Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
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ou would think massive explosions leading to the cinematic collapse of iconic hotels the size of small vil- lages would be an exciting enough spectacle. Our lizard brains, after all, take pleasure in watching destruction. But this is Las Vegas, and there's always room for more of everything: money, people, drink, food, fun—and the spec- tacular. So when Steve Wynn decided to bring down the Dunes to make way for Bellagio in 1993, he wasn't satisfied with a mere implosion. He was ready to take it to the next level. "Someone in the company said, 'Movie stu- dios will pay you to film this,'" recalls Alan Feldman, vice president at MGM Resorts International who was then a public relations man for Wynn. "It led to another conversation where someone said, 'If you're going to do a movie or a TV show, why not do it yourself?'" Wynn made the decision to turn the camera on the fall and rise of his new projects. Treasure Island was opening as Wynn was bringing down the Dunes, and he zeroed in on the synergy: The pirate ship's cannons would blow up the Dunes. In the movie that Wynn pro- duced for NBC, a boy arrives in Vegas with his family. (Feldman notes the irony that Wynn and his people were "arguing vociferously that Las Vegas was a destination for adults, not families.") The boy gets caught up in some shenanigans with the pirates and is trapped in the Dunes before being saved by the hero. When the cannons blasted, "It was a deeply moving experience," says Feldman, with per- haps a hint of facetiousness. Mark Loizeaux, who co-owns Maryland- based Controlled Demolition Inc. with his brother, Doug, executed the implosion and has been bringing down buildings in Vegas ever since. Loizeaux says his daughter designed the operation that turned the Dunes into a "blazing Halloween pumpkin." But in today's world of less costly renovations and revamps over complete re-dos, it is quite possible that the era of the implosion is over. One potential grand finale: the Harmon Hotel, which sits untouched at CityCenter, mired in well- publicized lawsuits after the structural integrity of the building was called into serious question. The legal system will determine what is to be the fate of this unoccupied project. Even if the Harmon ends up coming down, its proximity to 102 vEGASMAGAZINE.cOM surrounding buildings has many concerned about safety. Plus, imploding the Harmon would mean admitting that the structure had been a failure. And in Vegas, implosions are supposed to embody progress as the Strip has continued to reinvent itself, like a conquering army that razes the old city to build a new one. Between 1993 and 2007, 12 major hotels were brought down as Las Vegas shed itself of the old and embraced the new. In this city where enter- tainment is a mandate, implosions became local spectacles drawing thousands of onlookers, often energized with fireworks or New Year's Eve-style celebrations. In other cities, an implo- sion might be a sign of urban decay. Here, it signaled the future—a bigger, more glittering resort to replace the aging desert showgirl from the post-war era. It was the perfect symbol for a city with an ambivalent attitude toward its rich When the Aladdin came down in 1998, it left behind 50 million pounds of rubble. history and a pattern of perpetual reinvention. In the 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino, Robert De Niro's character, Ace Rothstein, speaks for the past in a scene where moviegoers watch one legendary hotel after another crumble, "The town will never be the same." The implosions were truly creative acts. The Sands, one of the casinos where the Rat Pack starred in the original Oceans 11, came down in 1996 to make way for The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino. The Hacienda Hotel & Casino was imploded in a New Year's Eve blowout at the end of 1996, with Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino ris- ing up in its place at the south end of the Strip. The old Aladdin, which was built as the Tally-Ho in 1963, came down in 1998 and left behind an estimated 50 million pounds of rubble. It was replaced by the new Aladdin, which was later rebranded as Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino. Stacey PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN GURZINSKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES