The Tropicana Las Vegas, a mob-era casino and Sin City landmark, closes after 67 years
Apr 2, 2024, 9:18 PM | Updated: 9:21 pm
FILE - A person, reflected in glass, walks near the Tropicana Las Vegas on May 16, 2023, in Las Vegas. The proposal to help finance a new Oakland Athletics ballpark, at the Tropicana site, has revived nationwide debates about public funding for private sports clubs, pitting Nevada’s powerful tourism industry against a growing chorus of progressive groups who, throughout the country, are raising concerns about ceding tax revenue that could otherwise be funneled toward government services or schools. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
(AP Photo/John Locher, File)
LAS VEGAS (AP) — In the 1971 film “Diamonds are Forever,” James Bond stays in a swanky suite at the Tropicana Las Vegas.
“I hear that the Hotel Tropicana is quite comfortable,” Agent 007 says.
It was the Tropicana’s heyday, a frequent haunt of the legendary Rat Pack, while its past under the mob cemented its place in Vegas lore.
Post by @clarkcountynvView on Threads
But after welcoming guests for 67 years, the Las Vegas Strip’s third-oldest casino shut its doors for good on Tuesday. Employees crowded the main entrance, cheering and crying, while tourists and locals watched the historic moment from behind a yellow gate. A tissue box made its way through the crowd.
Then, just before 1 p.m., security guards began locking up the Tropicana. The thick chains clinked as they were wrapped around the casino’s gold door handles.
Demolition is slated for October to make room for a $1.5 billion Major League Baseball stadium — part of the city’s latest rebrand as a hub for sports entertainment.
Today we bid adieu to one of our oldest neighbors, the Tropicana. ✨🫶✈️🏨
Here’s a throwback to 1975, when we were both just growing.📷: Courtesy of LVCVA Archive pic.twitter.com/rvwqrIt8Iq
— Harry Reid International Airport (@LASairport) April 2, 2024
Charlie Granado, a bartender at the Tropicana, said it’s a bittersweet ending for the place he has called a second home for 38 years.
“It’s time. It’s ran its course,” Granado said. “It makes me sad. But on the other hand, it’s a happy ending.”
The population of Clark County had just surpassed 100,000 when the Tropicana opened on a Strip surrounded by vast, open desert. It cost $15 million to build three stories with 300 rooms split into two wings.
Its manicured lawns and flashy showroom earned it the nickname “Tiffany of the Strip.” There was a towering tulip-shaped fountain near the entrance, mosaic tiles and mahogany-paneled walls throughout.
🎵 So Long, Good Luck, Goodbye 🎵 pic.twitter.com/FEu7Io85qY
— Tropicana Las Vegas (@TropLV) April 3, 2024
Black and white photographs from that time give a view into what it was like inside the walls of the Tropicana at its height, playing host to A-list stars — from Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds to Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. Mel Tormé and Eddie Fisher performed at the Tropicana.
Decades later, New Jersey resident Joe Zappulla was among the final hotel guests to check out at the Tropicana before the locks went on the doors. He spent $600 for a room and fulfilled a Vegas fantasy: lying on top of a craps table on a casino floor.
“When else can I do this in Vegas?” he said.
Zappulla grew up hearing glamorous tales from his parents, who honeymooned in Las Vegas in 1961 and visited often, about their run-ins with the Rat Pack during the Tropicana’s heyday. It’s a version of Sin City that his parents loved.
Slot machines turning off, restrooms locked, lots of restricted areas and $1 and $5 chips no longer being sold. This is the scene in the waining hours of @TropLV. @vegasrevealed #tropicana pic.twitter.com/L6o1VnuTlI
— Sean McAllister (@SeanMcTV) April 2, 2024
“Old Vegas, it’s going,” Zappulla said with tears sliding down his cheeks. “So I’m really clinging to a little piece of that.”
In a city known for reinvention, the Tropicana itself underwent major changes as Las Vegas evolved. Two hotel towers were added in later years. In 1979, the casino’s now-beloved $1 million green-and-amber stained glass ceiling was installed above the casino floor.
Barbara Boggess was 26 when she started working at the Tropicana in the late 1970s as a linen room attendant.
Now 72, Boggess has seen the Tropicana through its many iterations. There was the 1980s rebrand as “the Island of Las Vegas,” with a swim-up blackjack table at the pool, and the South Beach-themed renovation completed in 2011.
Throughout its nearly 67 years in business, the Tropicana’s ownership has changed several times, and some of its early history even involved the mob. https://t.co/uZ4RoNHVl7
— KSNV News 3 Las Vegas (@News3LV) April 1, 2024
Today, only the low-rise hotel room wings remain of the original Tropicana structure. Yet the casino still conjures up vintage Vegas nostalgia.
“When you first walk in, you see the stained glass and the low ceilings,” JT Seumala, a Las Vegas resident staying at the casino in March, said. “It does feel like you step back in time for a moment.”
Seumala and his husband roamed the sprawling property during their visit, turning down random hallways and taking pictures of the purple-and-orange carpet, the wallpaper and the ceiling. They tried their luck at blackjack and roulette and made conversation with a cocktail server who had worked there for 25 years. They saved a few red $5 poker chips to remember the mob-era casino.
Behind the scenes of the casino’s opening decades ago, the Tropicana had ties to organized crime, largely through reputed mobster Frank Costello.
The Tropicana is one of the last of the true mob casinos in Las Vegas. It was built by New Orleans mobster “Dandy Phil” Kastel and financed by New York mafia boss Frank Costello, a partner of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lanksy.
Later it was controlled by the Kansas City mob. pic.twitter.com/rWFyDk9saX
— Las Vegas Locally 🌴 (@LasVegasLocally) April 2, 2024
Costello was shot in the head in New York weeks after the Tropicana’s debut. He survived, but the investigation led police to a piece of paper in his coat pocket with the Tropicana’s exact earnings figure and mention of “money to be skimmed” for Costello’s associates, according to The Mob Museum.
By the 1970s, federal authorities investigating mobsters in Kansas City charged more than a dozen operatives with conspiring to skim $2 million in gambling revenue from Las Vegas casinos, including the Tropicana. Charges connected to the Tropicana alone resulted in five convictions.
But there were many years of mob-free success at the Tropicana. It was home to the city’s longest running show, “Folies Bergere.” The topless revue, imported from Paris, had a nearly 50-year run and helped make the feathered showgirl one of the most recognizable Las Vegas icons.
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Today, the casino once surrounded by wide-open desert intersects with a major street named for it at the south end of the Strip, dwarfed by towering megaresorts that Las Vegas is now known for. Nearby are the homes of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders, who left Oakland, California, in 2020, and the city’s first major league professional team, the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights.
The ballpark planned for the land beneath the Tropicana is expected to open in 2028.
“There’s a lot of controversy as far as if it should stay or should it go,” Seumala said. “But the thing that I do love about Vegas is that it’s always reinventing itself.”
