Night as Commons: Minor Architecture and Dayfaring Citizens NIGHT: INSURGENCIES (Manchester: Clinamen Press, 2000). 59 See Gilbert Simondon, “The Genesis of the Individual,” in Incorporations, ed. Jonathan Crary and Sanford Moulin Rouge Kwinter (New York: Zone Books, 1992), 297–319. 60 See Keller Easterling’s analysis of François Jullien’s The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy Las Vegas: Nightlife in China (New York: Zone Books, 1995), in Cognitive Architecture: From Bio–Politics to Noo–politics, ed. Deborah Hauptmann and Warren Neidich (Rotterdam: 010 Architecture and Publishers, 2010), 250–265. 61 See Easterling, IIRS, where she notes that “text and code are not the only mediums of information. Information is immanent in the relative the Struggle positions and potentials of heavy, material spatial arrangements—in the physical matter, whether or not it is digitally enhanced.” for Civil Rights

Kurt Kraler In 1951, world-renowned American- born, Paris-based performer Josephine Baker The Moulin Rouge hotel and casino in Las defied American segregation laws at the Vegas significantly advanced the struggle El Rancho Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip by for civil rights for Black Americans, building demanding that Black patrons be permitted upon a liberal optimism that had attracted into the casino’s theatre to watch her show. several Black American artists and performers Baker remained on stage, refusing to perform, to Paris decades earlier. The Jazz Age in until all Black ticket-holders had been granted Paris and the Harlem Renaissance in New entrance to the theatre and seated amongst York during the interwar years marked a their white counterparts. At a time when period of emancipation for Black entertainers discriminatory Jim Crow laws dominated much amid festering racist resentment in the of American public life, Baker’s contract boldly United States. In order to understand the stipulated that she would only perform for crucial role nightlife architecture played in integrated audiences, a seemingly impossible facilitating social change during the civil feat, particularly in Las Vegas, described by rights movement, we will first examine the Sarann Knight-Preddy (the first Black casino- increased social mobility gained by African- owner) as the “Mississippi of the West.” A American women in Paris as a precursor to the large share of the population in Las Vegas history of Black people accessing education, was comprised of poor southern whites who gainful employment, and adequate housing had moved to the region for well-paying in Las Vegas. Several key events defined the construction jobs at the nearby Hoover Dam, struggle for civil rights, leading to the end of bringing with them entrenched racist views. segregation in the region, in which the now- Prior to her performance at the El demolished Moulin Rouge building played a Rancho, Baker had achieved widespread large role. success in Paris. She arrived in France with 70 SCAPEGOAT 10 71 Moulin Rouge Las Vegas ... NIGHT: INSURGENCIES a New York performance troupe, and had control that they would not have been of French and American traditions, the and tranquility through “some sort of class a highly anticipated debut at the all-Black afforded had they remained in America. Simply Black community in Paris has suggested compromise between capital and labour” musical La revue nègre at the Théâtre des put, Paris was “seductive with its lack of racial the possibility of communal practices following World War II.8 Stemming from Champs-Élysées in 1925. As the show’s animus” and offered “freedom, opportunity, emphasizing cultural affinities but not Roosevelt’s New Deal, which granted increased breakout star, Baker captured the French and acceptance”—despite the problematic based upon racial exclusion.6 power to labour unions and generated a variety erotic imagination and reveled in the sexual exploitation of Black bodies.4 of welfare systems, regulatory constraints liberation that had not yet occurred in In addition, a vital support network The thriving community of expatriates and were implemented on market processes to America. In 1927, Baker memorably starred in formed within the growing community of general acceptance Baker had enjoyed in Paris ensure widespread benefit. This system initially Folies du jour, in which she donned a banana Black female expatriates, largely centred were largely absent in the United States upon yielded high-rates of economic growth in belt in a “danse sauvage.” She later reminisced around nightclub-owner Ada “Bricktop” Smith. her return in 1951. Several other prominent the years after 1945, and was responsible for that freedom in Paris was “creative, social, and Proprietor of several popular nightspots Black entertainers, including Eartha Kitt, Lena producing a large and prosperous middle class sexual,” whereas “[i]n America, black women in Paris’s Montmartre district in the