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Transcript of interview with Courtney Mooney by Suzanne Becker, July 30, 2007

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2007-07-30

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Courtney Mooney is the Urban Design Coordinator for the City of Las Vegas. Her job description includes a knowledge of historic preservation, which is her passion. In this interview she shares her professional and personal thoughts about John S. Park Neighborhood. She moved to John S. Park in 2002. As a professional she explains that "how I look at preserving neighborhoods or buildings, is more of a community preservation, not saving the individual building for the individual building's sake..." Courtney offers a big picture of the neighborhood's past, present and future. John S. Park, like so many other Las Vegas neighborhoods, was built during World War II and has been affected by history of segregation and the wave of changing demographics, and the work that went into the plan and requirements to be designated a historic neighborhood. Courtney provides a summary of the story about the land, its ownership and what lead to the foundation of the neighborhood: from John S. Park to George Franklin and John Law, to Mary Dutton and explains how the proposed development of the land differed from other communities being built to FHA standards and specifics that declared Las Vegas a Defense City in the 1940s. She lists the factors that made the neighborhood a logical and important target for the historic designation, a small neighborhood tucked away, that is "a snapshot of the types of people that were coming here," filled with community leaders, entrepreneurs, blue-collar and casino workers. She also mentions about the missed opportunity of the Las Vegas High School neighborhood for preservation while supporting the John S. Park designation.

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OH_01316_book

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OH-01316
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Mooney, Courtney Interview, 2007 July 30. OH-01316. [Transcript.] Oral History Research Center, Special Collections & Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada

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An Interview with Courtney Mooney An Oral History Conducted by Suzanne Becker Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas © Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood University of Nevada Las Vegas Libraries 2010 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries, Director: Claytee D. White Project Creators: Patrick Jackson and Dr. Deborah Boehm Transcriber and Editor: Laurie Boetcher Editor and Production Manager: Barbara Tabach Interviewers: Suzanne Becker, Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White ii Recorded interviews, transcripts, bound copies and a website comprising the Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood Oral History Project have been made possible through a grant from the City of Las Vegas Centennial Committee. Special Collections in Lied Library, home of the Oral History Research Center, provided a wide variety of administrative services, support and archival expertise. We are so grateful. This project was the brainchild of Deborah Boehm, Ph.D. and Patrick Jackson who taught at UNLV and resided in the John S. Park Neighborhood. As they walked their community, they realized it was a special place that intersected themes of gender, class, race/ethnicity, religion, sexuality and gentrification. Patrick and Deborah learned that John S. Park had been listed on the National Registry of Historic Places and that original homeowners, local politicians, members of the gay community, Latino immigrants, artists and gallery owners and an enclave of UNLV staff all lived in the neighborhood. Therefore, they decided that the history of this special place had to be preserved, joined with the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries and wrote a grant that was funded by the Centennial Committee. The transcripts received minimal editing that included the elimination of fragments, false starts and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the narrative. These interviews have been catalogued and can be found as non-circulating documents in Special Collections at UNLV's Lied Library. Deborah A. Boehm, Ph.D. Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholar 2009-2010 Assistant Professor, Anthropology & Women's Studies Patrick Jackson, Professor John S. Park Oral History Project Manager Claytee D. White, Director Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries iii Interview with Courtney Mooney July 30, 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Suzanne Becker Table of Contents Introduction: born in Elko, NV (1970), father a psychologist, mother a psychiatric nurse, move to Reno and Carson City, parents' divorce and remarriage, absorption into stepmother Sally Whipple's ranching family, early education in Las Vegas 1 Memories of childhood in Carson City and Las Vegas 3 Graduation from high school in Carson City and community college in Reno, move to Sacramento, CA, works for Sprint 4 Raised to appreciate and value "old stuff' 5 Moves to Las Vegas, attends UNLV architecture school, obtains graduate degree in preservation from Columbia University (NY) 6 Return to Las Vegas and early work in architecture and preservation 8 Attraction of living near downtown Las Vegas, moves to John S. Park Neighborhood (2002) 10 Comments on crime in and around John S. Park Neighborhood and neighborhood awareness 12 Thoughts on why she works in historic preservation and why it is important to preserve certain