October 10th 2024.
As the sun rose over Sin City on Wednesday morning, the Tropicana bid its final farewell with a grand implosion. The iconic building, the last of its kind on the bustling Las Vegas Strip, crumbled into a pile of rubble. It was a bittersweet moment for the city, known for its love of fresh starts and its famous casino implosions.
The implosion of the Tropicana was a spectacle to behold, complete with a dazzling fireworks display. It was the first implosion in nearly a decade, and it was met with great fanfare. For Las Vegas, these implosions have become a part of its identity, just as much as gambling itself.
Geoff Schumacher, a historian and vice president at the Mob Museum, noted that Las Vegas has a knack for turning these implosions into extravagant events. He recalled how former casino mogul Steve Wynn changed the game in 1993 with the implosion of the Dunes, which made way for the Bellagio. Wynn not only televised the event, but also created a fantastical story that involved pirate ships firing at the Dunes from his other casino across the street.
This approach set the tone for future implosions, with the city embracing the idea that destruction on such a grand scale was worth witnessing. However, it has been four years since the last implosion on the Strip, when the final tower of the Riviera was demolished to make room for a convention center expansion. This time, the Tropicana's implosion paved the way for a new $1.5 billion baseball stadium for the Oakland Athletics, further cementing the city's rebrand as a sports hub.
With the Tropicana's demolition, only the Flamingo remains as a reminder of the city's mob era. However, Schumacher noted that the Flamingo's original structures have long been replaced, with a complete rebuild in the 1990s. The Tropicana, on the other hand, was the third-oldest casino on the Strip and had been a popular spot for 67 years before closing its doors in April.
In its heyday, the Tropicana was known as the "Tiffany of the Strip" for its opulence and was a frequent haunt of the legendary Rat Pack. But its past ties to organized crime have also solidified its place in Las Vegas lore. Originally opened in 1957 with 300 hotel rooms split into two wings, the Tropicana underwent major renovations over the years, including the addition of two hotel towers in the 1990s.
However, the original low-rise hotel wings remained, making it the last true mob structure on the Strip. Behind the scenes, the Tropicana had ties to reputed mobster Frank Costello, who was shot in the head just weeks after the casino's debut. Though he survived, the investigation revealed the mob's involvement in the casino, with police finding a piece of paper in Costello's coat pocket with the Tropicana's exact earnings figure.
In the 1970s, federal authorities investigating mobsters in Kansas City also uncovered a scheme to skim $2 million in gambling revenue from Las Vegas casinos, including the Tropicana. This led to multiple convictions, further solidifying the Tropicana's reputation as a mob hotspot.
For the public, there were no designated viewing areas for the implosion, but fans of the Tropicana were given a chance to say goodbye in April. Joe Zappulla, a teary-eyed resident from New Jersey, said it best as he exited the casino before its closure: "Old Vegas, it's going." In a city that's constantly changing and evolving, moments like these serve as a reminder of the rich history and enduring charm of vintage Vegas.
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