An atomic beach in Second Life

Las Vegas is a place long renowned for its showmanship. Best known for The Strip with its casinos, bright lights, bling and the ratcheting rasp and chugging pings of one-arm bandits and slot machines, the Neon City has something of a Marmite touch to it: people either love it or hate it. Dubbed Sin City in the age of Prohibition, for a short time in its history the once sleepy little town on the rail route to California became a destination for something quite unexpected: the ability to witness first-hand the atomic bomb tests carried out by the US military.

For a period of 12 years through the 1950s and up to the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) of 1963, the US military detonated, on average, one nuclear bomb every three weeks at test grounds some 60-80 miles away from Las Vegas – timing them to take place when weather patterns would carry the fallout into the desert rather than towards the city.

In all, some 235 bombs and warheads of various sizes were detonated, and the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce saw each of them as a means of further enticing people to visit the city and participate in what the New York Times once referred to as “the non-ancient but nonetheless honourable pastime of atom-bomb watching”. Calendars and community announcements would be published months in advance, hotels offers special deals and host “Bomb Parties” so people could drink and dance the night away and then pop outside to witness the distant flash lighting up the sky followed by the roiling mass of a mushroom cloud climbing into the heavens.

These were the heady years in which the future of America was seen as being driven by the awesome power of “atomics”, an age when people would soon be living in ultra-modern towns where everything would be powered by the miracle of  nuclear fission, allowing it to become less a weapon system to be feared and more an unlimited, cheap, and an available-to-all source of energy.

This odd little period in US history when the raw power of nuclear fission was both feared and celebrated, forms the cornerstone of imagining for Hillvale Beach, a public /private Full region designed by Lauren Bentham as the latest in her on-going series of settings which are rightly recognised for their richness of character and ability to immerse visitors. It represents a town which came of age in the 1950s – possibly the result of it being located near some now long-forgotten off-shore weapons testing, but which has, as the Destination Guide description notes, has been bypassed by time to be left to rot slowly and darkly, forgotten and lost.

Thus on arrival, visitors are greeted by an environment rich in symbols and icons of the 1950s – the roadside family diner, the broad billboards promoting rosy new ways of living within new environments, the smiling, happy presence of the Atomic Boy giving the thumbs-up to a wonderful nuclear-powered future – and more.

However, none of this is pristine or shiny; Hillvale Beach is a place to which time has not been kind. Forgotten by most, it has slowly eroded and collapsed upon itself both physically and metaphorically, become what is essentially a carcass of a bygone era; a place where the sands are slowly reclaiming the roads, where amusement parks offer dangers more than thrills as they slowly collapse and surviving attractions appear more like grotesques than invitations for fun.

In this one might perhaps discern another story here; one darker still, whereby the decay and ruin of the town is not so much due to it being lost and forgotten as time marched ever forwards, but rather the result of one of those tests that once draw tourists and thrill-seekers here  having gone horribly wrong, leaving only destruction in its wake. Hence why, perhaps, a faintly glowing cloud of material swirls over the roads and buildings and attractions, whilst the western sky is dominated by a nebula-like form that might so easily be the detonation of an air-burst weapon.

It is in these twists of potential narrative that Hilldale Beach – like so many of Lauren’s designs – captivates when visiting. This is a setting which simply offers the imagination to take flight, to see within it what we will and got where whatever strands of story suggest themselves to us. And, of course, there is the inevitable attention to detail and considered placement of buildings, artefacts and items which is (again) Lauren’s hallmark, and which serves to further weave a sense that we are indeed travelling through a place extruded from the 1950s into our present-day.

From the advertising hoarding reminiscent of the period through to the inclusion of Betty Boop (whose original 1930s films enjoyed a resurgence in popularity after Paramount Pictures sold them for syndication on US television) passing by way of the assorted car designs and the subtle pointers to Las Vegas and its role as a destination for the Nuclear Tourist, Hillvale Beach is a thoroughly engaging and engrossing setting; a dystopian time capsule from some version of the 1950s, if you will. And whilst it offers bother rentals as well as public spaces, the former are neatly, naturally and clearly separated from the latter, allowing visitors to explore in the confidence that they will not unknowingly encroach on the privacy of local residents.

SLurl Details

• Hillvale Beach (Thorny Nook, rated Moderate)