My sense is that many people are disappointed finding this blog, expecting a site devoted to food, with pictures of luscious fish dumplings, crispy shrimp mashed potato cakes, or lamb rolls with avocado. But the fact is that I'm not a foodie like many of those who write their own food blogs, or populate Chowhound or even Yelp. For starters, I ate very little Chinese food growing up. First of all my parents were both born in Los Angeles, and I didn't eat a whole lot of Chinese food aside from the occasional banquet at the Lime House on Ord Street in the Spring Street district (which was a distinct area close to, but separated from New Chinatown). Secondly, Chinese food back in the 1950s and 1960s wasn't that good. Most all of the Chinese who came to the United States prior to World War II were poor villagers from Toishan, a small rural area outside of the city formerly known as Canton, China. (To set up a reverse analogy, think of it as if all the Americans living in China emigrated from Victorville, California.) As such, Chinese food as Americans knew it in the first part of the 20th century, which had been brought by rural villagers from a single concentrated locale, was quite unrepresentative of Chinese food as a whole.
The event that ultimately triggered my interest in Chinese restaurants and Chinese food was the ethnic studies movement that was born in the late 1960s. In my last quarter as an undergraduate at UCLA, they offered the very first Asian American studies class. Indeed, that was so long ago, it was titled "Orientals In America". Immediately I was captivated by the topic of the experience of Chinese people in the United States. There was a dearth of material on the topic, such that a novice in the subject matter who was principally studying accounting could write a term paper on the history of the Chinese of Los Angeles and immediately have it published in the budding ethnic press. That same person could then go on KNX radio, KCBS television and speak at conferences as an "expert" on the subject, quite laughable given that my credentials consisted of having taken all of two university level classes in Asian American studies, plus doing leisure time reading in the library.
My interest in Chinese food only developed after the convergence of three factors when I started to work and travel. First of all, I made the acquaintance of friends at work from Hong Kong, who showed a passion for food that I had never encountered before. Secondly, my Hong Kong friends had been the vanguard of the late 1960s immigration of Chinese from Hong Kong to the United States. Previously, for many decades, US law barred most persons of Chinese heritage from immigrating to the United States. Even in the 1950s virtually the only Chinese in the US were the rural Toishanese immigrants and their children. Chinatowns and Chinese food in the US had stagnated. But then the immigration spigot opened with the mid-1960s change in American immigration laws, and the new residents brought their food with them. This upgrade in Chinese food sparked an interest in me, as this new and exciting form of Chinese food was so much better than what I was used to. Finally, I started to travel around the United States, and made it a point to eat at Chinese restaurants to the extent possible, as part of a greater interest in seeing what Chinese residents and communities were like throughout the United States. Indeed my one and only printed restaurant review, of Hong Kong Restaurant in Sioux City, Iowa (for the old East West Chinese weekly newspaper out of San Francisco) was as much about the milieu as the food itself. And to this day, eating at Chinese food while traveling is part of my greater desire to experience various Chinese American and Canadian communities.
So as you can see, in the beginning it wasn't at all about the food, and even today the food is only part of the story.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Cantonese vs. Non Cantonese Food
Since my article in the Asia Society's Journal on the Top 10 Chinese Restaurant in The United States has caused some controversy, particularly for being heavily tilted towards Hong Kong style/Cantonese food, I need to expand on that point a little, particularly my comment that most Chinese agree that Hong Kong/Cantonese cuisine is the superior regional style of Chinese cuisine.
I agree that generalizations can be dangerous, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be true. My comment is based initially on the old Chinese saw identifying the best of everything Chinese includes “to eat in Guandong”. Of course personal tastes differ, and I’m not saying that there isn’t good non-Cantonese Chinese food in the U.S. The San Gabriel Valley has hundreds of outstanding Sichuan, Hunan, Shanghai, Taiwanese, Beijing, etc. etc. style restaurants and I've eaten at almost all of them.