early Horne, and Sammy Davis Jr., also encountered in the United States9. However, a large number were corseted, policed—and policed one twentieth century, Bricktop facilitated an blatant discrimination in Las Vegas well into of these opportunities and protections were another and themselves.”1 informal community hub that she described the 1950s. Even though they were permitted disproportionately distributed to white people, After a string of shows across Europe as a “combination maildrop, bank, rehearsal to perform on the Strip, they were barred as people of colour were largely excluded and a series of films, Baker returned to the hall, clubhouse—even a neighbourhood bar.”5 from staying at the very hotels they performed from positions of power. Segregation laws U.S. for a tour in 1951. She encountered Bricktop was also instrumental in accom- in. Black entertainers were forced to stay in maintained the hierarchies of power that had an America that was steeped in Jim Crow modating Josephine Baker in Paris, playing rooming houses in the city’s predominantly been established in the United States since segregation laws, a stark contrast to the close friend and mentor to the young African-American neighbourhood of Westside, its early settlement. Initially enforced only in life she had built in France. Tracy Denean performer, connecting her to an established located north of the Strip close to the historic schools and public transportation, segregation Sharpley-Whiting describes the difference in network of cultural creators, thus ensuring downtown. This changed in 1955, when the laws later dominated other public spaces discrimination that Baker would have likely the continued success of her career. Historian Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino opened its like parks, pools, cemeteries, theatres, and encountered at the time: “Racism American- Tyler Stovall emphasizes the importance of this doors, introducing hotel accommodations restaurants. style was different, pitiless, uncivilized, nakedly community for African Americans in Paris: and spectacular stage shows for integrated As geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore abusive; its bare-knuckled methods lacked [T]he experience of community was audiences. notes, racism is the outcome of the “fatal in rhetoric and practice the paternalism of la fundamental to the history of Black By then Nevada had already garnered coupling” of power and difference, with mission civilisatrice, which, from the French Americans in the French capital. Blacks a reputation for looser social mores and a the imposition of difference by a ruling perspective, possessed a surfeit of goodwill did not come to Paris as isolated tendency for hedonism, with the legalization master class following racial lines.10 With and intentions.”2 But the success Baker individuals but generally with the of convenient “quickie” divorces along oppression occurring through alienation, the enjoyed in Europe was predicated upon the encouragement and assistance of with a widespread loosening of societal imposition of racial difference would maintain fetishization of the black female body at a African Americans already there. Once taboos surrounding gambling. During this established hierarchies of power during a time when non-Western forms of art had in Paris they were able to participate period, religious institutions ceased to label time of tremendous social upheaval following gained increasing prominence. Becoming the in a rich community life with its own gambling a sin, often resorting to bingo and the Second World War. Segregation laws and muse of Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, institutions, traditions, and rituals. lottery fundraisers in order to compensate discriminatory urban policy inscribed this racist F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Christian Dior, she Moreover, the creation of an expatriate for declining congregation attendance.7 differentiation into physical space, becoming was the subject of the white male gaze in Black community played a vital role in Additionally, the popularity of unaffiliated particularly evident with the confinement of an “enabling violation” which granted her easing the pangs of exile. Many blacks wedding chapels along the Strip from the African Americans to the Westside. This was increased social mobility within Parisian in Paris rejoiced in their escape from 1940s onward offered a particular freedom further reinforced by white residents who society. This notion of an “enabling violation,” the United States but at the same from restrictive traditions imposed by religious added restrictive covenants to property deeds, introduced by post-colonial scholar Gayatri time feared losing touch with African- institutions, as well as framing Las Vegas as a restricting the sale of housing or land only to Spivak, addresses the discernable benefits American culture. Informal networks destination