VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Howard Hughes Bought Silver Slipper Just to Dim its Sign

This is already our second Howard Hughes myth, and there are still a bunch left to bust. Supposedly, the world-famous aviator and movie tycoon began his famous buying spree of Las Vegas casino hotels — partially freeing the Strip from the shackles of mafia ownership and paving the way for the age of corporate ownership — all thanks to the giant shoe atop the Silver Slipper.

The 12-foot tall, 17-foot wide, rotating high heel was designed by Jack Larsen Sr., a former Disney animator who worked for the YESCO sign company, where he also created the pop-art lamp for Aladdin. Patterned after one of his wife’s pumps, Larsen’s Silver Slipper sign boasted 900 incandescent lightbulbs on the shoe and 80 on the bow. It was installed in late 1954 or early 1955 and was deployed until the resort closed in November 1988.

According to the story, the shoe, located directly across the Strip from the Desert Inn, where Hughes had taken up since arriving in Las Vegas the day before Thanksgiving in 1966, was too bright for Hughes to sleep at night.

The Silver Slipper refused Hughes’ requests to dim the shoe, the story goes, so he bought the casino hotel and dimmed it himself. This gave the eccentric billionaire a taste for acquiring Vegas hotels, and he bought a bunch more…

Read the full article written by Corey Levitan at casino.org

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YESCO completed the fabrication and installation of more than 170 interior signs for the new DraftKings headquarters located in Southwest Las Vegas. Situated in the UnCommons mixed-use complex on the corner of the 215 Beltway and Durango Drive, the four-story building occupied by DraftKings encompasses 90,000 square feet of space with room for 700 to 1,000 employees.

Prior to YESCO’s fabrication and installation, global architecture and design firm, Interior Architects, conceptualized and designed DraftKings’ innovative signage. Included among the project’s notable signs are the internally illuminated “Crown Wall” entry feature, motion-activated “Crown” behind a two-way mirror, color-changing faux-neon illuminated crown mounted to a “living wall,” “SNAKE EYES” art installation composed of 4,559 dice, a slot reels art installation composed of 120 individual faux reels and “LET IT RIDE” art installation composed of 6,049 casino chips.

The DraftKings project included 2,642 man-hours of work over a 32-week period.

“There is no shortage of eye-catching signage throughout the DraftKings’ new, four-story building,” said Jeff Young, executive vice president, YESCO. “It was an honor to manufacture and install the innovative signage for this globally recognized fast-growing brand’s spectacular new Southern Nevada headquarters.”

BELIEVE is a distinctive work of public sculpture installed in the City of Reno. The city is home to more than 170 pieces of public art, and the number is rising.

BELIEVE was purchased from its creators, Jeff Schomberg and Laura Klimpton, who created the work in 2013 as a Burning Man installation.  Measuring 4 feet thick by 12 feet tall by 70 feet long, the sculpture is composed of welded steel letters with a rusty patina, each  imprinted with hundreds of cutouts of birds.

City of Reno crews relocated the artwork from the ReTrac Plaza, near the Reno arch, to its new home in  City Plaza.

When the call went out to animate the popular sculpture with color-changing  illumination, YESCO rose to the occasion. Working with Principle RGB LED products, YESCO installed 67 custom-made, wet-rated enclosures which house the controllers, decoders, antennas, amplifiers and power supplies.  “Believe” is animated with seven pre-programmed lighting shows. A designated IP address enables the customer to access the controls and change the letters remotely.

The popular sculpture is even more compelling with the incorporation of artistic lighting.