The City that likes to forget

Can you imagine demolishing the Great Pyramid of Giza ‘for the sake of reinvention’? Or someone deciding to get rid of Big Ben to replace it with a digital clock?

Well, this kind of philosophy is common in Las Vegas, where casino life is as brief as the flashing of neon lights. In contrast to the rest of the world, where they try to preserve old buildings to keep them as historical heritage and silent witnesses to the passing of time, in the ‘city of sin’ they prefer to knock them down, as though they want to wipe out all traces of everything that went on there. After all, ‘whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’. Reduced to dust and ashes, if need be.

The most recent building to suffer this fate was the Clarion Hotel, in February 2015, the thirteenth such building to disappear since the trend for ‘detonating the past’ began in 1993. The first to go was the mythical Hotel Dunes, which opened in 1955 with the promise of becoming an oasis in the desert of Nevada. It achieved its purpose for a while, with even Frank Sinatra performing there. Today, the majestic Bellagio stands in its place. Another of the original classics lies under the foundations of The Venetian: The Sands. This was the casino that saw the birth of Rat Pack – the Sinatra clan – made up of Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop and Sinatra himself. It was finally demolished in 1996, 30 years after its golden era. It can be remembered in the movie ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ and, of course, in the many albums recorded by Ol' Blue Eyes.

But perhaps the most traumatic farewell of all was the disappearance of Stardust. It had opened its doors in 1958, boasting approximately 1000 rooms and decked out with an intergalactic theme. Popular culture remembers it as the place that inspired Scorsese’s movie ‘Casino’ (1995), based on the life of two mobsters who controlled the casino for the Chicago Mafia. In 2007, nearly 200 kilos of dynamite were used to bring it down.

There seems to be some sort of obsession with Las Vegas’ amnesia for its most emblematic buildings, as though a quest for eternal youth were forcing it to get rid of its memories. It might have something to do with the fact that its past is full of dark tales: organized crime governed the city until the beginning of the 80s and the great names of the hotels and casinos were inextricably linked to the great Mafia bosses. For example, Hotel Flamingo was named in honour the legs of Virginia Hill, the girlfriend of the mobster, Bugsy Siegel, the driving force behind the project. Quite simply, it was the Mafia that left its glamorous and decadent imprint on Las Vegas, turning it into a city of ill repute, infamous the world over.

But if the Mafia made Vegas what it was in decades gone by, it was Mr. Money who forged the city we know and (mostly) love today. As the character played by Robert De Niro in ‘Casino’ ruefully noted: "After the Tangiers, the big corporations took it all over. Today it looks like Disneyland." Indeed, once the Mafia had left the city, large corporations, most notably Caesars Entertainment or MGM Resorts International, built the mega-resorts that now dominate the Strip. Next to them, the old hotels from the 50s and 60s were starting to become at best obsolete, at worst an unwelcome reminder of less salubrious times. For Vegas to move on, they had to come down.

El Cortez and The Golden Nugget are two of the few buildings that have managed to survive the destruction fever. In comparison with the pool at the MGM Grand Hotel, or the special effects of the Volcano at The Mirage, there is not much they can offer the thrill-seeking visitor, apart from maybe offer us small morsels of the history that Las Vegas refuses to remember.

Bugsy Siegel, the mobster who imagined Las Vegas

Ben Siegel was the leader of organised crime in Los Angeles and a visionary. He wanted to convert the small workmen’s village of Las Vegas into the Monte Carlo of the United States: an oasis of luxury, lights, alcohol, gambling and women. He borrowed money from Lucky Luciano to start building his dream: Las Vegas’ first great resort, the Flamingo. When the hotel opened in 1946, it was a total flop and however much he tried, he did not manage to make it profitable. Bugsy was shot dead in 1947, before seeing his dream come true.

The destruction business

Controlled Demolition Inc. is the company that has demolished the majority of the casinos in Las Vegas. In an interview with the New York Times, its president Mark Loizeaux explained that his aim is to turn the controlled demolitions into small shows, in order to pay homage to the building and let it fill front covers for the last time. The corporation not only destroys abandoned buildings, it also works with Hollywood. For ‘Mars Attacks’, they used the implosion of the Landmark Casino as a key scene of alien destruction.