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Issue
59
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October
23 - 29, 2001
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Volume
2
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page 1
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This Issue Gaming
News Casino Del Sol To Open This Month Stations Casino and Rande Gerber To Open Whisky Sky Gaming Industry Sees First Permanent Job Casualties Since Sept. 11 as Flamingo Reno Closes Net Gambling Provisions Axed from Anti-Terrorism Act Columns Show Time
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Desert
Inn Hotel Is Demolished
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LAS VEGAS - /AP/ - The Desert Inn's 15-story Augusta tower, a symbol of old Las Vegas on the city's famous Strip, was demolished on October 23 with staccato-controlled explosions and a cloud of dust. The implosion of the 50-year-old building, which once featured Frank Sinatra and was home to Howard Hughes, clears the way for developer Steve Wynn to build a new hotel on the same site. "This is Vegas. There's a lot of hotels around here, but they say this one's got to go,'' said Amy Lowers, 26, of Olympia, Wash. Lowers sipped lemonade-liquor drinks with others in town for the National Association of Convenience Stores convention, waiting for the 2 a.m. blast. It was muted compared to previous Las Vegas hotel implosions. Eight or 10 booms, a crackle of firecracker-like pops and the building - having already been stripped to a honeycomb shell of cement - shuddered and collapsed. "People think you're trying to blow something up,'' Doug Loizeaux, vice president of Baltimore-based Controlled Demolition, said as dust began to billow. "Actually, it has its own energy. You let gravity bring it down.'' Loizeaux's company also imploded the Dunes in 1993, the Landmark in 1995, the Sands in 1996, the Hacienda on New Year's Eve 1996, and the El Rancho last year. Loizeaux said 248 pounds of explosives were used Tuesday. No mishaps were reported. "What we blasted was essentially a concrete framework,'' Loizeaux said. "Everything combustible was taken out. All that's left is recyclable.'' With no wind on a 68-degree early morning, the dust wafted like fog east over the Desert Inn Golf Course and the Las Vegas Convention Center. |
Wynn has filed plans with the Clark County Planning Commission for a 45-story, 514-foot glass tower with 2,455 rooms. It would be called Le Reve, French for "The Dream.'' Wynn is credited with starting the megaresort boom on the Las Vegas Strip in the 1990s. Among the hotel-casinos he developed before selling them to MGM Grand Inc. last year are the Bellagio, Mirage and Treasure Island. |
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