The Vegas Voice 1-20

By: Joey Kantor / Vegas Retrospective
It’s not like I don’t understand change. Cities
grow cities over the top of them, but people
are most edified by the relics of previous eras.
Boston is a city that preserved much of its
history. To see old graveyards with headstones
that actually have skulls and crossbones on them makes you privy to
little philosophical secrets you can’t quite name.
You expand your worldview and can relax when you see that there
are places with meaning in this world. The enemy of history is order
and cleanliness.
We have a million little stories that matter yet were never told.
Because our unique western relics are aged they are characterized as
ugly and we are ready to wipe them away.
I’m not just talking about the classic old hotels like the Landmark
and the Sands and the Desert Inn, but the humbler places of Vegas
itself. My own property is a good example.
It is the story of a naïve sap, a well-intentioned lover of history and
soul, brought to his knees by the stern thumb of the governmental
rulebook.
I inherited what is now a historical property on the Boulder Highway.
It is historical, for one, because it is one of the few properties whose full
history, eighty years, is known.
It was built in 1940 as Bob’s French Dips, a small restaurant. It was
taken over in 1960 by my grandfather who renamed it The Country
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The Sad Tale of Bob’s French Dips
January 2020
Kitchen.
He also had a lumber yard on the acre out back. When my mother
inherited it she opened a Bible store, Alpha Omega, that she ran for 23
years
My mother, Katherine Gianaclis, is a big part of its historicity. She has
been noted as one of the most important artists in Las Vegas history by
the now defunct Las Vegas Art Museum.
She was the “go to” girl for murals and was tapped by nearly every
major hotel in Vegas during the 1960s and 1970s. When I got the
property in 1999 I opened The Katherine Gianaclis Park for the Arts
in my mother’s honor.
We quickly got this art thing that is now burgeoning in Vegas
humming. CityLife Magazine said we “helped kickstart” the arts
movement which is wholly true. Just another little known fact that only
enhances the property’s historical value.
People loved the park for both its freedom to create and humility. It
had soul.
My mother had dragged a 1949 Fruehauf semi-trailer on to the
property for frame storage. It became a venue called Club Mack. Never
underestimate the abilities of the creative class.
Old sheds and classic trucks were not junk but art, and everybody
knew it. Odd how that is, downright psychological, but you have to
believe that psychology is real.
The property was condemned as a visual nuisance in 2004 and
everything was removed.
Labors of love are often lost when unbending governmental codes
are put in charge of our history. A place of soul becomes just another
dirt lot. The old is ugly. The old is evil and must be destroyed.
But aging things are actually pure gold, invisible gold, really. If the
humble gems of our neighborhoods can survive the strains of time our
great, great grandchildren might actually have a city with real history,
a condition that produces pride.
But we worship the gods Cleanliness & Youth. Neighborhoods peel
off and die because soulless, are winnowed away by codes when they
should be allowed to age like fine wine.
They can become fearless places, humble, dignified and important.
If we can keep them, we can have something to collectively call our
own.
Joey Kantor is a journalist and novelist. He writes fiction
under the name Fargo Kantrowitz. His Las Vegas based novel,
Babybirds, is available at Lulu.com.