By SALLY HO, Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Riviera Hotel and Casino — the Las
Vegas Strip's first high-rise that was as famous for its mobster ties as its
Hollywood personification of Sin City's mobster past — will officially exit the
scene on Tuesday with a cinematic implosion, complete with fireworks.
"The Riv" closed in May 2015 after 60 years on the
northern end of the Strip. The shuttered casino's owners, the Las Vegas
Convention and Visitors Authority, are spending $42 million to level the
13-building campus.
Officials said the 24-story Monaco Tower will go down at 2
a.m. Tuesday, and the Monte Carlo Tower will be imploded in August. The tourism
agency bought the 2,075-room property across 26 acres last year for $182.5
million, plus $8.5 million in related transaction costs, with plans to expand
its Las Vegas Convention Center.
The Riviera's 15-to 20-seconds-long implosion will mark the
latest kiss goodbye to what's left among the relics to Vegas' mobster past.
"Ironically, the Riviera is as famous for its imaginary
self as much as its actual self," said Geoff Schumacher of the National
Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, also known as the Mob Museum in
Las Vegas.
Most of its contemporaries have been long gone, with only
the Tropicana and Flamingo casinos still in business. The Flamingo has been
completely rebuilt at its original location, but the Tropicana still has pieces
of its original building, making it the last true mob structure on the Strip,
said Michael Green, Nevada historian and a professor at the University of
Nevada, Las Vegas.
When The Riviera opened in 1955, organized crime outfits
from across the country had already sunk their teeth into the casinos in a
takeover that had started the decade before. Gambling profits were skimmed to
send back home to pay for their gangs' illegal enterprises involving illegal
betting, drugs, prostitution, murders and everything else. The mobsters were
known to have controlled the money-counting at the most famous casinos in their
day, including the Dunes, Sands, Desert Inn and Stardust — all of which have
already disappeared from the Strip.
"The Riviera was and always was the Chicago outfit's
crown jewel in the desert," Schumacher said.
A classic mob joint, the Riviera's place in that seedy time
is probably outranked by the Flamingo, historians said. That casino was run by
Bugsy Siegel, who is regarded as the most historically significant figure from
that era.
The casinos were cleaned up in the 1970s and 1980s, courtesy
of state and federal crackdowns on organized crime.
Hollywood's version of the past, however, would hoist the
Riviera to the top.
Three of the most famous movies ever filmed in Las Vegas
used the Riviera as a backdrop, including the Rat Pack's original 1960
"Ocean's 11," the 1971 James Bond film "Diamonds Are
Forever" and "Casino," the 1995 movie based on real-life Vegas
mobsters Frank Rosenthal and Anthony Spilotro during their 1970s heyday at the
Stardust. More recently, it was featured in "The Hangover" in 2009.
The Riviera also pioneered the business model that helped
Vegas turn into an entertainment capital. The casino's first headliner was
Liberace. Dean Martin was a part-owner for a short time as part of his
exclusive residency.
"(The Riviera) looked like a 50s Rat Pack casino up
until yesterday," Schumacher said.
Copyright
2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.