Those looking to take in a little Las Vegas history have about a month before the legendary Tropicana closes and is demolished for a proposed baseball stadium to house the Athletics, the Major League Baseball team that has called Oakland home since 1968.
Its last day will be Tuesday, April 2, owner Bally's Corp. announced last month. That's just days before the 67th anniversary of the resort's opening. Bally's has not yet announced how the two guestroom towers will be removed, but it seems inevitable they will be subject to a newer Las Vegas tradition: implosion.
Mobsters and megastars
When the Tropicana Las Vegas opened on April 4, 1957, Nevada's lieutenant governor unlocked the door and threw away the key to signal that it would always stay open, Michael Green, a professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told the Associated Press.
A 4,000-square-foot stained-glass ceiling was installed over part of the Tropicana’s casino in the late '70s. Photo Credit: Paul Szydelko
Built for $15 million and including 300 rooms, the Tropicana was then the most expensive hotel to open on the Strip. What soon became known as the "Tiffany of the Strip" featured delicate mosaic tile, rich mahogany panels and a tall, tulip-shaped fountain near the entrance. The Tropicana also famously had ties to organized crime through mob boss Frank Costello, according to Green.
A blog on the Mob Museum's website has more about the opening and Costello's involvement.
The iconic topless "Folies Bergere" opened in 1959 and ran until 2019, fortifying the city's reputation for showgirls. The show was featured in the 1964 Elvis Presley film "Viva Las Vegas" and was where magicians Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn got their start.
Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong and Gladys Knight were among the stars who have performed at the Tropicana. Daredevil Robbie Knievel made a record-breaking motorcycle jump outside the hotel, soaring to 231 feet over a row of limousines, in 1998.
After the Flamingo (which opened in 1946) and the Sahara (1952), the Tropicana is considered the third oldest on the Strip.
However, a walk-through of the property no longer reveals what guests saw in 1957, but much more of what Vegas was like in the 1980s. The original rooms reportedly closed with little publicity last year. The two present hotel towers were added in 1979 and 1986. A $180 million renovation by then-owner Onex Corp was completed in 2011 and added a South Beach theme.
Among the current productions in the theater are "MJ Live," a Michael Jackson tribute concert, and "Purple Reign," a Prince tribute show. Legendary comedian and impersonator Rich Little, 85, is frequently featured at the Laugh Factory Comedy Club, which has two shows nightly. Murray the Magician also performs in the late afternoon Sundays to Wednesdays.
British celebrity chef Robert Irvine's Public House is among the Tropicana's restaurants.
A's are on deck
When it closes in April, nine acres of the 35-acre site will be turned over to the Athletics to be used for a 33,000-seat stadium. A's owner John Fisher, who has received MLB owners' permission to move the team from Oakland, has not released updated renderings for what could be a $1.5 billion venue. He has said he wants Bally's and Gaming and Leisure Properties, which owns the land underneath the buildings, to offer concepts for how a new resort would fit with the stadium.
Bally's has not yet announced its plans, but whatever replaces the Tropicana hotel-casino will likely be branded Bally's. The former Bally's Las Vegas, recently rebranded as the Horseshoe Las Vegas, is owned by Caesars Entertainment, and it is not connected to Bally's Corp.