Las Vegas embraces mob roots with new attractions
LAS VEGAS (AP) -March 30, 2011
An interactive attraction featuring gangster memorabilia and
commentary from film mobsters James Caan, Mickey Rourke and Frank
Vincent opens Wednesday on the Las Vegas Strip. And Las Vegas Mayor
Oscar Goodman, a former mob defense lawyer, plans to launch his Las
Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement later this
year.
For Las Vegas, the attractions represent an unprecedented
embrace of its infamous founders.
"What differentiates us from any other city is our history,"
Goodman said. "This is the story of America."
The desert oasis made famous by scantily-clad showgirls,
ubiquitous slot machines and 24-hour happy hours has long
celebrated its reputation as a haven of vice, but its relationship
with the mob has taken a few hits in recent years. The city that
once proudly boasted of its ties to organized crime -Goodman played
himself in the 1995 mob movie "Casino"- has instead promoted its
family-friendly restaurants and Broadway shows for the past decade.
No more.
The Tropicana casino and hotel, a one-time hangout for organized
crime now more known for its bargain-counter room rates, celebrated
its new "Mob Experience" attraction Tuesday night with a red
carpet party attended by "Baywatch" siren Pamela Anderson and
comedian Rita Rudner, as well as a handful of mob heirs, including
the son of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, the inspiration for the
bloodthirsty Joe Pesci character in "Casino."
The sprawling casino attraction features the diary of mobster
Meyer Lansky, Spilotro's gun and family photos and home movies from
other infamous criminals. Visitors are greeted by life-size
holograms of chatty gangsters and a chance to get "made."
The publicly-funded mob museum, meanwhile, is slated to open in
December at a downtown Las Vegas courthouse where a detailed mob
hearing that helped expose organized crime to ordinary Americans
was held in 1950.
The $42 million museum started as an effort to save one of Las
Vegas' few historic buildings. It's amassed a wide collection of
gangster artifacts, including the wall from Chicago's St.
Valentine's Day massacre, the only gun recovered at the mass
shooting and the barber chair where hit man Albert Anastasia's life
came to an end in a 1957 New York murder.
"This isn't some lampoon," Goodman said. "It's not a gimmick.
This is going to be a real museum."
The museum will highlight money laundering schemes, mob violence
and the role organized crime played in Las Vegas and other cities.
Both Las Vegas attractions expect to lure hundreds of thousands
of visitors each year driven, at least in part, by the nation's
unquenched fascination with the silver screen mob bosses of
"Goodfellas" and "The Godfather."
"There is a certain excitement to think people who had done
illegal things and got away with it were in charge here," said
Alan Balboni, a Nevada historian.
Neither attraction has sidestepped controversy.
The Tropicana's Mob Experience was recently sued by the daughter
of notorious gangster Sam Giancana over an alleged breach of
contract involving the purchase of Giancana's furniture.
Critics have also slammed the attraction for being too
deferential to the family members of the gangsters. The exhibition
glosses over the mob bosses' violent histories while praising them
as handsome fathers. In one room, an actor asks visitors how a
petty casino thief should be punished for his crime. "Do we use a
shovel on him?" the actor asked an encouraging crowd during
Tuesday's grand opening.
At the same time, the mob museum has been hounded by criticism
that Goodman, a longtime mob ally, is glamorizing organized crime.
"Why are any of these brutal killers being honored? This is
nothing but gross sensationalism," said William Donati, an English
professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the author of
"Lucky Luciano: The Rise and Fall of a Mob Boss."
"This is the image of Las Vegas that we want to portray?"
Donati said. "What are they going to do next, have a show honoring
the drug cartels of Mexico?"
To appease critics and burnish its academic credentials, the mob
museum brought in historians, law enforcement officials and
acclaimed museum leaders to help build its collection.
Ellen Knowlton, a former FBI agent based in Las Vegas, said she
initially worried the project would romanticize mob culture after
Goodman asked her to head the not-for-profit museum. She focused on
the consequences of crime and persuaded collectors and federal
investigators to provide photographs, transcripts of wiretaps and
other materials from various mob investigations.
"If you thought organized crime was a glamorous lifestyle when
you walked into the museum, you won't feel that way when you walk
out," she said.
Like many of America's colorful cities, Las Vegas boasts a rich
history of hustlers, gangsters and hoodlums.
The city's backroom deals and money laundering schemes gained
worldwide notoriety because of criminal legends such as Benjamin
"Bugsy" Siegel, who ran the Flamingo hotel in the 1940s and named
it after his mistress. The racketeer was implicated in at least 30
murders, according to the FBI.
In later years, Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal ran the Chicago
mob-owned Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda and Marina casinos.
Unlike in other cities, where mob bosses fought for territory,
Las Vegas was deemed an open playground for gangsters of all
nationalities.
"This was the golden goose," said Michael Green, a historian
at the Community College of Southern Nevada who is working with the
mob museum. "Las Vegas was a young enough city not to be bound by
old elites and old rules."
Nevada's tightening regulations and increasingly corporate
culture began to turn off mobsters in the 1970's, allowing Las
Vegas to become the corporate-run tourist mecca it is today.
There are still those who long for the past. Longtime casino
workers frequently reminisce of the days when mob bosses delivered
flowing tips and safe streets.
Asked about the mob's decline, Goodman jested, "The real mob
disappeared a long time ago. That's the reason why I became mayor.
I had no more clients."