Top 10 Las Vegas Casino Demolitions
Las Vegas fiascos don’t come much bigger than the saga of the Harmon Hotel tower.
14 Comments on Top Ten Vegas Casino Demolitions cato October 12, 2017 at 10:11 pm The disappointing fact was, they were rebuilt. Derek Stevens, CEO and developer of Circa Resort and Casino, signs the last steel beam before it is hoisted on top of Circa’s hotel tower, the tallest building north of the Las Vegas Strip, on. The Landmark hotel was built in 1963, but didn't open until 1969. It stood tall and proud to be Howard Hughes' vision come true. The Jetsons-esque architecture was both loved and hated in the community. In 1995 it became the second major property in Las Vegas to be imploded.
The ill-fated Harmon, part of the CityCenter project, was partially erected, then in 2008, engineers found building defects which made the building dangerous and uninhabitable.
At right, the Harmon Hotel on July 31, 2013, dubbed the world’s most expensive billboard.
Originally, the Harmon Hotel was designed to be 47 stories tall, a prominent feature on the Las Vegas Strip’s distinctive skyline. The Harmon was situated next to the Cosmopolitan hotel, and across the street from Harmon Corner, a shopping center.
The beginning of the end for the Harmon Hotel. Date: July 26, 2014.
When defects were found, construction was stopped at 26 floors.
A decision was made to demolish Harmon tower in a unique way: It would be dismantled, top to bottom and floor by floor.
A dark mesh works its way up the fact of the doomed Harmon tower. Date: Aug. 4, 2014.
The costs involved in this cluster of a building project are staggering.
It’s estimated Harmon Hotel cost $275 million to build.
Taking it down cost $173 million.
The Harmon starts to experience some shrinkage. Date: Oct. 18, 2014.
Yes, that seems like a lot of money, but everything’s bigger in Las Vegas, including our debacles.
Let’s just say there were a lot of fat, happy lawyers at the end of the whole Harmon Hotel ordeal. The legal battle over who did what to whom at the Harmon took four years.
Think of it as a passive-aggressive implosion. Date: Jan. 1, 2015.
To give you some idea of how complicated the legal issues were related to the Harmon tower case, there were a staggering three million digitally-stored pieces of evidence involved. Had the case not been settled, somebody’s hard drive would’ve been fried.
The Las Vegas skyline evolves, in reverse. Date: Mar. 1, 2015.
The Harmon Hotel was built and removed before hosting even a single guest.
Because of the Harmon’s proximity to other structures, an implosion was deemed implausible. Las Vegas always makes a big deal out of its implosions, but in the case of Harmon tower, the building went away with nary a whimper, rather than exiting with a hurrah. Honestly, we’re not even sure there are hurrahs anymore. They’ve been replaced by BFDs. And narys, you never see those anymore, either.
But you get the drift.
One of the best things about tracking the Harmon Hotel demolition was visiting our favorite “breastaurant,” Twin Peaks, across the street. Date: May 7, 2015.
Over the course of months, the Harmon tower was taken apart, a process mostly hidden behind a dark mesh.
The end is nigh, despite the fact there’s been no recorded use of the word nigh since 1984. Date: June 19, 2015.
Slowly and meticulously, with minimal disruption to the surrounding area and pedestrian walkways, what began as 26 floors became just two or three.
Top 10 Las Vegas Casino Demolitions
How a Vegas magician didn’t figure out how to take credit for the disappearance of the Harmon, we’ll never know. Date: July 12, 2015.
At one point, the Harmon’s builder, Tudor Perini Building Co., said it would cost $21 million to fix the building’s problems. But all the testing on the building, the same testing that determined it wouldn’t survive a magnitude 7.7 earthquake, made the building unrepairable. Ah, the circularity of the universe.
A momentary pause in the demolition to build the drama. Date: Aug. 3, 2015.
On Aug. 4, 2015, during an MGM Resorts earnings call, CEO Jim Murren said the company had “finished deconstructing the nightmare that was the Harmon.”
A day or two before the crane, too, went the way of the Harmon. Date: Sep. 1, 2015.
Eventually, the tower reached “ground” level, and the crane that hovered over the Harmon demolition went away, too.
The Harmon demolition hits bottom. Date: Sep. 27, 2015.
The Harmon Hotel drama is destined to be one of the more remarkable enigmas of the Las Vegas Strip as the months and years tick by. Many Vegas visitors won’t even realize it existed at all.
