*Orange* you glad?
Posted on 10/09/2024 7:11:32 AM PDT by Red Badger
Sin City blew a kiss goodbye to the Tropicana before first light Wednesday in an elaborate implosion that reduced to rubble the last true mob building on the Las Vegas Strip.
The Tropicana's hotel towers tumbled in a celebration that included a fireworks display. It was the first implosion in nearly a decade for a city that loves fresh starts and that has made casino implosions as much a part of its identity as gambling itself.
The casino came down with a seven-minute celebration involving 550 drones and 150 "pyrodrones" counting down to the controlled demolition of the resort originally erected in 1957, CBS affiliate KLAS-TV reported.
"What Las Vegas has done, in classic Las Vegas style, they've turned many of these implosions into spectacles," said Geoff Schumacher, historian and vice president of exhibits and programs at the Mob Museum.
Former casino mogul Steve Wynn changed the way Las Vegas blows up casinos in 1993 with the implosion of the Dunes to make room for the Bellagio. Wynn thought not only to televise the event but created a fantastical story for the implosion that made it look like pirate ships at his other casino across the street were firing at the Dunes.
From then on, Schumacher said, there was a sense in Las Vegas that destruction at that magnitude was worth witnessing.
The city hasn't blown up a Strip casino since 2016, when the final tower of the Riviera was leveled for a convention center expansion.
This time, the implosion cleared land for a $1.5 billion baseball stadium for the relocating Oakland Athletics, part of the city's latest rebrand into a sports hub.
That will leave only the Flamingo from the city's mob era on the Strip. But, Schumacher said, the Flamingo's original structures are long gone. The casino was completely rebuilt in the 1990s.
The Tropicana, the third-oldest casino on the Strip, closed in April after welcoming guests for 67 years.
Once known as the "Tiffany of the Strip" for its opulence, it was a frequent haunt of the legendary Rat Pack, while its past under the mob has long cemented its place in Las Vegas lore.
It opened in 1957 with three stories and 300 hotel rooms split into two wings.
As Las Vegas rapidly evolved in the following decades, including a building boom of Strip megaresorts in the 1990s, the Tropicana also underwent major changes. Two hotel towers were added in later years. In 1979, the casino's beloved $1 million green-and-amber stained glass ceiling was installed above the casino floor.
The Tropicana's original low-rise hotel wings survived the many renovations, however, making it the last true mob structure on the Strip.
Behind the scenes of the casino's grand opening, the Tropicana had ties to organized crime, largely through reputed mobster Frank Costello.
Costello was shot in the head in New York weeks after the Tropicana's debut. He survived, but the investigation led police to a piece of paper in his coat pocket with the Tropicana's exact earnings figure, revealing the mob's stake in the casino.
By the 1970s, federal authorities investigating mobsters in Kansas City charged more than a dozen operatives with conspiring to skim $2 million in gambling revenue from Las Vegas casinos, including the Tropicana. Charges connected to the Tropicana alone resulted in five convictions.
KLAS-TV reported that the resort also served as Michael Corleone's Las Vegas casino business in the 1972 film "The Godfather."
There were no public viewing areas for the event, but fans of the Tropicana did have a chance in April to bid farewell to the vintage Vegas relic.
"Old Vegas, it's going," Joe Zappulla, a teary-eyed New Jersey resident, said at the time as he exited the casino, shortly before the locks went on the doors.
As KLAS-TV notes, other long-gone Las Vegas hotels include The New Frontier, The Stardust Resort and Casino, Castaways Hotel and Casino, Boardwalk Hotel and Casino, Bourbon Street Hotel and Casino, Desert Inn, El Rancho, Aladdin, Hacienda, Sands, Landmark, and The Dunes.
true dat.
I liked the $5 shrimp cocktails.
We stayed in the Tropicana a couple of times in the ‘80s, in Vegas for work, believe it or not. Pretty nice but dated even then. Oh well, see ya...
I went a while back when the NFR moved the finals from OKC to Vegas. I hated it and will never go back to the rodeo or the town. The rodeo metastasized itself into a pop culture freak show because of the move. It was awesome in OKC and in the middle of the country, so accessible to more people. OKC even offered to build a new arena, but they moved anyway to sh_tville.
I worked at a molybdenum mine about 90 miles west of Las Vegas around 1974. It was a short job, only a couple weeks or so. Back then, it was the “Old” mob-era Las Vegas, with none of the modern glitz that Steve Wynn started in the 80s. Since then, I’ve only flown through the Las Vegas airport and not set foot downtown. I prefer to remember the place the way it was.
I remember taking a girl I met to a floor show. As the maître d’ was taking us to our seats, this worldly young man casually slipped him a $1 bill. He snuck a glance at his hand and he immediately u-turned back to the nosebleed section.
Yeah me too. Maybe it was the way the Dunes was oriented in regards to Treasure Island. What confused me even more is the Mirage and Ceasars are between the two properties. Looking at a map perhaps if the shots went past the front of them it might work. I guess it did when it happened.
Yes, and the $0.99 breakfast buffets and the $1 blackjack tables.
This 20-minute Stan Freberg skit illustrates "classic Las Vegas style" done to the extreme. Unlike today's woke and angry "comedians" like Steve Colbert, who are anything but funny, Freberg knew how to generate laughter. You will find this especially funny if you are familiar with the news events and popular culture of the mid-1950s.
Incident at Los Varoces--Stan Freberg (1957)
elevation and windage. LOL!
*Orange* you glad?
Yeah. Don’t bet on it being the last “mob building”
The mob was *squeezed* out of the city quite a while ago. An ex-coworker spoke of relatives who were, uh, in the biz in Vegas, one was deceased, the other was her cousin. I web searched and found remnants of a former whorehouse that he ran, along with pictures of the greasy little reptile himself.
Prime rib dinners for two dollars, cheep rooms and drinks. Safety ensured by mobsters who protected their clients with an iron fist.
They were run out of town by cooperate mobsters backed by the federal government. Now the food and everything else is of low standards and way over priced. You are only safe if you stay in the casino.
Step outside and you are on your own.
I usually go there once a year or so for trade shows. I hate the place. They hate me. I’ve never spent a penny at the tables despite spending a couple months of my life there.
So were Chicago and NYC...
During the 1990s and until 9/11, my wife and I made 4 trips a year to Las Vegas...
It took the moslems to end those trips...
Fortunately, for us, many casinos have been established all around the eastern U.S.
Just an hour ago, we returned from a trip (35 min each way) to the MGM at National Harbor...
Maybe not the best, but beats taking a chance on terrorism, DEI, or Boeing junk...
I'm going with the mafia
Yeah but the general food was subpar, the drinks watered down, stale beer in tiny orange juice glasses, etc.
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