buildings and neighborhoods 15 "Picking your battles": moving the Las Vegas railroad cottages 16 Comments on Manhattanization of downtown Las Vegas 18 Relationship between the Arts District and John S. Park Neighborhood, and importance of Arts District to the vitality of downtown 19 Changes in the John S. Park Neighborhood: young professionals, gay couples, young families, ethnic diversity, risk of gentrification 20 Discrimination in World War II-era Las Vegas neighborhoods, need to reach out to Hispanics in John S. Park Neighborhood 21 Larger issues that have impacted the John S. Park Neighborhood: less crime, downtown redevelopment, commercial encroachment 22 People involved in nominating John S. Park Neighborhood for historic status 24 Opposition to the John S. Park Neighborhood historic designation 25 Qualifications for historic designation, and account of how John S. Park came to be designated an historic neighborhood 26 Reputation of John S. Park Neighborhood in larger scheme of Las Vegas: nice, blue-collar type of neighborhood 30 Loss of Las Vegas High School Neighborhood to historic preservation 31 Significance of the John S. Park Neighborhood in Las Vegas history: best snapshot of the diverse demographic in Las Vegas after World War II 32 What living in John S. Park Neighborhood means to her: a neighborhood that is familiar and stable, in which people are recognized; diversity of homes and people; "kooky, fun history"; sense of pride in the neighborhood; community 35 iv How knowing the history of buildings is important, and the pros and cons 36 Memories of Fremont Street in the 1970s, and how Fremont Street signage evolved into embracing neon 39 Final thoughts 41 Preface Courtney Mooney is the Urban Design Coordinator for the City of Las Vegas. Her job description includes a knowledge of historic preservation, which is her passion. In this interview she shares her professional and personal thoughts about John S. Park Neighborhood. She moved to John S. Park in 2002. As a professional she explains that "how I look at preserving neighborhoods or buildings, is more of a community preservation, not saving the individual building for the individual building's sake..." Courtney offers a big picture of the neighborhood's past, present and future. John S. Park, like so many other Las Vegas neighborhoods, was built during World War II and has been affected by history of segregation and the wave of changing demographics, and the work that went into the plan and requirements to be designated a historic neighborhood. Courtney provides a summary of the story about the land, its ownership and what lead to the foundation of the neighborhood: from John S. Park to George Franklin and John Law, to Mary Dutton and explains how the proposed development of the land differed from other communities being built to FHA standards and specifics that declared Las Vegas a Defense City in the 1940s. She lists the factors that made the neighborhood a logical and important target for the historic designation, a small neighborhood tucked away, that is "a snapshot of the types of people that were coming here," filled with community leaders, entrepreneurs, blue-collar and casino workers. She also mentions about the missed opportunity of the Las Vegas High School neighborhood for preservation while supporting the John S. Park designation. vi Interview with Courtney Mooney July 30, 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Suzanne Becker So, Courtney, thanks again for doing an interview with us. I definitely appreciate you taking the time. And, it would be great if you could begin just by telling us a bit about yourself, where you were born and when you were born, a little bit about growing up there or where you grew up. I was born in Elko, Nevada, in 1970, and I think we only lived there a couple of years. My dad was working for the State of Nevada. He was a psychologist. He was like a roaming psychologist [laughing] in the early days. They gave him a Winnebago and he would go into rural areas of Nevada and treat people. And my mother was a psych nurse. She was a nurse but she specialized in psychiatric wards but she did regular nursing as well. They actually met at the Nevada State Hospital, apparently. The two of them have slightly different stories. I think they met there, I'm pretty sure, and somehow we were in Elko for a couple of years, and then we ended up back in Reno [Nevada] where the Nevada State Hospital is, and we only lived there for just a few months, and then my dad got a job at the State Disability Office in Carson City [Nevada], I think. And my mother just went on and off from regular nursing to psychiatric nursing for years, I think So I lived in Carson City. I think we moved there when I was about two. Maybe three. I apologize for not knowing all the facts. And then, my parents got divorced when I was six, and my mother met someone when I was about seven, and he was an airline mechanic, and he worked for Hughes Air West in Las Vegas, so they moved here. And then I lived with my dad, and he ended up marrying a woman named Sally Whipple. Her family is a big eastern Nevada ranching family. My dad was never really close to his 2 family, so I sort of got immersed into the Whipple family at a young age. So I always kind of call them my family. So where did you hang out for the bulk of your childhood? It sounds like you were kind of traveling all over Nevada. Yeah, well, my dad was really adamant about me being in one place as much as possible. But they also had joint custody, so I spent my summers with my dad and then my school years with my mom. So actually when I was seven, I went to school in Las Vegas. And we lived right by these white apartments that are just north of