Imagine the architects and hundreds of construction workers who built the Harmon collectively face-palming right about now. Date: Sep. 28, 2015.
In Vegas, buildings rise and fall with such regularity, we tend to forget what complex feats of engineering and construction we’re witnessing, until something goes sideways.
The future of the space formerly occupied by the Harmon Hotel is unknown, but an expansion of the adjacent Shops At Crystals mall, and the addition of more high-end retail space, seems a likely eventuality.
If you build it, they will come. If you tear it down, they’ll still come, it’ll be super awkward. Date: Sep. 28, 2015.
Here’s our complete collection of photos taken during the course of the Harmon tower demolition. For posterity, and as a cautionary tale. Las Vegas history has a metric ass-ton of those.
Harmon Hotel Demolition
Las Vegas is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States, with about 40 million people a year visiting one of the only places in the world where people can indulge in their wildest fantasies. While Las Vegas is one of the most fantastical and busiest cities in the world, it wasn’t always this way. The area was originally occupied by Native Americans before the first Europeans arrived in 1829. Nevada became a state in 1864 and the town of Las Vegas was established in 1905.
A year later, the first hotel opened on Fremont Street and is amazingly still in operation today. Since then, Las Vegas has not stopped growing and while many of the old hotels and casinos have closed down, several of the city’s original hotels are still thriving.
10. Harrah’s Las Vegas
Harrah’s Las Vegas was not the first Harrah’s hotel and casino in Nevada – founder Bill Harrah started his empire in nearby Reno in 1937/38. The hotel was originally opened in 1973 as the Holiday Casino by former Silver Slipper casino owners, Shelby and Claudine Williams. The Holiday Casino had a riverboat theme. A few years after Shelby Williams died, Holiday Inns, Inc. acquired Holiday Casino as well as Harrah’s Hotel Casino Company.
In 1992, the hotel’s name was changed to Harrah’s Las Vegas and a couple of years later, the riverboat theme was dropped in favor of a carnival/Mardi Gras theme, which the hotel still maintains today. Harrah’s Las Vegas recently had a $140 million renovation just in time for the 80th anniversary of the Harrah’s Hotel Casino Company in early 2018.
9. Circus Circus
Circus Circus is famous for its carnival theme and the Adventuredome indoor amusement park. The circus themed hotel was opened by Jay Sarno, who wanted to followup the success of Caesars Palace with a place that could be enjoyed by all members of the family. It was the first property in Las Vegas designed to attract families. Sarno was initially so impressed with his circus theme that he opened the casino without finishing the hotel rooms.
However, Sarno’s gamble nearly failed and the Circus Circus was almost shut down. The hotel portion of Circus Circus was finally completed in 1972 and Sarno sold the hotel two years later. Circus Circus was expanded over the years and the Adventuredome was added in 1993 and remains the hotel’s most popular attraction.
8. Caesars Palace
Caesars Palace is one of the only hotels on this list that has kept it original name and theme since it was first opened. Although there were a few other hotels with distinct themes opened earlier, Caesars Palace is considered the first true themed resort in Las Vegas. Caesars Palace was opened by hotelier Jay Sarno, who wanted the hotel to be opulent and over the top.
From the start, Caesars Palace was a place of excess. The grand opening party cost $1 million and had famous guests such as Johnny Carson, Jimmy Hoffa, and a young Steve Wynn. Over the years, Caesars Palace expanded and in 1992 a large luxury mall called the Forum Shops was added to the hotel. Caesars Palace has also hosted several famous musicians like Frank Sinatra, Diana Ross, Celine Dion, and Elton John.
7. The LINQ Hotel & Casino
Of all the hotels on this list, the LINQ Hotel & Casino, has had the most identity changes since it was originally opened as the Flamingo Capri motel in 1959. The Flamingo Capri was a luxury motel built near the Flamingo Hotel & Casino, hence its name – the Flamingo Hotel also agreed to provide hotel services to the motel’s guests. In 1971, Ralph Engelstad purchased the Flamingo Capri and expanded the motel by adding additional buildings as well as a casino in 1972.
Engelstad kept making the motel larger until it was officially large enough to qualify as a hotel and he changed its name and theme to the Imperial Palace in 1979. The hotel operated as the Imperial Palace for over 30 years before it was acquired by the Caesars Entertainment Corporation in 2011. Caesars briefly named the hotel The Quad Resort and Casino before finally settling on the LINQ Hotel & Casino in 2014.
