It’s been weeks since the pandemic quieted the world’s playground, snuffing out the symphony of boozy conversation, blaring car horns and slot-machine chimes that once filled the Las Vegas Strip.

UNLV’s University Libraries and department of film received a $271,580 National Endowment for the Humanities’ (NEH) Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Award for their project, “Inventing Hollywood: Preserving and Providing Access to the Papers of Renegade Genius Howard Hughes.” Project co-leaders Heather Addison, chair of the UNLV department of film, and Cyndi Shein, head of special collections’ technical services at UNLV Libraries, reflect on the importance of preserving the collection.

Long before he was an aviation magnate, a casino owner or a world-famous recluse, Howard Hughes was a fixture in Hollywood.

LOST VEGAS: UNLV Libraries Special Collections & Archives is gathering photos of an empty & quiet Las Vegas during the coronavirus pandemic so future generations will get a lens into this time.

A gracefully curved building that served as the lobby for the La Concha Motel on the Strip from 1961 to 2004 is now home to the Neon Museum on Las Vegas Boulevard just north of Bonanza.

The flamboyant guests in Grant Philipo’s living room are dressed in scanty yet elegant costumes dripping with crystals, feathers and glitz. They are six mannequins, carefully arranged in a tableau, standing with hands raised or hanging by their sides. Together, their elaborate headdresses and finely crafted body pieces form a cornucopia of retro glamour.