But if this preference for Cantonese food isn’t true, why is the biggest and best Chinese restaurant in any American community having a sizable Chinese community, but few Hong Kong/Cantonese people (e.g., Dallas, St. Louis, Atlanta) still a dim sum/Hong Kong seafood palace? What is a fact is that most non-Cantonese Chinese enjoy Cantonese food. And the flip side, which someone without Cantonese family or friends would not be aware of, is that most Cantonese Americans refuse to eat non-Cantonese Chinese food. That’s the case with most of my family members and most of my friends from Hong Kong. In that regard I’m the black sheep in that I do appreciate non-Cantonese Chinese food. If Chinese food is a one way street for Hong Kong/Cantonese people, but a two way street for non-Cantonese, that is either a sign that Cantonese people are stubborn or that Cantonese food is better. And given the love of all Chinese people for food, I doubt if stubborness would stop Cantonese food lovers from enjoying non-Cantonese Chinese food if they thought it was better.
I might as well also comment on the objections to the lack of any New York Chinese restaurants in my listing, along with my comment that New York Chinese food is mired in the 1990s. I have heard many, many Californians comment (indeed, complain) that New York Chinese food is clearly inferior to that back home. This wasn't always the case. In the mid-1980s New York did surpass San Francisco for the best Chinese food in America and I would discuss with my friends what New York Chinese restaurants should be visited similar to our discussions of where we should eat when we went to San Francisco. But that all changed in the 1990s when Los Angeles leaped past New York and San Francisco in terms of Chinese food.
On the other hand, I have heard many New Yorkers comment on how much better California Chinese food is than what they get back home. However, I have never heard a person who has eaten in the San Gabriel Valley say that the Chinese food is better back home in New York. You have to visit the San Gabriel Valley to understand the breadth and depth of Chinese food there. Think of a Chinatown probably the size of Manhattan in acreage, with 600 or 700 or 800 authentic Chinese restaurants reflecting the continuing influx of cuisine from Hong Kong, Taiwan and what we used to refer to as Mainland China. That's what New York is up against, and as good as the Chinese food is in Flushing (though Mrs. Chandavkl, who is also Cantonese, found nothing there to her liking), it doesn't have a chance.
I agree that generalizations can be dangerous, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be true. My comment is based initially on the old Chinese saw identifying the best of everything Chinese includes “to eat in Guandong”. Of course personal tastes differ, and I’m not saying that there isn’t good non-Cantonese Chinese food in the U.S. The San Gabriel Valley has hundreds of outstanding Sichuan, Hunan, Shanghai, Taiwanese, Beijing, etc. etc. style restaurants and I've eaten at almost all of them.
But if this preference for Cantonese food isn’t true, why is the biggest and best Chinese restaurant in any American community having a sizable Chinese community, but few Hong Kong/Cantonese people (e.g., Dallas, St. Louis, Atlanta) still a dim sum/Hong Kong seafood palace? What is a fact is that most non-Cantonese Chinese enjoy Cantonese food. And the flip side, which someone without Cantonese family or friends would not be aware of, is that most Cantonese Americans refuse to eat non-Cantonese Chinese food. That’s the case with most of my family members and most of my friends from Hong Kong. In that regard I’m the black sheep in that I do appreciate non-Cantonese Chinese food. If Chinese food is a one way street for Hong Kong/Cantonese people, but a two way street for non-Cantonese, that is either a sign that Cantonese people are stubborn or that Cantonese food is better. And given the love of all Chinese people for food, I doubt if stubborness would stop Cantonese food lovers from enjoying non-Cantonese Chinese food if they thought it was better.
I might as well also comment on the objections to the lack of any New York Chinese restaurants in my listing, along with my comment that New York Chinese food is mired in the 1990s. I have heard many, many Californians comment (indeed, complain) that New York Chinese food is clearly inferior to that back home. This wasn't always the case. In the mid-1980s New York did surpass San Francisco for the best Chinese food in America and I would discuss with my friends what New York Chinese restaurants should be visited similar to our discussions of where we should eat when we went to San Francisco. But that all changed in the 1990s when Los Angeles leaped past New York and San Francisco in terms of Chinese food.
