Happy Thanksgiving from Classic Las Vegas

Where ever you are, we hope that you enjoy this Thanksgiving weekend.  Family, friends, food, shopping, however you choose to celebrate, just know that only our best wishes go out to all our readers!

Don't want to cook this Thansgiving?  No problem we've got some places that will do the cooking for you.  All you have to do is pick it up and take it home:

Hash House A Go Go
Hash House A Go Go will offer its Turkey Dinner A Go Go for Thanksgiving. The meal includes a 10-pound turkey with stuffing; garlic mashed potatoes and pumpkin mashed potatoes; fresh green beans and carrots; homemade biscuits and strawberry jam; chutney; and homemade Snickers chocolate bread pudding. Turkey Dinner A Go Go orders must be placed by noon on Monday, Nov. 23 and picked up no later than 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 25. Orders can be placed by calling 702-804-4646.

In addition, beginning on Monday, Nov. 9 and through the holidays, Hash House A Go Go is offering a baker's dozen of its popular homemade buttermilk biscuits to go for only $12.95. The baker's dozen features 13 of the fluffy biscuits and homemade jam prepared daily in the restaurant.

Ritz-Carlton, Lake Las Vegas
The Ritz-Carlton will offer "turkey-to-go" for Thanksgiving. The fully cooked meal includes a traditional fresh turkey and stuffing or honey-glazed ham with cranberries, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, fresh vegetables and a choice of pumpkin or apple pie. Cost is $185 for up to 8 people, $235 for up to 12 people. Must reserve by noon on Nov. 24. Dinners can be picked up at the hotel's front valet between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Thanksgiving Day (702-567-4700).

Other happenings include:

 

Bonkerz Comedy Club Food Drive
When: 8 p.m. Nov. 26
Where: Bonkerz Comedy Club, Palace Station
Bonkerz Comedy Club is hosting a special Thanksgiving food drive where guests can receive free admission to see Adam Hunter perform just by donating a minimum of $10 worth of non-perishable food items. Each food donation of $10 or more will earn one complimentary ticket to the 8 p.m. Nov. 26 show and all donations benefit Three Square, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending hunger in the Las Vegas community. Regular ticket prices apply otherwise. Tickets are $29.95 each. Palace Station hotel guests and locals with a valid Nevada ID receive a $10 discount (702-547-5300).

Thanksgiving weekend at Stoney's
When: Nov. 26-29
More info: 702-435-2855
Stoney's kicks off Thanksgiving weekend with Ladies Night on Thanksgiving. Ladies get in for a buck and its just a buck a drink. Free dance lessons begin at 7:30 p.m. American country music band Restless Heart gives a free concert at 9 p.m. Nov. 27. Get there early and enjoy free well, wine and draft from 7 to 9 p.m. All-you-can-drink draft beer will be offered for $20 on Saturday and ladies drink free all night long on Sunday. Enjoy country music from 7-10 p.m. Sunday night and then its Stoney's Underground featuring a live broadcast with KLUC 98.5 playing Top 40 and dance music from 11 p.m.-3 a.m. 9151 Las Vegas Blvd South.

Songs and Stories of the Season on Nevada Public Radio
Nevada Public Radio will offer special programming on Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year's on both its News 88.9 KNPR and Classical 89.7 KCNV stations.

Thanksgiving Day programming includes:
News 88.9 KNPR
• The Splendid Table's Turkey Confidential, Nov. 26 - 8-10 a.m.
Host Lynne Rossetto Kasper, the award-winning host of public radio's national food show the Splendid Table, will be fielding calls to aid listeners in the day's cooking conquests. Cook's Illustrated Christopher Kimball and road food warriors Jane and Michael Stern as well as wine entrepreneur Joshua Wesson will be joining the program.

• Giving Thanks with John Birge, Nov. 26 - 10-11 a.m. and 8 to 10 p.m. Host John Birge reflects on the meaning of the holiday, playing music and recounting stories.

Classical 89.7 KCNV
• Harvest Home: Thanksgiving with the Dale Warland Singers, Nov. 26 - 6 to 7 p.m.
Beautifully arranged favorites, Shaker tunes and rousing folk songs conclude Thanksgiving festivities.

MonteLago Village Resort, Lake Las Vegas
MonteLago Village at Lake Las Vegas is offering a special Thanksgiving package on Nov. 26. Package includes an overnight stay Thanksgiving night and two adult Thanksgiving dinners prepared by Portofino Steak House. Packages start at $149 (1-888-600-2688).

