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Las Vegas Says Goodbye To The Tropicana With A Flashy Casino Implosion
LAS VEGAS — Sin City bid farewell to the Tropicana before dawn Wednesday, razing the last authentic mob edifice on the Las Vegas Strip.
The Tropicana’s hotel towers collapsed in a celebration that included a fireworks show. It was the first implosion in nearly a decade in a city that values new beginnings and has made casino explosions as much a part of its identity as gaming.
“What Las Vegas has done, in classic Las Vegas style, is turn many of these implosions into spectacles,” explained Geoff Schumacher, historian and vice president of exhibits and programs at the Mob Museum.
Las Vegas Says Goodbye To The Tropicana With A Flashy Casino Implosion
In 1993, former casino mogul Steve Wynn altered the way Las Vegas blows up casinos by imploding the Dunes to make way for the Bellagio. Wynn not only planned to broadcast the event, but he also concocted a fantasy scenario for the implosion that made it appear as if pirate ships from his other casino across the street were firing at the Dunes.
According to Schumacher, there was a notion in Las Vegas that such carnage was worth watching.
The city hasn’t blown up a Strip casino since 2016, when the Riviera’s final tower was demolished for a convention center expansion.
This time, the implosion cleared the way for a $1.5 billion baseball stadium for the relocated Oakland Athletics, as part of the city’s recent rebranding as a sports hub.
This will leave only the Flamingo from the city’s mob heyday on the Strip. However, Schumacher stated that the Flamingo’s original structures are now gone. The casino was entirely refurbished during the 1990s.
The Tropicana, the Strip’s third-oldest casino, closed in April after serving customers for 67 years.
It was once regarded as the “Tiffany of the Strip” due to its grandeur, and it was a favorite haunt of the renowned Rat Pack, while its mob history has long established its place in Las Vegas culture.
It debuted in 1957, with three floors and 300 hotel rooms divided into two wings.
As Las Vegas changed over the next few decades, including a building boom of Strip megaresorts in the 1990s, the Tropicana experienced significant alterations. Later years saw the addition of two hotel towers. The $1 million green-and-amber stained glass roof above the casino floor was erected in 1979.
The Tropicana’s original low-rise hotel wings, however, withstood numerous modifications, making it the only real mob edifice on the Strip.
Las Vegas Says Goodbye To The Tropicana With A Flashy Casino Implosion
Behind the scenes of the casino’s big launch, the Tropicana was linked to organized crime, primarily through reputed gangster Frank Costello.
Costello was shot in the head in New York, only weeks after the Tropicana debuted. He survived, but the investigation led authorities to a piece of paper in his coat pocket containing the Tropicana’s exact earnings amount, which revealed the mob’s stake in the casino.
By the 1970s, federal agents investigating mobsters in Kansas City had accused over a dozen operatives of conspiring to steal $2 million in gaming revenue from Las Vegas casinos, including the Tropicana. Five people were convicted solely on Tropicana-related charges.
The event had no public viewing locations, but Tropicana aficionados had the opportunity to say goodbye to the vintage Vegas relic in April.
SOURCE | AP