On the other hand, I have heard many New Yorkers comment on how much better California Chinese food is than what they get back home. However, I have never heard a person who has eaten in the San Gabriel Valley say that the Chinese food is better back home in New York. You have to visit the San Gabriel Valley to understand the breadth and depth of Chinese food there. Think of a Chinatown probably the size of Manhattan in acreage, with 600 or 700 or 800 authentic Chinese restaurants reflecting the continuing influx of cuisine from Hong Kong, Taiwan and what we used to refer to as Mainland China. That's what New York is up against, and as good as the Chinese food is in Flushing (though Mrs. Chandavkl, who is also Cantonese, found nothing there to her liking), it doesn't have a chance.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Return to National Harbor
Two years ago when our group held its annual meeting in National Harbor, Maryland, I wrote here about the mystery of this development, consisting of convention sized hotels, trendy designer stores, but the streets of which were a Twilight Zone like ghost town. I attributed this to conventioneers staying within the confines of their facility during unbearably hot and humid days, and the lack of local residents to support everyday retail activities, such as large grocery or chain drug stores.
Two years later we're back at National Harbor, and I need to modify my observations and conclusions. First of all, walking outside for about two blocks at lunchtime, I actually saw people on the streets. About ten of them in a two block area. Also, there is now a CVS drug store, a gourmet food market, and even a dry cleaners. In addition, all of the trendy stores that were here two years ago are still here, and it looks like a few more have been added. So it's no longer proper to call National Harbor a ghost town. On the other hand, the weather is much more comfortable than two years ago, so if that only draws ten people onto the street at lunch time, this is still a pretty deserted place. Also, I had previously suspected that things picked up at night time, especially in the restaurants, but when I drove out last night at 9 pm, things were fairly dead. I do presume that there is more activity here on weekends, but on weekdays this town is still pretty dead. I guess this means that the conventioneers still stay inside their hotels, and nobody actually seems to live here.
Two years later we're back at National Harbor, and I need to modify my observations and conclusions. First of all, walking outside for about two blocks at lunchtime, I actually saw people on the streets. About ten of them in a two block area. Also, there is now a CVS drug store, a gourmet food market, and even a dry cleaners. In addition, all of the trendy stores that were here two years ago are still here, and it looks like a few more have been added. So it's no longer proper to call National Harbor a ghost town. On the other hand, the weather is much more comfortable than two years ago, so if that only draws ten people onto the street at lunch time, this is still a pretty deserted place. Also, I had previously suspected that things picked up at night time, especially in the restaurants, but when I drove out last night at 9 pm, things were fairly dead. I do presume that there is more activity here on weekends, but on weekdays this town is still pretty dead. I guess this means that the conventioneers still stay inside their hotels, and nobody actually seems to live here.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
President Obama Visits My Old 'Hood
Though I moved away 20 years ago, I have lived a majority of my life in what is now referred to as South Los Angeles. Consequently, when I heard that President Obama was going to have a fund raising breakfast in my old View Park neighborhood, where we still have our old family homestead, I was very intrigued even though I'm not a particular fan of his policies. And when I found out that the venue was just a block away from the old home, on Kenway Drive, I thought about staying there overnight just to see what it would be like this morning. Unfortunately that was totally impractical, but I was able to convince my son that the house was not haunted, and that it would be fun for him to stay there. So earlier this morning he went down to the event site and was able to take in the festivities and see the presidential motorcade.
