Your eyes take in a miniaturized Manhattan skyline — the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and the Brooklyn Bridge, compressed onto a single Las Vegas block. New York-New York opened in 1997 as a collaboration between MGM Grand and Primm Valley Resorts, and it captures something essential about Las Vegas's relationship with American iconography: the city does not merely borrow images, it compresses and intensifies them.
The roller coaster that wraps around the exterior — called the Big Apple Coaster — opened the same year as the hotel and reaches speeds of 67 miles per hour. It was designed to look like a taxi cab racing through the sky between skyscrapers, which is either brilliant or horrifying depending on your relationship with New York City traffic.
After September 11, 2001, something remarkable happened here. Guests and employees spontaneously created a makeshift memorial on the hotel's replica Brooklyn Bridge, leaving flowers, flags, notes, and photographs in tribute to the real city's dead. The memorial grew for weeks without any official encouragement. Las Vegas, a city often accused of having no soul, revealed one on that bridge. A permanent plaque now marks the spot.