Las Vegas and Its Big, Big Ambitions

It’s just past dusk on the Las Vegas Strip and traffic has come to a standstill. That’s usual for a weekend night, but this is Monday.

Round-the-clock construction makes every excursion a dice roll with traffic, and these days everyone seems a loser. I turn right on Sands Avenue, just before the golden tower of the Wynn Las Vegas, and am so stunned by what I see that I join three dozen other cars illegally parked next to the crowded sidewalk. Some people are sitting on the concrete divider to gawk, camera phones pointed toward an otherworldly spectacle: a colossal eye seemingly the size of the Death Star staring down the street at us. The eye is so large and glaring that the neon-lit hotels and casinos are mere shadows.

And then it blinks.

This is the Sphere, Vegas’s newest epic attraction. A round, 360-foot-tall amphitheater clad in 1.2 million ashtray-size LED screens, the Sphere has, since July 4, been beaming fireworks displays, rotating globes, spiraling geometric designs and other images on its 580,000-square-foot surface, bringing traffic to a standstill.

“The Sphere will define Vegas architecture,” said Brian Alvarez, who goes by Paco, a former city cultural commissioner and tour guide. “It’s not a themed building like some of the other spots on the Strip. It’s on par with the Sydney Opera House or the Eiffel Tower for becoming a unique city icon.”

The Sphere isn’t the only big newcomer in the neighborhood.

A close inspection of the Strip’s surface reveals a fresh layer of tarmac so countertop-smooth that a half-dozen skateboarders jump a street barrier in front of the Bellagio hotel’s fountain to glide right past me through the traffic.

This is racecar tarmac. It runs along the Strip, then veers onto side streets, hairpins around a new grandstand that stretches the length of three football fields, circles the Sphere’s parking lot, and merges back onto the Strip to complete a 3.8-mile Formula 1 Grand Prix track. The first race, planned for Nov. 18, will see cars spinning 50 laps at speeds of up to 213 miles per hour.

Spectacles and sports

Las Vegas, a city that has recreated itself numerous times, is in the middle of yet another reinvention. A tiny railroad crossing in the middle of the desert at the start of the 1900s, it became a legalized gambling destination in the ’30s that, over the ensuing years, drew mobsters and other deep-pocketed investors who turned Vegas into Sin City, replete with showgirls and the Rat Pack. Starting in the ’80s, competition from other legalized gambling spots like Atlantic City inspired Vegas operators to transform the city into a family mega-resort destination, with kid-friendly spectacles like a volcano and pirate battles.

Then came the economic downturn followed by the pandemic, spurring the city to its current diversification into sports and big, splashy shows.

The strategy is working. In 2022 the city boasted 38.8 million visitors, making it the sixth largest…