Author: Geno Munari
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781634243841
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 432
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Book Description
"The intent behind this book is to record classic Las Vegas history that would be lost forever if not memorialized." The Dunes operation was a spectrum of information that is intricate and mysterious at times, protected by a shroud of secrecy and intrigue that is virtually impossible to decipher. It featured different operators and Mob characters who, at various times in the history of the hotel, were involved in various ventures, including gambling, bookmaking, real estate investment, and many other business arrangements. There are more than 390 footnotes and an index. I have been working on this book for almost four years, which included many hours of research and the development of a timeline. My research helped bring forth answers to questions regarding notable gambling operators, Mafia chiefs, U.S. Senators, Governors, and memorable events. One such event solves a mystery of a bomb assassination plot and a shooting; politicians were compromised, Hoffa pulled strings, and there are heretofore undisclosed facts that involve President Kennedy's assassination. I never dreamed these details would ever be uncovered.
Author: Geno Munari
Publisher: TrineDay
ISBN: 1634243854
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 605
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Book Description
"The intent behind this book is to record classic Las Vegas history that would be lost forever if not memorialized." The Dunes operation was a spectrum of information that is intricate and mysterious at times, protected by a shroud of secrecy and intrigue that is virtually impossible to decipher. It featured different operators and Mob characters who, at various times in the history of the hotel, were involved in various ventures, including gambling, bookmaking, real estate investment, and many other business arrangements. There are more than 390 footnotes and an index. I have been working on this book for almost four years, which included many hours of research and the development of a timeline. My research helped bring forth answers to questions regarding notable gambling operators, Mafia chiefs, U.S. Senators, Governors, and memorable events. One such event solves a mystery of a bomb assassination plot and a shooting; politicians were compromised, Hoffa pulled strings, and there are heretofore undisclosed facts that involve President Kennedy's assassination. I never dreamed these details would ever be uncovered.
Author: Jeff Burbank
Publisher: Rizzoli Publications
ISBN: 1909815039
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 146
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Book Description
Lost Las Vegas traces the cherished places in the city that time and the brutal forces of economics have swept aside before the National Register of Historic Places could save them from the wrecker's ball or, in the case of Las Vegas, before the Neon Boneyard can claim them.Organised chronologically starting with the earliest losses and ending with the latest, the book details the many hotels and casinos that failed to move with the times and got swept away for something bigger, better and brighter.Legendary names in the field of entertainment have come and gone - the Sands hotel featured many of the rapack in residence, but the casino is long gone. Howard Hughes and the mob featured heavily in Vegas history but neither could sustain their success for very long. Today, it is the showgirl who is under threat. That Vegas institution is under threat from the big setpiece shows such as Cirque du Soleil.Losses include: Arizona Club, El Portal Theater, Clark County Courthouse, Hotel Nevada, First State Bank, Las Vegas Rail depot, El Dorado Club, Old Ice House, Atomic Tourism, Helldorado on Fremont Street, The Green Shack, El Rancho Vegas, Hotel Last Frontier, Desert Inn, Sands, Sahara, The Thunderbird, The Mint, Royal Nevada, Stardust, Showboat, Hotel Biltmore, Dunes, Hacienda, Moulin Rouge, Tally Ho, Paddlewheel/Debby Reynold’s. Silver Slipper, Tam O’Shanter, Bonanza, Boardwalk Casino, Old Las Vegas Convention Center, Landmark Hotel, Aladdin, La Concha, Westward Ho!, Castaways
Author: Mike Weatherford
Publisher: Huntington Press Inc
ISBN: 0929712714
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
Mike Weatherford resurrects the mystique of Vegas's Golden Age--the '60s of history and legend--bringing the hipster legacy to new Vegasphiles. Meet '50s and '60s lounge greats the Treniers, the Mary Kaye Trio, and Louis Prima and Keely Smith; comedy legends Joe E. Lewis, Shecky Greene, and Don Rickles; and Vegas babes Vampira, Lili St. Cyr, Ann-Margret, and Tempest Storm. Weatherford also covers nearly every offbeat movie ever made about Las Vegas, as well as Elvis and Frank's impact on the town. This gorgeous entertainment retrospective is packed with showroom esoterica, descriptions of near-forgotten corners of Vegas cult musicology, odd trivia, and unsung heroes of a bygone era. Cult Vegas chronicles the major moments--the camp, the extreme, the awful--in short, the magic of Las Vegas' half-century run as an entertainment mecca.