What I found interesting was the impact of the Obama motorcade on traffic. Prior to this morning's visit speculation was that the president would travel from the Beverly Hilton to View Park via surface streets like Robertson or La Cienega, or perhaps the Santa Monica Freeway to La Brea Ave. It was also funny to see the listing on a traffic website of "Stalker Ave." as a street that could potentially be blocked off. (It's Stocker St., named after Lucky Baldwin's son-in-law.) However, they ended up taking the San Diego Freeway south to Slauson Ave., which is the exact way I travel from the Westside to the old home. While it was possible that route could actually take him in front of the old home, Eric said it did not go that way. The president may have gone by, however, when he left View Park for LAX.
Strangely, the real impact on traffic was felt greatest in the San Fernando Valley. As the president traveled to View Park, the San Diego Freeway was shut down for a half hour in both directions between Wilshire and Slauson. For those who keep score, the San Diego Freeway is the primary transit route between the Valley and the Westside, so cutting this off for a half hour during morning rush hour obviously backed traffic well into the Valley. And it backed up the northbound 405 to Long Beach. But of equal impact was the domino effect on other freeways. For example, as I drove from the Hollywood Hills to Century City this morning, I crossed over the Hollywood Freeway near Hollywood Blvd. and saw traffic was totally stuffed, far worse than normal, as cars avoiding taking the San Diego Freeway out of the Valley chose to take the 101 instead. All in all it was a mess. And it's a good thing for the president that California is a safe state for him in this November's election, since his numerous fundraising trips to Los Angeles and the ensuing traffic jams have irritated a lot of motorists.
What I found interesting was the impact of the Obama motorcade on traffic. Prior to this morning's visit speculation was that the president would travel from the Beverly Hilton to View Park via surface streets like Robertson or La Cienega, or perhaps the Santa Monica Freeway to La Brea Ave. It was also funny to see the listing on a traffic website of "Stalker Ave." as a street that could potentially be blocked off. (It's Stocker St., named after Lucky Baldwin's son-in-law.) However, they ended up taking the San Diego Freeway south to Slauson Ave., which is the exact way I travel from the Westside to the old home. While it was possible that route could actually take him in front of the old home, Eric said it did not go that way. The president may have gone by, however, when he left View Park for LAX.
Strangely, the real impact on traffic was felt greatest in the San Fernando Valley. As the president traveled to View Park, the San Diego Freeway was shut down for a half hour in both directions between Wilshire and Slauson. For those who keep score, the San Diego Freeway is the primary transit route between the Valley and the Westside, so cutting this off for a half hour during morning rush hour obviously backed traffic well into the Valley. And it backed up the northbound 405 to Long Beach. But of equal impact was the domino effect on other freeways. For example, as I drove from the Hollywood Hills to Century City this morning, I crossed over the Hollywood Freeway near Hollywood Blvd. and saw traffic was totally stuffed, far worse than normal, as cars avoiding taking the San Diego Freeway out of the Valley chose to take the 101 instead. All in all it was a mess. And it's a good thing for the president that California is a safe state for him in this November's election, since his numerous fundraising trips to Los Angeles and the ensuing traffic jams have irritated a lot of motorists.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Pac 12 Athlete Bill of Rights - What Would The NCAA Say?
The great thing about living in California is that you are in the forefront of so many things. Proposition 13. Hot new fashion trends. Cap and trade. Medical marijuana. Plastic bag ban. For better or worse, California is ahead of the curve and is the trendsetter for the rest of the country in many ways. A lot of this involves poking the governmental nose where it hasn't gone before. Depending on your point of view, that may be a good thing or a bad thing.
Which brings me into California's latest attempt to establish new ground. The California State Senate has just passed the Pac 12 Athlete Bill of Rights. It would require the four California members of the Pac 12, UCLA, Cal, USC and Stanford, to provide additional financial and educational support for injured and low-income athletes, such as payment of healthcare premiums for low income athletes, protection against medical costs from sports injuries, financial skills workshops, and immediate approvals of transfers, among numerous other provisions.
