The Victoria

Deep, impenetrable fog at dusk. A big man in a dark cloak muscles past you to light the next in a long line of gaslights. Somewhere above you and to the right, you hear muffled bells tolling the hour. You stop halfway across the bridge to look at the imposing facade on the other side, but you don't linger for too long; you have to be at The Crown in twenty minutes or your reservation will go to someone else. After dinner, you descend five flights of cobblestoned stairs, deep underground, and claim your reserved table in the VIP at J. Ripper's. You dance decadently and drink excessively. At five in the morning, as the sun rises on the high windows of the club, you climb those same five flights of stairs and sit down at a $500 roulette table.

You're a guest at The Victoria hotel and casino in Las Vegas.

I feel like Victorian London has really captured the collective imagination of our country for some reason. London circa 1870 is the "it" time and the "it" place, and besides that, London is conspicuously absent on the Strip. You've got New York, Paris, and (sort of) Rome represented; where is London? It must be done well, and it must not be at all campy. In the casino, it should be perpetual night, not the twilight of Paris and New York New York. It must be dark, inky night, and it must be lit by the bright white light of gas-burning streetlamps. We are not recreating the late-Victorian world of Gilbert & Sullivan; we are creating the London of Jack the Ripper during the High Victorian.

The shopfronts that line the walls of the casino are gritty, dirty. The windows that look in on pubs, bars, and high-end shopping are filthy. The people are fabulous; the scene is happening; but the city is not clean. Victorian London was a cesspit, and that's what we need to create on the Strip. This fine new property will occupy the southeast corner of Tropicana and Las Vegas Blvd, where the venerable old (and somewhat run-down) Tropicana stands today. It's a huge piece of real-estate, and will do nicely to recreate Victorian London. And besides acquiring the land on which the Tropicana stands, the investors will also buy up the massive parking lot which lies directly to the Tropicana's south. In five years or so, provided The Victoria is doing well, ground will be broken on a second resort, Treasure-Island-at-the-Mirage-style.

This second resort will be called Empire at the Victoria, and will have, as its theme, the greater glory of the British Empire at its height. What all that entails is material for a separate post, but let me give you just this one taste: visitors will enter through The Gateway of India.

Now, if only I can scratch together a few hundred million to make this all a reality....