Nove Italiano, The Palms
Executive Chef Geno Bernardo will host a holiday cooking class from noon to 3 p.m. Nov. 21. The class will focus on the region of Emilia Romagna, where his grandmother is from. The class will be based on her favorite dishes growing up: stuffed artichokes, shaved brussel sprouts, boneless stuffed turkey breast, mashed squash and potatoes and pumpkin cheesecake. Cost is $110 per person. Space is limited (702-942-6856).

Mark Hall-Patton on the role of Museums in Las Vegas

Mark Hall-Patton, or HP as we like to call him, is the director of Clark County Museums (yes, museums as in more than one).  He oversees the Clark County Museum on Boulder Highway, the Howard Cannon Aviation Museum at McCarran Airport and the Searchlight Museum.

In addition, he is a local historian, author and the moderator of the monthly County Centennial panel discussions that are held on First Friday at 6:00 pm in the Commission Chambers (and broadcast throughout the month on Channel 4).

Our pal, Kristen Peterson, sat down with HP for an interview:

With budgets pared to bare essentials, museums are feeling the pressure.

Mark Hall-Patton, administrator of the Clark County Museum and the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum, and president of the Nevada Museums Association, discussed the museums’ purpose.

How did museums originate?

Museums came out of what were called cabinets of curiosities in the Renaissance. People would collect odd little items — metals, sea shells, relics from the saints. These showed how erudite you were. In the 18th century, collections of kings and queens became open to the public. Eventually there was the idea that materials of value could be held on behalf of someone.

Why a museum?

The role of the museums is to tell the story you’re empowered to tell. It’s not a museum unless it’s held in the public trust for the public. The collection here is held by the county for the people. There is a requirement to care for it to the best of your ability. There are a lot of laws that affect museum collections and how you deal with them. My job is to keep up with those laws.

What about when people say museums are a waste of public money?

I’ve never heard that. I’ve had people ask what we do with the money and if we need that much money. I don’t know that anybody has ever said, “You’re wasting money on your institution.”

We’re taking care of things. We’re an informational repository. We understand the value of the artifact in teaching.

What’s your role here?

We make a mistake if we think that people come to Southern Nevada to go to museums. What bothers me is when I hear someone who has been here 20 or 30 years say, “We have a county museum?”

What drives museum workers?

Folks who get into museum work do it because they are called to it. For many, at some point in their young lives, they made a connection with a thing that helped them understand the world around them. When I was 8 I used to build museums on my patio. I would set up everything old that was in the house and give tours to my friends.

Will museums in Nevada survive this economy?

We’ll get through it. I’ve been through this before.

More info on Berkley Square in West Las Vegas!

I found this piece by Courtney Mooney on the history of Berkley Square.  Lots of info about the first subdivision for African-Americans in Las Vegas:

Rediscovering a Las Vegas Neighborhood’s African American Roots

by Courtney Mooney

Survey and inventory of historic resources should be an integral part of every city’s redevelopment process. This type of research is not only a valuable economic planning tool but also an exciting opportunity to unearth valuable gems, as was the case with a study of West Las Vegas, a historic, predominantly African American, area of Las Vegas, Nevada. The City of Las Vegas’s Historic Preservation Plan calls for the ongoing documentation of historic neighborhoods and properties. Each year, the City of Las Vegas Planning and Development Department applies for grant money from the National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Fund for survey and inventory through the State Historic Preservation Office. In 2002, the award funded the research of the “Historic Westside” area.

The rediscovery of the origins of the Berkley Square neighborhood in West Las Vegas, a post-World War II subdivision marketed to African Americans, began with a chance newspaper research find during this 2002 survey. (Figure 1) Two newspaper articles published in December 1949 announced the opening of a new subdivision named “Westside Park,” with 155 tract houses designed by a “famed” African American architect, Paul Revere Williams.(1) Because the development site was outside the 2002 survey boundaries in an area now called Berkley Square, this information became a side note in the historic context statement.

In 2004, discussions about moving the La Concha Motel’s mid-century, free-form concrete lobby again raised the name of architect Paul R. Williams. (Figure 2) Williams was well known for his movie-star homes and public buildings in Los Angeles, such as Frank Sinatra’s Trousdale estate and the Los Angeles County Courthouse. With the potential connection to the West Las Vegas subdivision in mind, the City of Las Vegas Historic Preservation Commission began discussing Berkley Square as a possible survey area for the 2004 National Park Service grant.