for lasciviousness. “members of the Caucasian race,” making that can be derived from exploitation, though enabled them to recreate a Black It became apparent that nightlife it increasingly difficult for Blacks to live it cannot be advanced as a justification for cultural presence abroad freed from would serve as an incubator for community elsewhere in Las Vegas.11 the inflicted action.3 Baker, alongside other racism. […] African Americans in the organizing and social change, a critical The Westside had long been an African-American women in Paris at the French capital did create important factor in the advancement of civil rights undeveloped area of the city, as the initial time—including Jessie Fauset, Mabel Mercer, networks that, by establishing a new for African Americans in Las Vegas. An seeds of investment had been allocated for Paulette Nardal, Nancy Prophet, Augusta model of Black community, made a “embedded liberalism” had begun to manifest development east of the railroad tracks, where Savage, and Ethel Waters—experienced a novel contribution to Black American in the American consciousness, with the property values were higher. The sequestering degree of personal freedom and creative culture. Arising from the interaction restructuring of state forms to maintain peace of Black residents to the Westside was 72 SCAPEGOAT 10 73 ... Nightlife Architecture and the Struggle for Civil Rights NIGHT: INSURGENCIES close to the Westside neighbourhood, was empty stretch of U.S. Route 91, which formerly transitioning to an entirely Black workforce connected Los Angeles to Salt Lake City. in an effort to attract an underserved local Casino operators there would successfully Black clientele in 1949. Initially opened by block several annexation attempts by the City Hollywood restaurateur Robert Brooks in 1942, of Las Vegas and eventually secure designation the Polynesian-themed Nevada Biltmore stood as the unincorporated community of Paradise in stark contrast to Western-themed resorts in 1951.16 With unincorporated township status, like the Last Frontier and El Rancho Vegas developers could purchase cheap swaths of that were popular at the time. According desert land and circumvent municipal slot- to historian Bob Stoldal, after several years machine and ad valorem taxes, establishing a of successful operation, business began to precedent for smaller government and greater dwindle and ownership exchanged hands. corporate influence. By 1948, a group of owners acquired the Recognizing the opportunity to open struggling property and began marketing to a a hotel for an underserved middle-to-upper local clientele rather than competing for out- class African-American market ultimately of-town visitors that the hotels on the Strip proved appealing to white investor Will Max were courting. In a bold move to redefine the Schwartz, who had acquired a parcel of land struggling hotel, the all-white group proposed on west Bonanza Road in the Westside. After that the Biltmore, one of Las Vegas’s six major successfully recruiting several partners for the properties at the time, be converted into project, Schwartz built the $3.5-million Moulin Exterior of the Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino, “America’s First Interracial Hotel” (April 1955). Source: Dreaming the Skyline: on an urban renewal campaign to bulldoze a resort that catered exclusively to African Rouge Hotel and Casino in 1955, defiantly Resort Architecture and the New Urban Space, 1955. 0043:0212. homes that failed to meet building codes or Americans. As a result, Mayor Cragin refused billed as “America’s First Interracial Hotel.”17 Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. fire safety standards in an explicit effort to to renew alcohol and gaming licenses for the Featuring “Las Vegas’s largest kitchen,” a drive Black residents out of town.14 However, establishment, and the hotel ceased operation distinctive sign by famed graphic designer formalized by Mayor Ernie Cragin’s refusal to this move had the effect of further crowding within weeks of the announcement. Betty Willis, and an Olympic-sized swimming renew licenses for Black businesses unless residents in the homes that remained. Highlighting the importance of access pool, the Moulin Rouge was featured on they moved west of the railroad tracks. In 1948, the Westside Chamber of to gainful employment in empowering the cover of the 20 June 1955 issue of Life, Through increasingly aggressive action, the Commerce was formed to advocate for marginalized communities, the President attracting widespread national attention.18 Westside grew, becoming a neighbourhood infrastructural improvements and investment of the Las Vegas NAACP, Woodrow Wilson, Famed boxer and part-owner Joe Louis also exclusively comprised of Black businesses, within the community, at a time when the commented on the closure of the Biltmore, greeted patrons at the door, further extending residences, and