College with majors in economics as well as drama, and continued studying for his Masters of Business Administration at Dartmouth College. After receiving his MBA, Isaacson started a career in finance, focusing on mergers and acquisitions. In 1995, he moved to Las Vegas to pursue a real estate career alongside his father. In June 2015, Isaacson became Clark Country?s first poet laureate to encourage poetry as an art form in Southern Nevada. Although Isaacson began writing poetry at a young age, he wanted to develop his craft further. So he attended Brooklyn College for a Masters of Fine Arts and studied with famed poet Allen Ginsberg. Isaacson is known in the San Francisco Bay Area as organizer and poet in the Cafe Babar readings in the 1980s. He is also a co-founder of Zeitgeist Press, where he remains publisher and co-editor. In this interview, Isaacson discusses his childhood and how he maneuvered his career path from finance into poetry. He talks about applying for and serving as the county?s first poet laureate, and describes the programing he?s started in this capacity. Isaacson also speaks about his earlier involvement with Bay Area poetry scene as well as the impact of his Jewish upbringing on his life and his art.
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Transcript of interview with Betty Ham Dokter by Roger Jablonski, February 27, 1977
On February 27, 1977, Roger Jablonski interviewed Betty Ham Dokter (born 1922 in Las Vegas, Nevada) about her life in Southern Nevada. Dokter first talks about her upbringing and education in Las Vegas before describing church activity and the first casino properties that were built. She later talks about presidential visits, economic changes in Nevada, the construction of Hoover Dam, and some of the social changes in Las Vegas. The latter part of the interview covers the topics of racial minorities, environmental changes, early grocery stores and movie theaters, and social clubs. The interview concludes with a brief discussion on Mt. Charleston.
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Transcript of interview with F. Andrew Taylor by Claytee White, September 30, 2013
F. Andrew Taylor has been a Las Vegas resident for over 20 years, moving to the city by way of New England and Georgia at the age of 28. Armed with a degree in painting from the Swain School of Design, got a job at a Laughlin casino as a caricature artist. After a brief stay in Laughlin and Bullhead City, Andrew moved to Ward I, where his girlfriend, now wife, lived. They soon moved to the Spring Valley area, where Andrew later learned through conversations with neighbors and his own research that the home sat on what was the old Stardust Racetrack. With Andrew’s move to the city came new professional opportunities. He got a job at CityLife as the in-house artist and graphic designer, what was then apart of Wick Communications. After a year, Andrew began reporting, initially working for the Sunrise/Whitney paper, and eventually working the downtown beat. Always feeling the pulse of the local arts and culture scene, he has attended First Fridays since it started, continues his own art,
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Photographs of Monte Carlo signs, Las Vegas (Nev.), 2002
Site name: Monte Carlo Resort and Casino (Las Vegas, Nev.)
Site address: 3770 S Las Vegas Blvd
Sign owner: Mandalay Resort Group (50%), MGM Mirage (50%)-Mandalay manages the property
Sign details: The Monte Carlo is located on the west side of the strip just past the New York New York. The signage on the front of the Monte Carlo is limited, with the dominant honors going to the architectural aspects instead. The front facade is made to represent the classical architecture actually found in Monte Carlo. Giant patina fountains are flanked by sweeping staircases, where giant recessed arches and niches hold an abundant array of diversely positioned statuary.
Sign condition: Structure 5 Surface 5 Lighting 5
Sign form: Pylon; Fascia
Sign-specific description: Through the main arch behind the fountain, located on the south east corner, an entrance is guarded from above by black channel letters spelling "Monte Carlo" and filled with incandescent bulbs. This entrance faces southeast. The architecture continues with relief entablature upon fluted columns supporting Corinthian caps, and more statuary. Light posts adorn the sweeping walk in front of the property. Throughout the architecture you can see pools and fountains contained between arches and recessed into other area. Another entrance in the same fashion as the southeast entrance sits facing northeast. Another set of channel letters is set above these doors as well. Just north of the last entrance is the pylon for the Monte Carlo. The pylon fits into the category commonly seen at resorts such as The Mirage, or Luxor. Essentially a giant rectangle in its general silhouette, a multi leveled collection of signs are designated into geometrical planes by the use of classical architectural elements. The sign is at the north end of the Monte Carlo property and faces north/south, and is double sided. The bottom half of the structure is occupied by a tall arch, creating a pedestrian element, allowing passage through the sign. The two legs that flank the arch are created utilizing a pair of double columns supporting a series of crowned ledges supporting yet another architectural element of a pilaster. The resultant effect is two rather massive collections of elements creating the outer legs of columns, combined with pilasters, for the recessed borders of the impressive arch. Above the arch the cabinet rises up divided into two planes, one on top of the other, each holding a message cabinet with a pair of the square post as seen on the structure just below. It creates another pilaster from the front with rows of stacked columns on the structures width. The two arrangements are identical in structure and facade. The difference lies in the different types of display each on holds. The top is a back lit color advertisement currently for magician Lance Burton, while the bottom is an LED matrix screen . The top is an entablature crowned with sweeping overhangs, and containing the text Monte Carlo in black channel letters and filled with incandescent bulbs. The signage on the towers of the hotel are the repeated Monte Carlo logos in giant black channel letters, and filled with incandescent bulbs. On each face of each one of the wings Monte Carlo is spelled in it's trademark text, in black channel letters and filled with incandescent bulbs.
