This particular query was in fact posed by our very own publisher, Anthony Curtis who, like Golden Gate and the D owner Derek Stevens, hails from Detroit. Unlike Derek, however, Anthony prides himself on being an uncultured thug and, by his own admission, drew some withering looks from others in the audience when he attended the media event unveiling downtown's newest attraction and audibly expressed his bemusement when the new attraction was unveiled.
A fact that we had not appreciated about Stevens, until recently, was that he and brother Greg (a former engineer who's his partner in their various Las Vegas enterprises, but tends to maintain a behind-the-scenes role), are of Belgian extraction. Evidently, family trips to the capital, Brussels, fostered a lifelong affection in Stevens for the city's iconic, if irreverent, landmark of a young boy urinating into a fountain.
Dating back to the early 17th century and designed by Hiëronymus Duquesnoy the Elder, "Manneken Pis," which translates as "Little man Pee," is a small (it stands at just 24 inches) bronze sculpture that can be found a few blocks away from Brussels' Town Hall and is a popular tourist attraction and the subject of countless postcards. So popular, in fact, that the original version has been stolen on numerous occasions and, having been restored, now resides within the safety of the Maison du Roi located on the city's main square or Grand Place.
To clarify, when we say the "original" version, that's not quite accurate, since apparently there was a previous stone incarnation that dated back to 1388 and was one of the sources of the city's drinking water until it, too, was lost; the current bronze version on display dates back only to 1965. This modern street replica is regularly dressed up and possesses a wardrobe of several hundred different costumes. On some festive occasions, the usual running water that he emits is replaced by beer, from which passing revelers may fill their cups.
As to the origin and inspiration behind the various versions of Manneken Pis, the stories are many and diverse. One legend has it that the original stone version was the result of a witch punishing a small boy who peed on her doorstep by turning him to stone, while a far more heroic account has a small child saving the day by urinating on an ignited fuse while the city was under siege, thus saving it from being burned to the ground.
Today, replicas of the famous statue can be found all over the world, including in Spain, France, Brazil, Japan (where the boy relieves himself over a 200-meter cliff), Vietnam, Finland (where he's used to advertise a brand of anti-freeze and pees freely all year round, despite frequent sub-zero temperatures), and now downtown Las Vegas, where visitors can find Manneken Pis outside the Third Street entrance to the D.
This newest statue was unveiled on September 1 at the event referenced above, which was prefaced by some typically flamboyant Stevens-style publicity hype, courtesy of an amusing and ambiguous YouTube video. The casino owner hopes that the statue's "whimsical spirit" will be a magnet for tourists from all over the world and even the at-first skeptical Anthony Curtis now concedes, "it's beginning to make sense in the whole PR scheme of things," adding, "that's why Derek owns casinos and I write about them."