schools. The community neighbourhood lacked basic municipal stating that it was “a really sad situation for the clout of celebrity attributed to the established an independent economy in which services, adequate medical care, or even a the Black community. It would have helped to establishment. Black residents patronized Black-owned fire station. Low property values were often raise the economic status of the community Rousing stage shows ultimately businesses, a development further reinforced cited by Las Vegas city administrators as because that would have put Blacks in distinguished the Moulin Rouge from other by the shuttering of clubs that catered to a reason enough for their refusal to invest positions of authority, management and the casinos, with a third 2:30am show added by “mixed trade” or an interracial clientele.12 in infrastructure, further perpetuating the like by having people make the type of money public-relations director Martin Black.19 Black In recorded interviews with local residents, substandard condition of Westside buildings. that executives and sub-executives make in recognized the potential of offering a late- Jackson Avenue would come to be described The local chapter of the National Association the hotel industry.”15 The Biltmore was the night show in Las Vegas, as casinos typically as “the Strip for African Americans,” and as of the Advancement of Colored People only first-class Las Vegas resort where money ran only two shows nightly: one post-dinner a phenomenon that, according to Westside (NAACP) was also unsuccessful in its various from African Americans was accepted and, at 8pm and another at the midnight cocktail entertainer Jerusha McDonald Hilton, “mirrored attempts in the 1940s to pass a Statewide Civil after its closure, there were no establishments hour. The addition of an energetic “third act” the Harlem Renaissance.”13 Rights ordinance through an exclusively white that served a Black clientele. The African- to the roster at the Moulin Rouge proved The wartime shortage of building state legislature. American population had grown to comprise appealing to revelers from the Strip, and supplies also meant that the rapidly expanding Nightlife architecture thus came to ten percent of the city’s population during routinely drew majority white audiences.20 community had limited access to construction provide critical opportunities to subvert the 1940s and yet remained largely ignored Instead of remaining in the Strip casinos after materials, forcing whole families to live in cars, these imposed social orders and challenge by businesses and city administrators. The their shows, stars like Cary Grant and Nat tents, shacks, and lean-tos. As the end of the discriminatory urban policy. This began with development of new casinos was largely King Cole would make appearances at the war and the closure of local factories became the announcement that the Nevada Biltmore focused on the Strip, immediately south of Moulin Rouge, and even conducted impromptu imminent, city administrators embarked Hotel and Casino, which had been operating Las Vegas city limits, centered around an performances there. 74 SCAPEGOAT 10 75 Moulin Rouge Las Vegas ... NIGHT: INSURGENCIES casino resorts of the Las Vegas Strip sought Rouge served as a “social condenser,” a primarily to capitalize on this imported mixing of various programmatic elements social liberalism to generate capital in a borne out of necessity that yielded predominantly service-based leisure economy unprecedented events.25 In the absence of by tapping into an increasingly prosperous basic public provisions, the resort introduced middle class. An interconnected community the possibility of racially integrated social of expatriate African-American women and spaces, while physically claiming space for their contemporaries reinforced Ada Bricktop’s the incremental advancement of civil rights. Paris nightlife scene largely through necessity. This would provide access to services African The communal gathering that was facilitated Americans had been consistently denied by Bricktop’s Paris, and the Moulin Rouge by the city of Las Vegas, challenging the Hotel and Casino both served to further imposed social order and converging towards intertwine these operations. For instance, the a powerful impetus for change. Moulin Rouge provided lucrative employment In a testament to the important position opportunities to Westside residents at a time of the institution within the community, in when they were restricted to precarious March 1960, the former hotel café came to back-of-house work at other casinos, as serve as the meeting space for activists, cooks, maids, janitors, and porters. Along business owners, and government officials. with employment, the Cadillac wing of the Frustrated with the stalled advancement of hotel comprised of duplexes was specifically civil rights, local NAACP leader Dr. James allotted to employees and