Personally I don't have an objection to these provisions, but what I'm wondering is how this would play with the NCAA? As all sports fans know, the NCAA is an organization which is known for triviality in its enforcement of its rules of amateurism in some circumstances, while it is often accused of looking the other way with potentially major violations. Schools have been punished for giving away too many T-shirts to prospective recruits or picking a recruit up in the wrong kind of car. Athletes who walk on to a sports team without a scholarship have to pay the cost of team meals out of their own pocket. On the other hand, there is the likely payoff of $200,000 to Cam Newton at Auburn and oft rumored payments to Kentucky basketball players under John Calipari, which have drawn little response from the NCAA.
At the core of these possible violations, both minor and major, is the extra benefits rule imposed by the NCAA. Simply stated, the rule is that student athletes cannot be provided any benefits by a school that aren't available to the student population as a whole. It appears that a lot of the mandates of California's pending legislation fly in the face of the NCAA's extra benefits rule. So if the legislation is enacted, a number of very interesting scenarios may arise. The schools comply with the new state law, whereupon the NCAA places heavy sanctions on each of the four schools for violating the extra benefits rule. Or the schools don't comply with the new state law and are punished civilly or criminally by the state of California. Or the schools extend the benefits to all of their students. I can see it now--National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. State of California in the United States Supreme Court. How will it end?
Which brings me into California's latest attempt to establish new ground. The California State Senate has just passed the Pac 12 Athlete Bill of Rights. It would require the four California members of the Pac 12, UCLA, Cal, USC and Stanford, to provide additional financial and educational support for injured and low-income athletes, such as payment of healthcare premiums for low income athletes, protection against medical costs from sports injuries, financial skills workshops, and immediate approvals of transfers, among numerous other provisions.
Personally I don't have an objection to these provisions, but what I'm wondering is how this would play with the NCAA? As all sports fans know, the NCAA is an organization which is known for triviality in its enforcement of its rules of amateurism in some circumstances, while it is often accused of looking the other way with potentially major violations. Schools have been punished for giving away too many T-shirts to prospective recruits or picking a recruit up in the wrong kind of car. Athletes who walk on to a sports team without a scholarship have to pay the cost of team meals out of their own pocket. On the other hand, there is the likely payoff of $200,000 to Cam Newton at Auburn and oft rumored payments to Kentucky basketball players under John Calipari, which have drawn little response from the NCAA.
At the core of these possible violations, both minor and major, is the extra benefits rule imposed by the NCAA. Simply stated, the rule is that student athletes cannot be provided any benefits by a school that aren't available to the student population as a whole. It appears that a lot of the mandates of California's pending legislation fly in the face of the NCAA's extra benefits rule. So if the legislation is enacted, a number of very interesting scenarios may arise. The schools comply with the new state law, whereupon the NCAA places heavy sanctions on each of the four schools for violating the extra benefits rule. Or the schools don't comply with the new state law and are punished civilly or criminally by the state of California. Or the schools extend the benefits to all of their students. I can see it now--National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. State of California in the United States Supreme Court. How will it end?
Monday, May 28, 2012
Fishing YouTube Videos Out Of Your Browser Cache--YouTube Fights Back
As I mentioned a couple of years ago, when you watch a video on websites like YouTube and Dailymotion, the file is actually downloaded to your computer, instead of being streamed. This allows the viewer to replay the video immediately after the initial viewing, even if the first viewing was sporadic because of slow download speeds. This allows you to salvage the video itself from your browser cache. I figured this out when YouTube was in its infancy back in 2006, enabling me to assemble a music video compilation of over 3,000 items.
Now you may wonder why I would want to keep the flash video file itself when you can always go to YouTube and replay the item on demand. There are at least three reasons. First of all, it lets you play the file even if you're offline. Secondly, when you have the file you can navigate forward or backwards through the video as you wish. But most importantly, not everything is forever on YouTube. Indeed, probably most of the music videos that were on YouTube back five or six years ago have been removed as account holders remove files or close their accounts, or more likely, as copyright holders force the removal of the videos.
