Tropicana, Iconic Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, Implodes in Planned Demolition Event – OANN
OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
1:32 PM – Wednesday, October 9, 2024
The Las Vegas Hotel and Casino Tropicana has been demolished during a planned event, welcoming the city’s new baseball team.
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1957 saw the opening of the famed hotel-casino known as the Tropicana. The resort gained notoriety for its entertainment options, presenting big-name jazz artists like Louis Armstrong and the enduring showgirl revue Folies Bergere, earning it the moniker “Tiffany of the Strip” due to its opulence.
The establishment stood for almost 70 years on the Las Vegas Strip. However, it took less than thirty seconds to bring it down.
Over 2,000 pounds of explosives brought down the Tropicana’s Paradise Tower and Club Tower in about 22 seconds on Wednesday at 2:30 a.m. It was the first implosion of its kind in Las Vegas in almost a decade, and it cleared room on the Strip for the Athletics, a Major League Baseball team formerly based in Oakland, California.
“Let’s not think of it as an ending, but as the beginning of something even greater,” said Arik Knowles, the general manager and vice president of hospitality at the Tropicana.
A 555-drone and fireworks extravaganza, synchronized to songs by Vegas icons like Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, were part of the send-off.
Drones produced images of the Athletics emblem and the famous Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign.
Due to safety concerns, there were no public viewing locations for the implosion; the estimated 500 onlookers were there for the invite-only event. Nevertheless, crowds of tourists continued to travel to Las Vegas in the hopes of seeing the spectacle.
“There’s something magical about implosions,” stated Steve Crupi, a former TV news reporter known as the “implosion guy,” as he typically covered every major Vegas implosion. “A structure that big being brought down in as little as 5 seconds? It just seems impossible. And yet they do with such precision and such artistry, that it really is just more than an act of demolition. It’s a work of art.”
Similar to the other Vegas resorts that collapsed before it, the Tropicana’s collapse was meticulously orchestrated.
The goal is to “get these structures down quickly, safely, and let things return to normal” for the neighborhood and other casinos, according to Mark Loizeaux, the president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. The company has overseen every major Las Vegas property implosion.
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