locals for longer- McMillan penned a letter to Las Vegas Mayor term rentals. Moulin Rouge employee Alice Oran Gragson threatening “massive street Key fondly remembers the comingling of protests if downtown and Strip businesses local residents and employees within these did not cease discriminatory practices by accommodations, with food often provided March 26.”26 Concerned about the potentially to everyone, indicating the role played by the damaging disruption to business, Strip casino casino as an informal community hub.23 owners and politicians attended a meeting Unfortunately, the Moulin Rouge was held by McMillan and Dr. Charles West at the shuttered for undisclosed reasons just six Moulin Rouge Café. The result of the meeting months after opening. Las Vegas Review- would be a pact named the “Moulin Rouge Meeting at the former Moulin Rouge Hotel café that would Journal columnist John L. Smith suggested Agreement,” proclaiming the official end of end official segregation in Las Vegas (March 1960). From left to Strip. To Las Vegas, Paris exuded a fantastical that the success of the Moulin Rouge stage segregation in the region, a historic gesture right: Woodrow Wilson (NAACP), Lubertha M. Warden Johnson, Bob Bailey (NAACP), Clesse Turner (County Commissioner), sophistication, so its incorporation served to shows may have contributed to its demise, toward more socially liberalized attitudes in Butch W. E. Leypoldt (Sheriff), Hank Greenspun (Las Vegas Sun), infuse the Strip with a similar elegance and since casinos only made money at the Las Vegas. Change was slow to manifest, Dr. James B. McMillan (President of the NAACP), Oran Gragson (Mayor), Dr. Charles I. West, Ray K. Sheffer (Chief of Police), Art culture—along with risqué topless revues. gambling tables—not in the showroom.24 however, as most Black residents could still Olsen (County Commissioner), possibly David Hoggard, and Donald The opening of the Lido de Paris show at Others speculated that the market may have not live outside the Westside “ghetto” and Clark (NAACP). Source: The African American Experience in Las Vegas Collection, 1960. 0334:0008. Special Collections, University the Stardust in 1960 featured the Strip’s first been oversaturated, as the Riviera, Dunes, and were generally barred from attending schools Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. topless revue, by director Donn Arden, who Royal Nevada all opened the same year as the in white neighbourhoods. Even access to had produced several shows at the Lido in Moulin Rouge, and all experienced financial employment opportunities continued to be Renowned for his work at the Harlem Paris.21 The resulting show was a technical hardship in their initial year of operation. limited. Throughout the 1960s, various state Cotton Club, famed Black choreographer feat, mounted in a completely redesigned Some have also suggested that the organized legislatures sought to enforce equal access to Clarence “Lucky” Robinson was hired to theatre that featured “six hydraulic lifts that crime syndicates that controlled Strip casinos accommodation and employment, but with develop two original stage shows. The result moved props, musicians, and performers thirty shut down the popular off-Strip destination, minimal immediate effect. was a frenetic French Can-Can and feet below or ten feet above the stage.”22 or that probable profit-skimming operations In the late 1950s and throughout the a Watusi, derived from a high-energy African These popular and debaucherous late- that occurred in most casinos had cut too 1960s, the city’s slum clearance initiative tied dance and incorporated colourful costumes night performances attempted to capture the deeply. Whatever the reason for the closure, urban renewal to the construction of the produced by an in-house seamstress. These spirit of sexual liberation that had enthralled the Moulin Rouge would be unable to attain its Interstate highway in order to receive federal shows would herald an array of Parisian-style Parisian audiences decades earlier. Unlike former popularity in the years that followed. funding.27 This resulted in the widespread productions that opened along the Las Vegas their Parisian counterparts, however, the Regardless of its rocky start, the Moulin demolition of Westside homes and the 76 SCAPEGOAT 10 77 ... Nightlife Architecture and the Struggle for Civil Rights NIGHT: INSURGENCIES subsequent displacement of many of the place at the Rancho High School in 1970, with to come to fruition. and the enclosure of public space. city’s Black residents. Without proximity, the over three-hundred students involved; the As activist and scholar Angela Davis Just as the influence of Ada Bricktop’s community’s ability to gather and politically police eventually resorted to mace to quell the has argued, racial violence and segregation Parisian community would outlast its brief mobilize was severely compromised, and Black brawl. After a