Unfortunately, actually fishing the file out of the cache has become more difficult of late. Updated versions of Firefox no longer have a central cache file that you can locate and isolate downloaded files. A third party created a Firefox add-on called Cache Viewer that solved the problem, but a subsequent version of Firefox rendered Cache Viewer useless. Had I realized this was the case, I would have not upgraded to the new version of Firefox, but I didn't find out about this until it was too late. At that point I was forced into relying on the Internet Explorer cache, which can be accessed through an arcane series of internet option choices that make your temporary internet files visible, but which is a little less reliable. Then in the only time that a full computer crash turned into a blessing, I was forced to reinstall Firefox and discovered that I had kept a version of Firefox that could still use the Cache Viewer add-on, so I reverted to that version and have been happily harvesting videos in the cache.
However, due to recent changes at YouTube, I think my ability to fish their videos out of my cache may have been thwarted. Recently, I noticed that videos in the browser cache have been divided into multiple files of 1.75 megabytes each, none of which is usuable. Firefox users blame the updated version of that browser for this, but the same thing occurs with Internet Explorer, too, and furthermore this does not happen with other video sites, so I'm guessing that YouTube is behind this. I don't know whether they did this to thwart people like me trying to save a copy of Katy Perry's latest video, or whether it facilitates the upload and play of much larger video files than the old days to accommodate higher quality videos. However it looks like I am now stuck with other video sites, like Dailymotion and Metacafe, which don't divide the files, but which don't have the same selection either.
Note: If you use Firefox, the video-downloadhelper add-on should work.
Now you may wonder why I would want to keep the flash video file itself when you can always go to YouTube and replay the item on demand. There are at least three reasons. First of all, it lets you play the file even if you're offline. Secondly, when you have the file you can navigate forward or backwards through the video as you wish. But most importantly, not everything is forever on YouTube. Indeed, probably most of the music videos that were on YouTube back five or six years ago have been removed as account holders remove files or close their accounts, or more likely, as copyright holders force the removal of the videos.
Unfortunately, actually fishing the file out of the cache has become more difficult of late. Updated versions of Firefox no longer have a central cache file that you can locate and isolate downloaded files. A third party created a Firefox add-on called Cache Viewer that solved the problem, but a subsequent version of Firefox rendered Cache Viewer useless. Had I realized this was the case, I would have not upgraded to the new version of Firefox, but I didn't find out about this until it was too late. At that point I was forced into relying on the Internet Explorer cache, which can be accessed through an arcane series of internet option choices that make your temporary internet files visible, but which is a little less reliable. Then in the only time that a full computer crash turned into a blessing, I was forced to reinstall Firefox and discovered that I had kept a version of Firefox that could still use the Cache Viewer add-on, so I reverted to that version and have been happily harvesting videos in the cache.
However, due to recent changes at YouTube, I think my ability to fish their videos out of my cache may have been thwarted. Recently, I noticed that videos in the browser cache have been divided into multiple files of 1.75 megabytes each, none of which is usuable. Firefox users blame the updated version of that browser for this, but the same thing occurs with Internet Explorer, too, and furthermore this does not happen with other video sites, so I'm guessing that YouTube is behind this. I don't know whether they did this to thwart people like me trying to save a copy of Katy Perry's latest video, or whether it facilitates the upload and play of much larger video files than the old days to accommodate higher quality videos. However it looks like I am now stuck with other video sites, like Dailymotion and Metacafe, which don't divide the files, but which don't have the same selection either.
Note: If you use Firefox, the video-downloadhelper add-on should work.