Author: David G. Schwartz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780990001638
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
The lights are coming down. Frank, Dean, and Sammy are about to take the stage. This is the moment we remember, when Las Vegas became classic. And it was at the Sands. Built in 1952 over the ashes of Hollywood Reporter publisher Billy Wilkerson's last chance in Las Vegas, the Sands was a collective effort. Underworld figures like Meyer Lansky, Doc Stacher, and Frank Costello provided the cash. Beloved Texas gambler Jake Freedman was the public face. Manhattan nightclub king Jack Entratter kept the Copa Room filled and made the party happen, every night. Carl Cohen, esteemed as the greatest casino manager in the history of the business, made the team complete.No matter how well your casino is run, you need a good hook to get the gamblers through the door. Casino owners were learning that entertainment was a pretty fair hook. Entratter, who broke into the entertainment business as a bouncer at the Stork Club, had risen to become manager of the Copacabana, one of Manhattan's hottest hot spots, before heading to Las Vegas. At the Sands, "Mr. Entertainment" brought many of the brightest stars of the day to the casino's showroom, named the Copa Room. The Copa was the hottest ticket in America and, for performers, one of the most coveted stages in the nation. Headlining at the Sands-or even opening there-meant that you had made it.For gamblers, the Sands was paradise. For tourists, it was a chance to see some sophistication-and maybe run into a famous singer or actor. The resort itself became a celebrity. Early on, the Sands hosted numerous radio and television broadcasts, bringing the casino into American households coast to coast when gambling was still not entirely reputable. Las Vegas is a city built on public relations, and the Sands' Al Freeman was one of its early masters.The Sands did more than showcase stars: it made them shine brighter. In 1960, while filming Ocean's 11, the Rat Pack (though they were never called that in those days) came together onstage at the Sands, creating a cultural icon that would define the era. Behind the scenes, Davis and Sinatra resisted the prevailing segregationist mindset of Las Vegas and helped to overturn Jim Crow on the Strip. With Sinatra as its star, the Sands reached its highest point, hosting everyone from John F. Kennedy to Texas oilmen to Miami bookmakers.Yet the Sands wasn't all comps and curtain calls. Behind the scenes, the casino's connection with reputed mobsters made it a target. For years, the FBI tried to penetrate the casino, including a disastrous wiretapping operation that turned into a public embarrassment for the Bureau. And Frank Sinatra-at one point a 10 percent owner of the Sands-would divest his interests after a highly-publicized feud with Nevada gaming regulators over his friendship with alleged Chicago mob kingpin Sam Giancana.thanksAfter Howard Hughes bought the Sands in 1967 (with Frank Sinatra explosively departing soon after) the Sands lost some of its allure, but the casino soldiered on under Hughes and other owners before being sold to Sheldon Adelson, who closed the property in 1996 to make way for the Venetian mega-resort, along the way doing for conventions what Jack Entratter had done for entertainment in Las Vegas four decades earlier.In the end, the Sands went out with a bang-an implosion that brought down its hotel tower. It had a wild 44 year run. Along the way, a host of characters, including the Rat Pack (and their many friends) in all their glory, author Mario Puzo, Apollo astronauts, wealthy arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, and President Ronald Reagan passed through the Sands' doors.At the Sands tells the story of how one of the most fondly remembered classic Las Vegas casinos beat the odds to become a success, staged some of the Strip's most memorable spectaculars, and paved the way for the next generation of Las Vegas resorts. The Sands may be gone, but it did not fade away.
Author: Stefan Al
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026203574X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 267
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Book Description
The transformations of the Strip—from the fake Wild West to neon signs twenty stories high to “starchitecture”—and how they mirror America itself. The Las Vegas Strip has impersonated the Wild West, with saloon doors and wagon wheels; it has decked itself out in midcentury modern sleekness. It has illuminated itself with twenty-story-high neon signs, then junked them. After that came Disney-like theme parks featuring castles and pirates, followed by replicas of Venetian canals, New York skyscrapers, and the Eiffel Tower. (It might be noted that forty-two million people visited Las Vegas in 2015—ten million more than visited the real Paris.) More recently, the Strip decided to get classy, with casinos designed by famous architects and zillion-dollar collections of art. Las Vegas became the “implosion capital of the world” as developers, driven by competition, got rid of the old to make way for the new—offering a non-metaphorical definition of “creative destruction.” In The Strip, Stefan Al examines the many transformations of the Las Vegas Strip, arguing that they mirror transformations in America itself. The Strip is not, as popularly supposed, a display of architectural freaks but representative of architectural trends and a record of social, cultural, and economic change. Al tells two parallel stories. He describes the feverish competition of Las Vegas developers to build the snazziest, most tourist-grabbing casinos and resorts—with a cast of characters including the mobster Bugsy Siegel, the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, and the would-be political kingmaker Sheldon Adelson. And he views the Strip in a larger social context, showing that it has not only reflected trends but also magnified them and sometimes even initiated them. Generously illustrated with stunning color images throughout, The Strip traces the many metamorphoses of a city that offers a vivid projection of the American dream.
Author: Karin Jaschke
Publisher: Verl.d. Bauhaus-Universität
ISBN: 3860681923
Category : Architects
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
Author: Steve Bourie
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781883768140
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 492
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Book Description
Published annually since 1992, the 2005 edition of this bestselling guide continues to gain fame as the best available source for information on U.S. casinos. The new 2005 edition lists more than 650 casinos in 35 states and comes complete with maps of all states showing where the casinos are located, plus detailed maps of Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno and the Mississippi gambling resort towns of Biloxi and Tunica.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 96
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Book Description
LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today’s people and events. They have free access to share, print and post images for personal use.
Author: Su Kim Chung
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 1911670107
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 520
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Book Description
Las Vegas Then and Now pairs vintage shots from 100 years of the city's history with the same view today.