year of civil unrest and ignoring continue to be perpetuated through the existence (ending with the onslaught of businesses suffered as a direct result. Keller demands from the NAACP, school-board widespread implementation of neoliberal the Second World War), the original Moulin Easterling likens the devastation inflicted officials finally announced plans to hire thirty policies begun in the 1980s under President Rouge Hotel and Casino would eventually by widespread development upon these Black teachers in a district that severely lacked Reagan. As the principles of embedded yield major advancements in the push toward communities as akin to warfare, in terms of its “minority” staff. This action came despite the liberalism began to unravel, it became apparent securing civil rights for African Americans. destruction and strategic deliberation: ongoing segregation of elementary-school that the system had been exhausted of its In both contexts, nightlife provided critical Demolishing areas deemed to be students, which was finally ended in 1972.29 potential to fuel further economic growth. The opportunities to subvert the imposed social blighted is a long-standing municipal Not only was progress made on the integration search for an alternative economic system order, resulting in increased agency through practice used to revalue property or of educational institutions, the introduction resulted in the adoption of free-market community. Indeed, an architecture of recalibrate parcels. Shifting political of housing legislation in 1971 under Governor economics across various sectors, both public social gathering that includes the provision climates may also delete ownership, Mike O’Callaghan also effectively ended and private.31 In effect, this dismantled the of housing, as well as access to gainful value, or physical property with a residential segregation in the city. As historian collectivist organization of labour in order employment and education, is capable of slight change of laws or master plans. Eugene Moehring notes, “Under a strong open to maintain corporate competitiveness and fostering social mobility for disenfranchised Although it may hide within the folds of housing law, the Black and Hispanic population further accumulation. Another symptom was communities. legalities, this covert destruction may of Las Vegas slowly began to filter out of the off-loading of governmental social welfare be as devastating as wars or natural their traditional confines in the Westside and onto the individual, producing an illusory NOTES and Difference: Notes on disasters.28 Vegas Heights, but not as fast as one might emancipatory individualism. Davis reconciles 1 T. Denean Sharpley- Racism and Geography,” The expect.”30 Despite the official pact to end the seemingly contradictory political ideologies Whiting, Bricktop’s Paris: Professional Geographer 54, African American Women in no. 1 (2002): 16. These ongoing developments in urban segregation in Las Vegas under the Moulin that support both social and economic Paris between the Two World 11 Eugene P. Moehring, planning, in addition to major shifts in public Rouge Agreement in 1960, it would take liberalization by suggesting that the appearance Wars (Albany: SUNY Press, Resort City in the Sunbelt: 2015), 41. Las Vegas, 1930–2000 (Reno: policy, continue to disproportionately affect over a decade to begin to see the eventual of social emancipation is synonymous with the 2 Ibid., 7. University of Nevada Press, African-American communities in particular. dissolution of segregation. individualization of social activity.32 This key 3 Gayatri Spivak, A Critique 2000), 176. of Postcolonial Reason: Toward 12 Ibid., 176. The failure to recognize the discriminatory During this time, the Moulin Rouge neoliberal process is one that encourages the a History of the Vanishing 13 In The Misunderstood allocation of services by public and private changed ownership several times and only ongoing deregulation of the marketplace, along Present (Cambridge: Harvard Legend of the Las Vegas Moulin University Press, 1999), 371. Rouge, several residents would institutions goes hand in hand with a focus remained open for short periods of time, still with vast structural changes resulting in the 4 Whiting, Bricktop’s Paris, describe Jackson Avenue as the on the moral imperative of the individual. catering to a predominantly Black clientele. dissolution of community. 