Demolition Las Vegas Nv
6. Tropicana Las Vegas
The Tropicana Las Vegas opened on April 4, 1957 and was the first hotel in Las Vegas designed as a resort hotel rather than a typical hotel and casino. The founder of the Tropicana, Ben Jaffee (a Miami hotelier), wanted to build a luxurious and classier hotel in the city and chose a tropical theme for the aptly named Tropicana. At the time, the Tropicana was the most expensive hotel ever built in Las Vegas.
Although Jafee was the owner of the Tropicana, the hotel was built and operated by Conquistador Inc., which was owned by “Dandy” Phil Kastel. Kastel had strong connections to the mob through his long partnership with mobster Frank Costello. Since then, the Tropicana has been renovated a few times and the hotel is currently owned and operated by Penn National Gaming is a franchise of Hilton’s DoubleTree chain.
5. SLS Las Vegas
photo source:Flickr via kennejimaphoto source: Wikimedia Commons
Although the SLS Las Vegas hotel may not have anything to with its iconic predecessor, the Sahara Hotel and Casino, it is still technically the same hotel because the original building is still being used. SLS Las Vegas is only four years old, but the Sahara was open for nearly 60 years. The Sahara opened in 1952 and had a North African theme in homage to the famous desert it was named after.
The Sahara was successful for several decades, before it slowly declined in popularity. After several last ditch attempts to help the Sahara stay afloat, it finally shut down in the spring of 2011. The hotel’s owner, SBE Entertainment Group, decided to completely overhaul the Sahara and reopen under a modern luxury concept called the SLS Las Vegas.
4. Flamingo Las Vegas
The Flamingo Las Vegas is the oldest hotel on the Strip (the modern Strip) and has been in continuous operation since December 1946. Billy Wilkerson, the founder of The Hollywood Reporter magazine, was the man behind the idea of the Flamingo.
Wilkerson, along with notorious mobster Bugsy Siegel, wanted to build a hotel and casino that would basically “trap” gamblers in and keep them playing for hours – this was the start of the way modern casinos in Las Vegas and around the world operate today. The Flamingo was the first casino to have no clocks or windows so gamblers would lose track of time. It was also the first hotel in Las Vegas to ditch the old Wild West themes and opt for glitz and glamour instead.
3. The Golden Nugget Las Vegas
Today, the Golden Nugget is a small chain of hotels/casinos with locations in Biloxi, Atlantic City, Laughlin, Lake Charles, and the original in Las Vegas. Like many of the oldest hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, the Golden Nugget’s history is tied to the mob. The original Golden Nugget was opened in 1946 by Guy McAfee, a kingpin in the illegal gambling scene of Los Angeles who had fled to Las Vegas.
McAfee is credited with coining “The Strip”, the name used for the main area of Las Vegas’ hotels and casinos. When it was first built, the Golden Nugget was the flashiest and biggest casino in the world. It was also the first building in Las Vegas to built as a stand alone casino.
2. El Cortez
Although the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino is older by several decades, El Cortez bills itself as the longest continuously running hotel and casino in Las Vegas. El Cortez was opened in 1941 by John Kell Houssels, John Grayson, and Marion Hicks. It was the first major resort in Downtown Las Vegas. A few years later Houssels, Grayson, and Hicks sold El Cortez to group that included Gus Greenbaum, Moe Sedway, Bugsy Siegel, and Dave Berman.
After Houssels reacquired El Cortez in 1946, the hotel was remodeled in 1952 – a neon arrow, marquee, and large roof sign was added and are still present today. While El Cortez has modernized its interior and rooms, the facade is still the same as it was in 1952. Due to the outside of the building being unchanged, El Cortez was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2013.
1. Golden Gate Hotel and Casino
The Golden Gate Hotel and Casino first opened its doors at the beginning of 1906, making it the oldest hotel (and casino) in Las Vegas. The opening of the Golden Gate Hotel (originally Hotel Nevada) is considered the birth of Las Vegas. It was the first hotel built on Fremont Street, which is the founding site of the city of Las Vegas.
Several Las Vegas firsts happened at the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino, including having the city’s first telephone installed (the Golden Gate’s phone number was 1); putting up a large outdoor sign, a precursor to Las Vegas’ iconic neon lights; and being the birthplace of the shrimp cocktail. The Golden Gate Hotel and Casino is still going strong today and many of the original rooms have been updated and are still being used.
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