New Frontier - D-Day: November 13, 2007
TOP LAS VEGAS IMPLOSIONS DEMOLITION IN THE DESERT by
MARK COOMES
In this article, we highlight some of the
15-story casino collapse in less time than
history. Originally published in 2007, we
that’s a party.
most memorable implosions in Las Vegas felt this was a timeless feature that really never gets old. We hope you enjoy it! “What goes up, must come down” is
the most mundane law in the physical
universe, a reality as unremarkable as the sight of a ripe apple falling from a tree.
Leave it to Las Vegas to turn gravity into glitz – and put Wayne Newton and Isaac Newton on the same marquee. This is
what happens when physics and civics
collide: 20,000 people turn out to watch a 10
| G A M I N G A N D D E S T I N AT I O N S . C O M
it takes to play a hand of blackjack. Now In Sin City, the greatest transgression is not debauchery, drunkenness or losing Junior’s college fund to a one-armed
bandit. It is missing the opportunity
to turn an event into a spectacle – and
nothing is more spectacular than watching
a House of Cards fall like a house of cards. Vegas has seen an explosion of implosions in recent years. But with two exceptions,
every end was a new beginning. A bigger, badder, flashier playpen rose like a
phoenix to take its place. The Dunes was reborn as The Bellagio.
The Hacienda became Mandalay Bay. The New Frontier, razed last fall, will beget a yet-to-be-named super resort in 2011 – at a cost of $8 billion. Bugsy Siegel, the mobster who practically invented
Las Vegas, spent $7.994 billion less to
open The Flamingo in 1946. You have to wonder which would amaze him more:
How much construction prices have risen, or how fast these casinos can fall?
It’s called “controlled demolition,” and