5–6. centre for African-American 5 Ibid., 12. life and culture in the Westside The Moulin Rouge capitalized on the need Local resident and activist Sarann Knight- The Moulin Rouge marked the beginning 6 Tyler Stovall, “Harlem- neighbourhood, lined with for spaces that would compensate for the Preddy bought the property in 1985, becoming of the systematic divestment of infrastructure sur-Seine: Building an African several small shops, businesses, American Community in Paris,” and “honky-tonk” casinos. inadequate provision of public amenities, the first woman to acquire a gaming license in onto private businesses as the city routinely Stanford Electronic Humanities The Misunderstood Legend of largely a result of the offloading of state Nevada, as well as the first African American failed to provide basic public amenities to Review 5, no. 2 (1997). the Las Vegas Moulin Rouge, Retrieved from http://web. directed by Stan Armstrong responsibility onto business-owners and owner of the Moulin Rouge. Various attempts Westside residents. Developers thus seized the stanford.edu/group/SHR/5-2/ and Gary Lipsman (Las Vegas, profit-driven private enterprises. The refusal to reopen the resort proved problematic, opportunity to tap into underserved markets, stoval.html. NV: Desert Rose Productions, John Katsilometes, “Famed 2013), DVD. to provide basic services to all residents and as Preddy could not secure long-term in effect privatizing public infrastructure, a Designer Willis Never Tires of, 14 Moehring, Resort City, the reliance on private spaces to fill the void financing since her gaming licenses were practice that has been perfected on the Las ‘What’s Your Sign?’” Las Vegas 178. Weekly, 9 June 2008, http:// 15 Bob Stoldal, “The would begin the positioning of Las Vegas as a only guaranteed for six-month instalments, Vegas Strip since it was designated as an www.lasvegasweekly.com/ Black Biltmore,” The Desert vanguard of neoliberal principles. compromising the sustained operation of the “unincorporated community” in 1951. Ahead blogs/the-playground/2008/ Companion (Summer 2009): jun/09/willis-never-tires- 12. Frustrated by the incremental casino. Even though Preddy was successful of the widespread adoption of neoliberal whats-your-sign. 16 An unincorporated advancement of civil rights both within the in petitioning the state of Nevada to processes in the United States, labour unions 7 Mark Gottdiener, community is a region of land Claudia C. Collins, and David R. not governed by its own local city and nationally, several protests and commemorate the site in the National Register were dismantled and the urban landscape was Dickens, Las Vegas: The Social municipal corporation but as instances of violence occurred in Las Vegas of Historic Places in 1992, several major fires “interiorized” by sprawling resort campuses, Production of an All-American part of a larger administrative City (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell division. In Nevada, from 1969 to 1970. Largely centred around would later destroy the building, and it was providing the amenities and cultural spaces Publishers, 1999), 92. unincorporated communities several of the city’s high schools, the unrest eventually demolished in 2010. The sign was that the public sector could not or would not 8 David Harvey, A Brief are governed by the County History of Neoliberalism (New and have an appointed sometimes spilled over into the streets of the only building element to be salvaged and is provide. Throughout the city’s history, it is York: Oxford University Press, Town Advisory Board, which the Westside, resulting in looting and rioting, currently housed at the nearby Neon Museum. apparent that architecture has perpetuated 2005), 9–10. provide recommendations to 9 Ibid., 11. the County Commission on often after the aggressive involvement of the Several plans have since been announced to systems of power and difference through tools 10 Ruth Wilson Gilmore, local affairs. As documented police force. The worst single-day riot took redevelop the property, though all have failed such as segregation, the restriction of access, “Fatal Couplings of Power by Jill Clark and Jeff Sharp, 78 SCAPEGOAT 10 79 Moulin Rouge Las Vegas ... NIGHT: INSURGENCIES unincorporated townships Never Tires of, ‘What’s Your are a designation “originally Sign?’” Las Vegas Weekly, authorized to assist in the 9 June 2008, http://www. conveyance of land and are lasvegasweekly.com/blogs/ commonly thought of as a the-playground/2008/jun/09/ rural form of government willis-never-tires-whats-your- Dance Dance with limited power.” This sign. designation is typically 19 The Misunderstood reserved for rural areas Legend, dir. Armstrong and where a governing body Lipsman. cannot adequately provide 20 Earnest Bracey, “Moulin municipal services like garbage Rouge,” interview by Joe Revolution collection, sewage, and Schoenmann, KNPR’s State of electricity. According to the Nevada, Nevada Public Radio, 2010 U.S. Census, Paradise 20 July 2009. has grown to become the 21 “Lido at the Stardust,” most populous unincorporated UNLV Digital Collections, township in the United States, http://digital.library.unlv. continually challenging its edu/collections/showgirls/ DJ Zhao aggressively to shut off the music. I switched status as an informal city. lido-stardust. off the sound and threw my arms around my Clark and Sharp also note that 22 Eugene P. Moehring and “unincorporated townships Michael