Sign - type of display: Incandescent; Backlit
Sign - media: Steel; Plastic
Sign animation: Oscilllating
Notes: The incandescent bulbs inside the channel letters oscillate, at the entrances on the building as well.
Sign environment: The environment the Monte Carlo creates with its various forms of advertisement abruptly changes in aesthetic contrast to its southern companion and precursor to the northbound traveler. One minute the pedestrian is listening to the nasal audio streaming from the ESPN Zone loudspeakers, to the delicately ornate facade of the Monte Carlo's fountains and highly detailed statuary. Once you cross the drive it is not hard to be attracted the by classical architecture which serves its purpose of bringing in the patron with the limited space utilized for pedestrian passage across the front. I say limited, even though it is one of the more ornate and expansive ones, that is in comparison to its related properties of the Mirage and the Bellagio. The use of architecture makes the utmost use of this great strength of aesthetic by making it interactive for the pedestrian by allowing them to pass up close to the elements while entering the building or traversing the facade. The two giant wings on either end of the property act as arms to pull in people using swooping steps and large fountains. The signage is integrated into this environment, blending in nicely, in similar fashion as the previously mentioned examples. The oscillating incandescent bulbs can be found inside the channel letters, which is the most common animation seen in this type of signage in the other properties as well.
Sign - date of installation: 1995
Sign - thematic influences: The Monte Carlo theme is that of an understated European elegance.
Surveyor: Joshua Cannaday
Survey - date completed: 2002
Sign keywords: Oscillating; Pylon; Fascia; Incandescent; Backlit; Steel; Plastic
Mixed Content
Christian Chan oral history interview: transcript
Oral history interview with Christian Chan conducted by Cecilia Winchell, Jerwin Tiu, and Stefani Evans on May 06, 2022 for the Reflections: the Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. In this interview, Chan begins by describing her childhood in Hong Kong and later moving to San Francisco, California with her family, then to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1965. She recalls attending Sunrise Acres and Roy Martin Middle School before graduating from Valley High School as valedictorian. In college, Chan attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and graduated with a degree in engineering. After college, she found work in the Las Vegas Valley Water District and became the first woman engineer. During her five years there, she excountered subtle sexism for the first time. Chan continues the interview by describing her work while she lived in California, as well as her years internationally living in the Philippines as well as Ecuador. Throughout the interview, Chan touches on topics ranging from identity, to her impressions of the different generations, discrimination, and the growth of Las Vegas.
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Transcript of interview with Helen Naugle by Irene Rostine, October 31, 1996
Prior to 1962, Helen Naugle had only visited Las Vegas once in her life while traveling from Idaho to California for a vacation with her husband and her boss. The group made a quick stop so her boss could interview for a position with EG&G and, as fate would have it, EG&G did not hire Helen’s boss. However, they did extend a job offer to Helen’s husband. A month later, Helen, her two daughters, and her husband became residents of Las Vegas, Nevada. Before moving to Nevada, Helen enjoyed singing in super clubs and performing on her radio show, “Melodies from Meadowland” and working for American Machine and Foundry. Upon her arrival in Las Vegas, Helen went to work for Bonanza Airlines before attending real estate school. In 1963, Helen opened her first office, Bruce Realty, and in 1965, she obtained her Broker’s license. She spent the next ten years selling general real estate. During this period, Helen was an active member of the Board of Realtors, as well as an early participant in the Board’s newly formed Women’s Council. Fate would strike again in Helen’s life while she was visiting her daughter at college in Arizona where she read an article in the Phoenix newspaper about a group of brokers who had formed a networking association to sell hotels and motels across the country. As a result of her initial contact with this association, Helen spent the next four decades selling hotels and motels throughout the State of Nevada, including Las Vegas, Elko, Tonopah, and Wells. She eventually became the first woman President of the American National Hotel-Motel Association. The cultural diversity of hotel and motel buyers would provide Helen with opportunities to travel the world and work with buyers from many different countries and cultural backgrounds. It also led to Helen’s membership in the FIABCI (International Real Estate Federation) and her Certified International Property Specialist and Federation of International Property Consultants certifications. Helen was also selected by the Association to represent the Air Force as “Innkeeper Evaluator” for one year. This honor took her to five Air Force bases in the United States and to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. During Helen’s career in hotel and motel real estate sales, she witnessed the transition from “mom-and-pop” American buyers to the influx of international buyers predominately from East India and Asia. The opportunities for helping repeat buyers and sellers gradually went away, as foreign buyers entered the market and tended to resell their properties to friends and family members from their own countries. During the latter part of her career, Helen found time to give back to the Las Vegas community through her volunteer work helping to establish the Scleroderma Foundation of Nevada. She also served on the Board of Directors of the Downtown Las Vegas Partnership where she focused on public safety in the area encompassing the Fremont Street Experience. Her work with both of these organizations allowed her to draw on her career experience for the benefit of others. Whether it was fate, or as Helen put it, she “just lucked into a lot of things,” one thing is certain - Helen Naugle was certainly a trail blazer for women in the hotel-motel niche of the real estate business, not only in Nevada, but across the nation.
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Meeting minutes for Consolidated Student Senate University of Nevada, Las Vegas, March 9, 1994
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Roadrunners Internationale Banquet presentations, October 6, 2005
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