the UNLV campus. They re on like Flamingo [Road] and UNLV. I know everybody is familiar with them because apparently everybody has lived in them. I remember distinctly that it had to have been 1977 because a woman came bursting through our door, and crying and screaming that Elvis [Presley] had died. That's like one of maybe three memories I have of that place. [Laughing] And my mom, I don't think she really cared that much, so that was very disappointing for that woman, I think. I don't remember. I don't even know who Elvis was. [Laughing] Then I went back to Carson [City] and I mean I just sort of moved back and forth, but my dad never moved, because he wanted me to always have a home base. So he and my stepmother Sally stayed there, and most of my childhood memories are from Carson City. I had friends that lived in the surrounding areas, like Dayton and Virginia City, Silver City [Nevada]. So what was it like growing up in Carson City which is probably where you had the bulk of your free time as a kid, right? What was Carson City like at that point? Has it changed much? 3 I don't know. I mean I left when I was in high school so I don't know if it's changed in regards to activities for kids, you know. I know people say this all the time but things were a little bit different then. I'm not sure that I would let my children roam as free as I was allowed to roam free, you know. I had a great deal of responsibility. I mean, I was given a great deal of responsibility at a young age. We had friends in the neighborhood and we just, at all hours of the night, were roaming around the neighborhood, you know. We had curfews but it just wasn't the same. And it's a different neighborhood, too. I mean, Carson City is a different town than it is here. So, I look at the fears that I have, and relate it to my childhood, and I always think, oh, my gosh, if I stayed here in Las Vegas, I would never let my kids have that type of freedom. Well, yeah, different times, different city. So what kind of stuff did you guys do? For a while we had dirt bikes, so we did a lot of that in the surrounding areas. I remember spending a lot of time at my friends' houses and I mean just playing at houses. I don't remember spending a lot of time in parks or a lot of time in those types of activities. I hated sports. I'd always try to do it and then I just quit because I hated it. My best friend that lived down the street moved to Silver City, Nevada. She had horses, so we rode horses. But when they moved, and I got my driver's license, that was when all the fun started. [Laughing] That was when all the exploration and all the mining towns and, you know, riding the dirt bikes out into the middle of nowhere and that kind of stuff [occurred]. But I don't remember really having a lot of fun before then. [Laughing] So how did that compare to the time that you spent in Las Vegas? Well, my mother was very paranoid; so my sister and I didn't have a lot of freedom when we lived with my mom. She'd had a very rough childhood, so she was very aware of, a < 4 little hyper-aware of dangers or perceived dangers. So, you know, we were on pretty short leashes, growing up. [Laughing] So I didn't get really to do much when I was living with my mom. We stayed at home a lot, you know. So it's kind of fuzzy. I guess if I really sat down and thought about it for hours I could probably come up with [some memories]. I rode my bike a lot. That's all I really remember doing—is riding my bike a lot, and trying to find ways to get away, like sneak out and explore, without my mom knowing, you know. [Laughing] But I didn't live with her as much as I lived with my dad. I was pretty much raised by my dad. My sister spent a lot more time with my mom. And so you went through high school here? In Carson City. At what point did you end up coming back to Las Vegas? How did you end up back here living? I graduated from high school and I moved to Reno. Wanted to live in the big city. [Laughing] And I went to community college and got a double-A degree. And after I graduated from community college, I wanted to live in Sacramento [California], I'd only been there once and I guess I thought it was the greatest place ever. So I moved to Sacramento. I had no job, no friends, no apartment, no nothing. I wanted to get out, you know, and explore. So my dad, he moves me there, and we get this apartment, he drops me off, and the next day he's gone and I don't know anybody, no job. I eventually got a job working for Sprint. I was a deaf-relay operator, which was a really interesting job. I was making $7.15 an hour, which was a fortune at the time. I remember thinking, you know, how proud I was of making this money and working for Sprint. My goal was to go to school, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had my 5 double A in humanities and arts, just something really general, and I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was raised kind of in such a way that my dad and my stepmother really valued old stuff. When I was growing up we never had new toys. I mean everything was old. My dad didn t like plastic stuff, so we didn't have plastic toys and all that stuff. It was a little neurotic. He didn t like anything like that. He would give us motors to play with and stuff. We had like little mechanical things that we could take apart and put together, or he d make us toys out of wood. Everything was hand-made. Or if we begged him, he'd get us some game from the thrift store, but you know all the pieces were never there. Everything was from the thrift store. He didn't trust anything new. He was almost a little bit Ted Kaczynski in a way because he didn't like technology either, but now he's completely the opposite. He was like the first guy on the block to have a computer in the eighties. So I can't explain that. I think he really wanted a boy [laughing]. He tried to teach me how to fight and work on cars. He was a great dad. But we just didn't have a very conventional childhood. We always had an old house. We always had really old cars. My first car in high school was a 1950 Plymouth. We had one door handle, and you had to pass it around to get out. So that's kind of that value system that I was raised with that, you know; right or wrong, we just had a deep appreciation for older stuff. I thought I knew that I really wanted to do something with old stuff, but I had no idea, and I didn't even know that historic preservation was a profession. I didn't realize that you could make a profession out of saving old buildings. 