“Sin City” kissed the Tropicana goodbye before dawn Wednesday in an elaborate implosion that reduced the last real mob building on the Las Vegas Strip to rubble.
The towers of the Tropicana hotel collapsed in a celebration that included a fireworks show. It was the first implosion in nearly a decade in a city that loves new beginnings and has made casino implosions as much a part of its identity as the game itself.
“What Las Vegas has done, in classic Las Vegas style, is turn a lot of these implosions into spectacles,” he said. Geoff Schumacherhistorian and vice president of exhibitions and programs at the Mafia Museum.
Former casino magnate Steve Wynn changed the way Las Vegas explodes casinos in 1993 with the implosion of the Dunes to make way for the Bellagio. Wynn not only thought of televising the event, he created a fantastic story for the implosion that made it look like the pirate ships at his other casino across the street were shooting up the Dunes.
Since then, Schumacher said, There was a feeling in Las Vegas that destruction of that magnitude was worth witnessing.
The city hasn’t blown up a Strip casino since 2016, when the last Riviera tower was torn down to expand a convention center.
This time, The implosion cleared land for a $1.5 billion baseball stadium for the relocated Oakland Athletics team.part of the city’s latest rebranding to turn it into a sports hub.
That will leave only the city’s mafia-era Flamingo 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 hangout for the legendary Rat Pack, while its past under the mafia has long cemented its place in Las Vegas lore.
It was opened in 1957 with three floors and 300 hotel rooms divided into two wings.
As Las Vegas evolved rapidly in the following decades, including a megaresort construction boom on the Strip in the 1990s, the Tropicana also underwent major changes. In later years two hotel towers were added. In 1979, the casino’s prized $1 million green and amber glass roof was installed above the casino floor.
However, the Tropicana Hotel’s original lower wings survived numerous renovations, making it the last true mafia 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 debuted. He survived, but the investigation led police to a piece of paper in his jacket pocket with the exact figure of the Tropicana’s profits, which revealed the mafia’s involvement in the casino.
In the 1970s, federal authorities investigating mobsters in Kansas City charged more than a dozen agents with conspiring to steal $2 million in gambling revenue from Las Vegas casinos, including the Tropicana. Charges related solely to the Tropicana led to five convictions.
There were no public viewing areas for the event, but Tropicana fans had a chance in April to say goodbye to the old Las Vegas relic.
“Old Vegas is leaving”Joe Zappulla, a New Jersey resident, said tearfully as he left the casino shortly before the doors were locked.
(with information from AP)