Rose, the new nightclub in Mandalay Bay, hasn’t even opened yet and it’s racked up its first scandal. MBay is trying to rework Rose’s lease on more favorable terms, given that the club’s owners are some of the, er, colorful characters involved in the Privé fiasco … and are in arrears to MGM Mirage already.
The reviews are in. Preliminary critiques of CityCenter are a mixed bag. The fluffy, overwritten rave notice in the Las Vegas Review-Journal is exceptionally poor journalism, even by R-J standards. Even if you expected the paper to be in the tank for CityCenter, the level of sheer fawning comes as a surprise.
The Los Angeles Times, contrarily, sees CityCenter not as the beginning of an era but the end of one. However, Christopher Hawthorne reviews it more as historical metaphor than actual work of architecture. Ironically, his most favorable notice is given to the sheared-off stump that is the Harmon Hotel (above). While he dismisses the “bell-jar urbanism” of CityCenter’s introverted concept, he admires the engineering feats that made it possible.
At least the R-J‘s accompanying, multi-tiered graphics package is very impressive, arguably the best thing it’s done with its Web site since the paper went online. The LAT offers a virtual flyover that is docked points for getting the Harmonini’s height wrong. That mistake is repeated in the LAT‘s online demo of CityCenter, which is otherwise enjoyable for its vibrancy and entertaining interactive features.
He reports, you decide. Fortunately, dear readers, Hunter Hillegas has ridden to the rescue with 178 — count ’em! — photos from Aria alone. In these opinionated times, Hunter is one news source you really can rely upon to be “fair and balanced.”