Several issues complicated the decision to survey this area. The 1949 articles referred to a development called Westside Park, but the subdivision was now called Berkley Square, with county assessor information showing construction dates of 1954-55. What happened between 1949 and 1954? Were the Berkley Square homes actually designed by Williams? All the Historic Preservation Commission had to go by were documents describing a land sale and a current photograph of a house that resembled the architect’s sketch accompanying the 1949 articles. The Commission voted to include Berkley Square in the 2004 survey and hired a historic preservation consultant, Diana Painter of Painter Preservation and Planning, to document the neighborhood and solve the mystery.

Painter began by documenting and photographing all buildings within the neighborhood, providing a Nevada State Historic Resource Inventory Form for each. A historic context statement was prepared to help assess the importance of the properties within the contexts of Las Vegas history and mid-century residential design. In addition, research was conducted at the historical society, local libraries and museums, and the Environmental Design Library at the University of California at Berkeley. Painter also used information from a previous interview with Karen Hudson, Williams’s granddaughter. From this research, she was able to stitch together compelling arguments for a probable link to the Los Angeles architect as well as for eligibility for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

Besides attracting a famous clientele and important public commissions, Williams was the first black architect to become a member of the American Institute of Architects and served on the California Housing Commission and the California Redevelopment Commission. He published two pattern books on small houses, Small Home of Tomorrow (1945) and New Homes for Today (1946).(2) By 1949, he had won three national competitions for small home design, and he would eventually design military housing and other housing stock for subdivisions. According to his granddaughter, the modernized ranch house became his specialty.

Williams’s design for Berkley Square filled a desperate need for adequate housing in West Las Vegas. Platted by surveyor J.T. McWilliams in 1905, settlement began as a wayside for miners. It was hoped that the arrival of the railroad would bring prosperity, but these hopes were unrealized. The railroad company owned most of the land east of the completed tracks, as well as all of the water rights, effectively controlling development for decades.

During the 1930s, McWilliams’s Townsite, now called “the Westside,” had few permanent buildings, but blacks were free to own businesses and live on the east side of town. Subsequent segregation practices in Las Vegas forced most of the black families to relocate to the Westside. Well into the 1940s, the area lacked basic amenities such as sewer and paved streets, with sometimes two or more families living in small, one-room wood shacks. Low-income minorities and whites continued to find refuge here, with the black population having the strongest cultural presence. A community of churches, businesses, and nightclubs was formed using the residents’ own resources and ingenuity. Adequate housing lagged far behind, however, especially during and after World War II, when many black soldiers returned home or residents lost their jobs at the local Air Force base or military industrial plants.

Westside Park/Berkley Square was the result of “four years of planning, designing and negotiating with government officials, by a group of local businessmen endeavoring to make the first real contribution to improvement of conditions on the city’s Westside.”(3) It was sorely needed in 1947, when the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) began discussions with the City of Las Vegas to develop a “new 2-bedroom project for colored people…with Federal Housing insured loans.”(4) The property changed hands several times, but finally in 1954 with new owners, Edward A. Freeman and J.J. Byrnes, the subdivision was recorded as Berkley Square with 148 lots on 22 acres.

The new “Berkley Square” name came from Thomas L. Berkley, of Oakland, California. Berkley was a distinguished African American attorney, media owner, developer, civil rights advocate, and a frequent guest at the White House during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. It was in his civil rights capacity that he became partial financier of Berkley Square. An article in the Las Vegas Review Journal from April 1954 stated that Berkley Square was “the first minority group subdivision to be approved for construction in the state of Nevada.”(5)

Painter’s report established Berkley Square’s eligibility for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places as the first subdivision in Nevada built by and for African Americans. The subdivision contributed to improved living conditions for the community and represented the progress of local civil rights activism. In addition, Berkley Square is significant for its association with attorney Berkley and architect Williams. The neighborhood of suburban one-story ranch houses also retains much of its architectural integrity

Friends of Classic Las Vegas Holiday Party Info

The Annual Friends of Classic Las Vegas Holiday Party will be held on Sunday, Dec. 6th.

The General Meeting begins at 3:00 pm and includes a wonderful Holiday buffet.

Also, as part of the festivities, long-time resident and former manager of the Las Vegas News Bureau, Don Payne, will be joining us to give a talk on the history of Las Vegas.  Don was manager of the News Bureau in its hey-day and worked with photographers like Don English.

This should be a wonderful way to kick off the holidays.  We hope you will join us!

Feel free to email me at Lynn@classiclasvegas.com for the address!

We hope to see you there!