It’s kind of looking like a city, but not. It’s definitely outgrowing every thing around it. And picture taking isn’t as easy, nor interesting really. The Cosmopolitan now blocks a lot of the view from Bellagio’s parking garage and the structures are obviously much higher than the employee parking garage so the best views of it are from a distance. And yes, I could access the upper floors of the employee parking garage for a few photos – and may at some point – but most of it would be just looking at the side of a building. The panoramic landscape of ‘worker bees’ and machinery everywhere just isn’t there, most of it’s going on inside the buildings now.

The day that Wayne agreed to go with me, for the shoot, was gloomy, not much sunshine going on and I feared it would affect the picture taking but they came out pretty well. I was on Flamingo, East bound off the freeway, on the freeway overpass and traffic was stopped waiting for a light so I snapped these two from the Steed and they are the same photo, just that the second one has a view of the freeway also. And Bellagio is on the left, the employee parking garage is on the right, and I’m facing South:

This shot is from Las Vegas Blvd., heading South for the Bellagio parking garage, taken from the Steed, and obviously there isn’t much to see from this angle but it gives one the idea of the height:

This is from the top floor of the parking garage, facing SE, Planet Hollywood in the background, and the building construction on the right is the front (on the Strip) of the Cosmopolitan that surrounds the Jockey Club.

The Jockey Club has two main buildings – before Project City Center (and during some of my previous photo outings) one could see the Strip and buildings between the Jockey Club’s buildings – now that view is totally blocked by the Cosmopolitan:

From this same view point – looking SW – the Cosmopolitan looms in front of the Project City Center structure that used to tower over all:

This one is a zoom of the Cosmopolitan with the first Project building behind it…nothing spectacular but I just happened to like it.

Between the Cosmopolitan (and remember where it sits, is where the five story deep hole was in some of the earlier photos of the project) and an existing Bellagio building, the original Project building is visible and some of the construction grounds.

On this shot, we are on the Strip, facing West I’m shooting blind over a fence – the construction on the right is the Cosmopolitan, the structures on the left and straight ahead are obviously Project City Center:

This is still ‘blind’ over the fence, and it’s the opposite view of the Jockey Club and surrounding Cosmopolitan, Bellagio’s in the background:

Another ‘over the fence’ shot. This is Harmon Avenue – facing west – the building in the far right back is the employee parking garage, the tall building in the very back is across the freeway and not part of the Project.

The first shot is a building to the right of Harmon, the 2nd shot is to the left of Harmon – still facing east.

This is to the left of the last picture above – it’s nearing the end of the property on the South, right where the old Boardwalk used to stand.

We’re down the Strip a ways – up on the top floor of Brendan Theater’s parking garage – right next to GameWorks for the next three shots. They are facing NW, panning left to right up the Strip.

The piles of sand on the far right, back are part of the concrete factory that rocks 24/7 – it sets on Frank Sinatra Dr. at Monte Carlo Dr. (we are still on the top floor of the theater parking garage).

We planned to walk down Monte Carlo Drive, heading west, and then turn right (heading south) on Frank Sinatra Drive and walk to the employee parking garage. Were we crazy or what? We got to Frank Sinatra Dr. but as we walked it (with no sidewalks or foot traffic available) the whole backside of the property was boarded and we were in serious jeopardy of being squashed like to lost, little bugs in the Vegas traffic. I gave up – Wayne was willing – I wasn’t. We turned back and made the journey back to Bellagio’s parking garage. In retrospect, if I’d been driving a vehicle and passed us walking that narrow line between the fence and traffic, I would have thought “Man, those people are ready to die!”

This one final shot is about all you can view, between the new Monte Carlo parking garage and the Monte Carlo, of the Project and it’s taken facing north.

To date, the last I heard (and keep in mind that I don’t watch the news or read a newspaper), there have been nine workers killed on the Project. That’s freaking ugly. Perhaps that’s not unusual on any project of this size but it leaves me with a really bad taste. WTF is going on?