Monday, May 14, 2012
A Night (Actually Three Nights) at the Cosmopolitan
After spending three nights at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, I have to say it is much different from any other hotel I have stayed at. We knew it was different from the time we checked in, where while checking in at the front desk we heard a group of young women chanting in the lobby. I've never felt so out of place at a hotel (though not uncomfortably so), as the clientele appears to be predominantly single twenty and thirtysomethings. Arriving on a Saturday evening, it seemed like we landed in the middle of one giant party. In the words of Mrs. Chandavkl, the hotel was swarming with women "wearing four inch heels in sparkling dresses that almost went up to the crotch." And I may add that many of them had no business wearing such short dresses.
The hotel room itself was also quite different. The most obvious thing was the width of the hotel room. There was probably a good ten to twelve feet of open space between the foot of the bed and the wall, clearly enough room to play flag football, or for a large number of sleeping bags. The reason is that the Cosmopolitan, like the Trump, was originally planned as a condominium project during the heyday of the Las Vegas residential building boom. I remember the early to mid-2000s when dozens of high rise condos were simultaneously being built or planned, and I thought to myself even as asking prices soared that there was no way that all of those units could be absorbed. I was right. Also, a particularly nice feature was the room clock, which isn't a clock or a digital clock, but a lighted screen showing the time, temperature and weather, room number and the guest's name, amother other information.
Interestingly, the land parcel on which the Cosmopolitan sits, a site of a mere 8 acres (compared to the Bellagio next door which sits on 120 acres), was purchased for only $5 million. While that sounds like a bargain price, in fact there had been little interest in developing that property. For those who remember how that area used to be, Harmon Ave. ended as a through street at the Strip. While the street continued on west of the Strip, it was only to provide access to a bunch of parking lots. Immediately east to the parking lots (just next to the Bellagio) is a timeshare called the Jockey Club. The Cosmopolitan lot had been leased to the Jockey Club for parking, and nobody thought about doing anything with that parcel because it was assumed that any development would have to be done with the approval of, if not in conjunction, with the Jockey Club. Since the Jockey Club has over a thousand timeshare owners around the world, any such cooperation would be impossible from a practical point of view.
Nevertheless, that did not stop the original developer of the Cosmopolitan from plunking down the money despite the prospect of a task that no major developer deemed worthy to try. His concept was simple--forget about the Jockey Club and build right up to their property line. In someplace like California such an approach wouldn't work. Heaven knows that the NIMBYs here would have stopped such a project in its tracks. However, in Las Vegas, the operative motto is "Show me the money." And when the developer showed Las Vegas the economic benefits of his project, any objection by the Jockey Club was brushed aside by both the city and the courts.
Now this is not to say that the original developer of the Cosmopolitan made a killing, as he went into bankruptcy, as did the second developer. Obviously the sagging real estate market was a factor, but there was also one additional problem. The Cosmopolitan lot sits on what might be described as an underground lake. Consequently, not only did the lake have to be pumped out, an expensive proposition, but it needs to be pumped out continuously. Indeed, there was surprise when the lender, Deutsche Bank, which eventually had to foreclose on the property, decided to complete construction (as opposed letting the framework sit, as with the Fontainbleu up the street).
Remarkably, the Cosmopolitan has become the hottest hotel in town. Though our group secured rooms at about $200 a night, I was curious what the going rate was for a basic hotel room. I discovered that the rate for Saturday night had been $600, and it was $400 the evening before. And according to a newspaper article I read, demand for rooms there is high and the hotel is often sold out at those rates. One might think that Deutsche Bank has turned the project into a success, but that's not really the case given that they've sunk $4 billion into the project. Also, while hotel, club and restaurant operations may be quite profitable on a current basis, the casino area clearly lacks pizzaz, as well as large numbers of gamblers.
And poor Jockey Club. It's been engulfed by the Cosmopolitan in front of it and the Bellagio next to it. The Cosmopolitan pretty much built up to the lot line, replacing the view of Las Vegas Blvd. with a view of the Cosmopolitan wall. The entrance to the Jockey Club on Las Vegas Blvd. is almost invisible, sharing a small driveway with the Cosmopolitan loading dock, though I guess nobody except timeshare owners would be looking for it. And while the Jockey Club now touts itself as being "snuggled" between the Cosmopolitan and the Bellagio, that's just a face saving spin to reflect that they took it in the shorts.