6 So I'm in Sacramento, and I remember this very clearly, I'm sitting on my bed, talking to my stepmother, and she says, Well, why don't you be a preservation architect? And I said, What? What are you talking about? And she says, Yes, yes, I know, I have a friend, and he's a friend of your dad's, and he's a preservation architect. And I thought, Well, that sounds interesting, but it also sounds really difficult. So I talked to my dad and he talked to his friend and he calls me back and he says, Yes, yes, if you want to deal with old buildings—you know, because I said I really like old buildings—he goes, OK, if you want to do this, you have to go to architecture school. And I said, I don't want to go to [architecture school], you know, I was terrible in math, I always failed it. He goes, Well, just look in Sacramento and see if they have an architecture program. Well, they didn't. So, then, my stepmother says, Well, they have one in Vegas. And I said, I'm never going to live in Vegas, I hate that place. [Laughter] Those are the famous last words. So she says, Never say never. I think that's exactly what she said. And since I was a resident, you know, it was cheap for them to pay for me to go to school. So I moved in with my cousin on New Year's Eve '93. So that was my first night. I unloaded the U-Haul with my friend. She had a friend here who was having a New Year's Eve party, and then we went to the party. So that was my first night in Vegas. We watched a band that nobody knew about then but it was Soul Coughing, in somebody's living room. That was really good. I didn't know anybody but it was fun. 7 I started school, which was the hardest trial of my life up until then. So you went to the architecture school here at UNLV. Yeah, at UNLV. It was before they were accredited but they got accredited shortly after I graduated, which is good. And that was really, really difficult. It was difficult on many levels because of the math and the physics and all of that stuff that I had to do. I'm not a math person, you know, I'm an English-writing-reading-humanities [kind of person]. It was really hard. We had like four semesters of structures, and we had a very serious instructor who didn't let you get away with anything. I think two semesters of physics. So you know there was a ton of math. And then the time that it took. And the competition was hard. And I'm not a very good designer. I'm a much better critic. [Laughing], Which makes me a good preservationist, I guess. But I'm not a very good designer, so I struggled a lot with coming up with good ideas so you could sort of get a decent grade and save face. Because the competition was just really tough. But I ended up banding up with the only three other girls that were in the program, and we're still friends today, so that's good. We all really helped each other and supported each other, which was cool. And I remember not sleeping for four days, catching a catnap under my desk, just, you know, the dedication, a lot of people having to drop out. But it really prepared me for graduate school. So that's how I came to Vegas, was to go to school. And then, I wasn't really into it so much. I appreciated Vegas but I wanted to go someplace else for graduate school, and I looked into historic preservation schools, and I ended up going to Columbia [University]. I got a full-ride scholarship at Savannah College of Art and Design, and I turned them down because I wanted to live in Manhattan and pay a lot of money. [Laughing] So I got a graduate degree from Columbia in preservation. Like you, I didn't know there was an actual program that would be in preservation. Yeah. There's actually quite a few. I researched all the schools, and I wanted to pick one that worked with the community the most. And the irony is that at Columbia, you didn't work with the community at all. But in all of their brochures and when you talk to the counselors and everything at Columbia, they swore up and down that yes, they do all of this work with the community, and it's completely not true. But, nevertheless, I lived in the most hyper-urban setting, aside from San Francisco [California] or maybe Chicago [Illinois], so the benefit of living there and learning about how a real city works was invaluable. I didn't really want to come back to Vegas but my boyfriend at the time had a band here. He had moved there for me and I figured, you know, now it's my time to sort of give back to him. So we came back. And had you been hooked up with a job at all when you came back, or did you have an inkling that there was something that you could do here? Well, I was working on my thesis, which was about Fremont Street, and protecting the process of change. And I had a couple of readers here in Vegas, and one was Frank Fiori, who had my position at the City [of Las Vegas] that I have now. He was planning on moving someplace else, and he really wanted me to have the job. So he was a big support for me