S. Green, Las Vegas: “If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to Be equipment, because it looked like they were have grown so large that they A Centennial History (Reno: Part of Your Revolution” about to smash everything. Protestors tried to are functional equivalents University of Nevada Press, of cities, providing a broad 2005), 137. –Attributed to Emma Goldman stop them, a few fights broke out, and some range of services beyond their 23 The Misunderstood were arrested, as I packed up and got the hell original ‘rural’ responsibilities.” Legend, dir. Armstrong and The unincorporated township, Lipsman. “Music is a weapon, a real weapon, in a out of there. once a state of economic and 24 Ibid. concrete sense.” This experience made one thing very political exception, has since 25 Rem Koolhaas, Delirious morphed into an acceptable New York: A Retroactive –Desmond Tutu1 clear to me: the most dangerous thing in the form of city building with Manifesto for Manhattan (New eyes of the police was dancing. But why? essential services offloaded to York: The Monacelli Press), 135. the county level of governance. 26 Moehring, Resort City, “Dancing is the remedy of resistance, In 186 B.C., 7,000 members of the cult Modelling themselves after 184. the art of the marginalized and of Dionysus were imprisoned, tortured, and Paradise as a precedent of 27 Ibid., 180. smaller government and greater 28 Keller Easterling, dispossessed.” executed in Rome for challenging “Roman corporate influence, several Enduring Innocence: Global –Marc de la Maison2 values” with sex, psychoactive substances, and adjacent communities have Architecture and its Political since claimed unincorporated Masquerades (Cambridge, dancing.3 The Bacchic Mysteries were infamous status, including Summerlin, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005), 162. In the summer of 2014, a ten-block area in for the blurring of boundaries between genders Sunrise Manor, Spring Valley, 29 Moehring, Resort City, and Enterprise, effectively 193. the middle of Kreuzberg was cordoned off and classes, promoting dangerous ideas such resisting annexation by the 30 Ibid., 200. around a school in which some refugees as rights for women, children, and foreigners, municipality of the City of Las 31 Jamie Peck and Adam Vegas. Residents generally Tickell, “Neoliberalizing Space,” had barricaded themselves in defiance of and giving slaves a taste of what freedom feels prefer the absence of a Antipode 34, no. 3 (2002): 386. deportation orders. Next to the school, at like. Justification for the crackdown was the municipal level of government, 32 Angela Davis, as property taxes are typically “Recognizing Racism in the the centre of an intersection, a mobile sound claim of criminal activities during the all-night, much lower. Jill S. Clark and Era of Neoliberalism,” in The system was set up, around which hundreds all-day ecstatic orgiastic rites. But even such Jeff K. Sharp, “Between the Meaning of Freedom and Other Country and the Concrete: Difficult Dialogues, ed. Angela of people sat in the streets in solidarity with large-scale suppression failed to eradicate the Rediscovering the Rural-Urban Davis (San Francisco: City refugees. Around them were about eight movement, and Rome eventually gave the cult Fringe,” City & Community 7, Lights Books, 2012), 173. no. 1 (2008): 61–79. or nine police vans, with dozens of police official status, making it a state-sanctioned 17 Moehring, Resort City, standing around, watchful. religion, helping to curtail its vitality and reduce 182–183. 18 Betty Willis is the Before me was a one-man/woman its influence on the population. designer of the signature electro-punk band, who screamed into the This should sound familiar to us, because “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada” sign located at mic above pummeling beats and abrasive it is no different from the passing of many the southern end of the Las slabs of synth noise at a high volume. People versions of Anti-Rave legislation during recent Vegas Strip. For the design of the Moulin Rouge sign, listened, and the police stood around, doing decades in the UK, US, and elsewhere, based Willis stated that she wanted nothing. Afterwards, I began my set, at a on allegations of criminal activities during to “wanted to make it as impressive and as happy and as lower volume, with groovy African music. the events (usually involving psychoactive good as I could,” in an attempt Smiles immediately appeared all around, as substances). Under these new laws, voluntary to capture the brazen ambition of the first integrated hotel in people stood up and began to dance. Chaos dance gatherings outside of the structures America. John Katsilometes, erupted suddenly only three minutes later, as a of consumerism were strictly forbidden, “Famed Designer Willis dozen police rushed the sound system, yelling and police in the UK now have the power to 80 SCAPEGOAT 10 81