Body of Evidence

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M.A.C. and M.V.C.

What can be done with fewer assumptions is done in vain with more.

-WILLIAM OF OCKHAM

A ranch in the desert-that's how Las Vegas began. As years passed, and fashions changed, the ranch evolved into a town, albeit of the one-horse variety. And as time continued to crawl by, with a slowness the desert climate only exaggerated, the world changed even more, cars and buses and trains replacing steeds as the main mode of transportation. Men of hope and vision rode those vehicles to the tiny bump in the dusty road and saw not what was, but what could be….

Among those wayfarers was a bigger-than-life gangster out of Los Angeles (by way of New York), a wiseguy with movie-star good looks who hated his nasty nickname-Bugsy-which in the street parlance of the day suggested nothing insect-like, referring instead to the handsome thug's ugly temper.

Ben Siegel envisioned a city where the hamlet stood, could make out a neon mirage in the desert, with casinos in place of barns, hotels instead of hovels. He preached this vision to others-investors who ran in his same left handed circle-and these hard-nosed businessman heeded the gospel according to Bugsy, which led to the construction of the famed Flamingo on what would become the Strip.

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