getting that job. But he couldn't make any promises because you never know how things go. But he was putting in the good word for me. I knew I had a job with my old boss who built architectural models, so I went back to him and consulted for a couple of years before I got hired. I knew it was a matter of time. And when you guys came back, what part of town did you live in? What part of town did you live in when you were at UNLV? Were you down toward campus? Yeah, I lived in a couple of places actually. I lived right behind the Lucky's on—now I'm not remembering the name of the street. It starts with an A. It's Flamingo [Road] and Maryland [Parkway] and it's not a Lucky's anymore but there's the Terrible Herbst car wash, and there's these apartments right behind there. When I first came to Vegas I lived on like Eastern [Avenue], behind the [McCarran International] airport. You couldn't even get a pizza delivered out there. There was nothing out there when I moved here, and now it's completely developed. And then I moved to the place on Flamingo and Maryland, and then I moved to Sierra Vista [Drive] and Paradise [Road], I moved to the Diplomat, which was the coolest, swankiest apartment ever, built in the fifties or sixties, I think. It was a complex with an hourglass-shaped pool. There was rumors that [singer] Anne Murray lived there and all this stuff, so who knows? But anyway. And then I moved over with my ex-boyfriend. I lived right behind the university, or across Maryland Parkway, in these like four-plexes. They're stand-alone houses that have four units in them. Apparently a lot of students have lived there. On the other side of Maryland Parkway? Yeah, across Maryland, behind like the Wendy's. Toward like where the Freakin' Frog is now? I think it's south of that. OK. But in that area. 10 Yeah, tucked back there. And then, we had always wanted to live downtown. We had a lot of friends that lived downtown. But we didn't move here, into the John S. Park Neighborhood, until we came back from New York. And we actually sublet on Trop [Tropicana Avenue] and Jones [Boulevard] for six months until we found a place here. But you knew, coming back in, that this was an area that you wanted to be in. Yes. Yes. You were probably not aware of geographical locations in the city as a kid. At some point, did you become aware of this area? How did you hear about it and decide that this was where you wanted to be? What drew you to it? I think, aside from all the normal stuff you hear from people who live here like, you know, they don't want the cookie-cutter house and whatever, after living in New York, it was a culture shock for me to come back and live on Trop and Jones, because you're so far removed from anything that's even remotely urban. I mean, people would say it's urban because you've got these major cross-streets and everything but there was nothing you could walk to, you didn't know your neighbors, that kind of thing. As a kid, you know, I loved downtown. I used to make my parents take me down Fremont Street all the time when you could drive down it and stuff. But I don't think I really craved or understood or appreciated the area until I had lived in New York, and understood what a real neighborhood is. And, when I came back to Las Vegas, my ex-boyfriend and I, like I said, we had friends that lived here, so we really wanted to be here, for that reason, plus, for the reason that, you know, it's close to downtown, which everything is cool downtown. You've got all the old buildings and you can walk to the bar if you want to, at the time you could walk to the grocery store. When we first moved here, right next to the 11 White Cross [Drugs] there used to be a little grocery store. And it was a dump but, you know, during the day you could walk there and get something. And we knew our neighbors, we had good friends that lived in the area, and we could walk to their houses. If we wanted to hop on a bus, you know, we could easily catch a bus to take us downtown where we really liked to go to the diners and the casinos and stuff. And that was more important to us than anything, you know, just that proximity to friends, proximity to entertainment. I think I would've gone insane if I didn't have the connection with a lot of other people in the neighborhood that I do now. And so how long have you guys lived in this house? I've been here since I think March of 2002.1 rented it initially, and then I asked the owner if he was interested in selling, and he said yes, and I bought it in 2004. And so have your same neighbors lived around you since you've moved here? Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys all know each other? What kind of interactions do you have? We do know each other. The neighbors just to the south of me, I've been to their house a couple of times for parties. They're an Hispanic family. When we first moved in, the daughter had just moved here, I think from Mexico, and she could barely speak a word of English, but by six months she was speaking English very well, and so we would communicate, because her father didn't speak English; so she and I would talk a lot about, you know, we would just chitchat or if she needed something or if I needed something, you know. And then I think she got married and moved out because I haven't seen her in a while. But I see her dad a lot because he is constantly working on the house. And so we wave at him all the time. He's a really cool guy. 12 The people to the north of me, we chat with them a lot. Their son owns a tow truck business. I think he has one tow truck, and so we give him business with our business, with the auto business. So occasionally we'll refer him to somebody and everything. And there's been times where both