The hotel room itself was also quite different. The most obvious thing was the width of the hotel room. There was probably a good ten to twelve feet of open space between the foot of the bed and the wall, clearly enough room to play flag football, or for a large number of sleeping bags. The reason is that the Cosmopolitan, like the Trump, was originally planned as a condominium project during the heyday of the Las Vegas residential building boom. I remember the early to mid-2000s when dozens of high rise condos were simultaneously being built or planned, and I thought to myself even as asking prices soared that there was no way that all of those units could be absorbed. I was right. Also, a particularly nice feature was the room clock, which isn't a clock or a digital clock, but a lighted screen showing the time, temperature and weather, room number and the guest's name, amother other information.
Interestingly, the land parcel on which the Cosmopolitan sits, a site of a mere 8 acres (compared to the Bellagio next door which sits on 120 acres), was purchased for only $5 million. While that sounds like a bargain price, in fact there had been little interest in developing that property. For those who remember how that area used to be, Harmon Ave. ended as a through street at the Strip. While the street continued on west of the Strip, it was only to provide access to a bunch of parking lots. Immediately east to the parking lots (just next to the Bellagio) is a timeshare called the Jockey Club. The Cosmopolitan lot had been leased to the Jockey Club for parking, and nobody thought about doing anything with that parcel because it was assumed that any development would have to be done with the approval of, if not in conjunction, with the Jockey Club. Since the Jockey Club has over a thousand timeshare owners around the world, any such cooperation would be impossible from a practical point of view.
Nevertheless, that did not stop the original developer of the Cosmopolitan from plunking down the money despite the prospect of a task that no major developer deemed worthy to try. His concept was simple--forget about the Jockey Club and build right up to their property line. In someplace like California such an approach wouldn't work. Heaven knows that the NIMBYs here would have stopped such a project in its tracks. However, in Las Vegas, the operative motto is "Show me the money." And when the developer showed Las Vegas the economic benefits of his project, any objection by the Jockey Club was brushed aside by both the city and the courts.
Now this is not to say that the original developer of the Cosmopolitan made a killing, as he went into bankruptcy, as did the second developer. Obviously the sagging real estate market was a factor, but there was also one additional problem. The Cosmopolitan lot sits on what might be described as an underground lake. Consequently, not only did the lake have to be pumped out, an expensive proposition, but it needs to be pumped out continuously. Indeed, there was surprise when the lender, Deutsche Bank, which eventually had to foreclose on the property, decided to complete construction (as opposed letting the framework sit, as with the Fontainbleu up the street).
Remarkably, the Cosmopolitan has become the hottest hotel in town. Though our group secured rooms at about $200 a night, I was curious what the going rate was for a basic hotel room. I discovered that the rate for Saturday night had been $600, and it was $400 the evening before. And according to a newspaper article I read, demand for rooms there is high and the hotel is often sold out at those rates. One might think that Deutsche Bank has turned the project into a success, but that's not really the case given that they've sunk $4 billion into the project. Also, while hotel, club and restaurant operations may be quite profitable on a current basis, the casino area clearly lacks pizzaz, as well as large numbers of gamblers.
And poor Jockey Club. It's been engulfed by the Cosmopolitan in front of it and the Bellagio next to it. The Cosmopolitan pretty much built up to the lot line, replacing the view of Las Vegas Blvd. with a view of the Cosmopolitan wall. The entrance to the Jockey Club on Las Vegas Blvd. is almost invisible, sharing a small driveway with the Cosmopolitan loading dock, though I guess nobody except timeshare owners would be looking for it. And while the Jockey Club now touts itself as being "snuggled" between the Cosmopolitan and the Bellagio, that's just a face saving spin to reflect that they took it in the shorts.
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