Have you seen this man?

That guy, the fourth goombah from the left. That’s Milton Jaffe, onetime managing director of the Stardust and someone whose dusty trail I’m trying to retrace for LVA.com’s “Question of the Day.” (Second from the left is Joe DiMaggio and center is Jimmy Durante, two men who require no introduction.) Unlike many other casino-industry figures of the Fifties and Sixties, Jaffe is pretty much forgotten in Sin City. You’ll search the last 15 years of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and not get a hit. Ditto the more extensive — if somewhat haphazard — online archives of the Las Vegas Sun. Except for a passing mention in The First 100, you’d scarce know he existed.

There’s a torrent of incoming news from the present-day casino industry — such as CityCenter claiming its first victim — but for the time being, it’s me, Mr. Jaffe and 100-odd entries in the House Select Committee on Assassination‘s files. To be followed by a potted version of the life of Jay Sarno. Well, maybe the latter will whet people’s appetites for the proper Sarno biography currently being penned by David G. Schwartz. That volume is certain to be a must-have volume for one’s Vegas library.

Speaking of history, a redevelopment of two parking lots near the Thomas & Mack Arena on the UNLV campus could spell doom for the Hilton-Caesars Fountain, which sits at the corner of Swenson and Tropicana avenues. Since a long stretch of Swenson (an important corridor from McCarran International Airport) would be plowed under to make room for an Ed Roski-financed stadium/retail/residential development, the now-dry fountain could go with it, should the Silverton owner get his way. At least UNLV has started trimming the nearby foliage again, instead of trying to hide the anachronistic corporate souvenir behind a thicket of flora.