neighbors have been watching out for me. Like they will say, oh, we saw somebody in the front yard and we chased them away, or whatever. So they are really good neighbors to have. They're very cool. I feel very lucky because I hear horror stories. Yeah, you've lived down here and you sort of work in this business. What's your take on the issue of crime in this area? I don't know, you've lived here now for like five years. Have you seen that change at all? I'd like to say I think it's getting better. I don't notice as much foot traffic, as I did before. With me it's hard because I live adjacent to Rexford [Drive], and that's not a very good street, so we hear a lot of activity back there. We get some trash in our yard that I'm not sure where it comes from. But, you know, other than that, we've been broken into twice. I take that back. It wasn't me, it was the people that lived here right before me, that were renting before me, they got broken into. And then about a year or two after I moved in, I got broken into. And then when my ex-boyfriend and I broke up and I was living here by myself, I got a big dog. Has that helped? It has. Actually we had somebody on the back patio about six months ago. And we've since then got another dog. I'm sorry, not since the person on the back patio. But we have two dogs now, and they chased him off. And they didn't even have to go outside. They just barked and he took off. 13 I think, with this neighborhood, it's crimes of opportunity. I don't think that people target this neighborhood in a sense that they know that there's valuables in these houses. I think it's people that come off the street, and they are looking for opportunity. Because I've heard that they will come up and actually try doors and see if they're unlocked or not. I've never experienced that, but I can tell you that my dog will bark randomly at the door. I don't know what that means. We did have a scam one time where a girl came to the door and she was bloody and said that she needed help. And I didn't actually get to the door in time, but she went to the neighbor's house and did the same thing. We called the police and they picked her up and it was a scam. I don't answer the door if I don't know who it is. And that's the sad thing, because, if it's somebody who legitimately needs help, there's no way to tell if it's legitimate or not. I will call 911 for them, but I won't let them in the house. I tell everybody that stays with me, if it's a guest and, you know, we have roommates, I tell them, don't answer the door if you don't know who it is. I think it just makes good sense. It does, you know, but really, that kind of goes with living, I think, in any urban environment, to certain degrees, whether it's New York City or Chicago, I think that's just something that's good to be aware of. I think our neighborhood is pretty aware. We have the website or chat site or whatever you call it, group site. For a while there it was really active and people were taking pictures of people walking through the neighborhood and posting the pictures, and if things got stolen they would post stuff about what got stolen. It's subsided a little bit. We have a couple of neighbors. I don't know if you're familiar with Randy and Lynn. They live right down that side street. Griffith [Avenue], And when I was living here by myself, 1 14 Randy would drive by and just watch the house, kind of all the time. He would always take this route so he could just take a look at it, you know, and make sure. So we always have neighbors that are [aware]. We all look out for each other. So I think that's helped the crime issue. Yeah, I mean I think that's part of what neighborhoods and communities do. I mean I think that's a nice aspect, and it's too bad that it's sort of forced, in a sense, but lucky to have it. I always feel lucky to have it. So, two things: Talk a little bit about how you ended up, then, getting into your job that you do now, and describe a little bit what it all entails. I think it's interesting and important to the story of this community. My boss just asked me this the other day. He's like, why do you do what you do? And it took me a while to think about it. Well, I think it goes back to the fact that when my parents were divorced, and I kept moving a lot, you know, when I'd come back to Carson City and the same buildings and my same school, my house, the diner we'd eat at, everything was still there. And so it was a sense of security for me, because I didn't really have a lot of control of what was going on in my life, you know, I was moving around and various things, and so I think that being able to come back to the same neighborhood, and have the same friends, that was very important to me, and so it was definitely a sense of security. I think about that a lot when I'm doing my work, because I think, how I look at preserving neighborhoods or buildings, is more of a community preservation, not saving the individual building for the individual building's sake, if that makes any sense. I mean, I think every little building is important, but people say to me all the time, what's historic in Las Vegas? How do you even have a job? And I say, well, you know, we have what we have. Basically, the majority of the historic buildings that we have are World War II neighborhoods. And that has contributed significantly to what community we have here. People say we have no community but that's not true. This neighborhood is a perfect example. I m sure the Scotch Eighties and Rancho Circle and those kinds of older, more established neighborhoods where families have lived there forever, their kids are raised together and they grow up and become professionals and establish professional relationships and carry