Casino History: The Mob-Run History of the Tropicana (Part 1)

[Music] foreign [Music] Vegas during the 1950s was experiencing a small boom in the opening of new casino projects on the Las Vegas Strip thanks to the help of the success of the El Rancho Vegas renewed casinos such as the dunes the Desert Inn the Sands and the Hacienda were being built all across what would later be known as the Las Vegas Strip the majority of these casinos would later become one of the most influential and legendary in the history of casinos however decades later they would all be imploded and demolished to make way for newer more luxurious hotels and casinos mainly due to their failure of being able to stay up within the crowd of new Mega resorts in the 1990s and 2000s only one of these had managed to survive the string of implosions without having to radically remove the majority of its original look and that happens to be the Tiffany of the strip itself the Tropicana this is the story of Las Vegas's only 1950s casino that has not been imploded [Music] in 1955 a hotelier by the name of Ben Jaffe previously known for being the executive and part owner of the fountain blue hotel in the beaches of Miami had purchased 40 acres of land on the south end of the famed Las Vegas strip next to Bone Road or Tropicana Avenue as it's known today he had an idea to build his own Resort and Casino that would also be co-owned by Charles Baron Infamous for being an organized crime figure from Chicago to help out in building the resorts Ben Jaffe hired Conquistador Incorporated which was owned by none other than Phil Castel another organized crime figure who owned the infamous illegal Casino the Beverly Club in New Orleans Louisiana his experience with the illegal Casino would help him Envision this design for building the project with Jaffe the Tropicana an 8 million dollar Resort and Casino that would be themed after the many hotels in the city of Havana in Cuba and would include 308 rooms all themed after different parts of Europe including Ones based off of the Italian Renaissance and the French province groundbreaking of the resort took place in late 1955 with Productions of the place opening on June 1st 1956 and Tony Sherman an architect from Miami helped to design the project along with Taylor Construction Company of Miami who took part in building another designer Margaret Castel who designed the decor of the lobby and casino area problems or else during construction at the same time the Tropicana was being built another Resort and Casino the Stardust was also under construction on the opposite end of the Las Vegas Strip This caused Jaffe to have trouble hiring workers within the area and thus he was soon short on cash in order to keep the project going he sold the fountain blue in Miami for five million dollars at a cost of 15 million dollars the Tropicana becoming the most expensive Las Vegas Resort at the time officially open for business on April 4th 1957 being the 12th Resort on the Las Vegas Strip to open in its history attending the grand opening was a ribbon cutting ceremony provided by Las Vegas mayor at the time CD Baker lieutenant governor rexbell Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds festivities included the first show shown at the Tropicana the Tropicana review this was a 250 thousand dollar Musical that started Eddie Fisher a popular American singer and actor it also had its own original music along with backdrops of the Resort's heavy tropical theming the Tropicana which had the motto Tiffany of the strip created by publicist Howard V dadrich sat on 34 Acres a little bit smaller than the original 40 acres that were planned outside the resort featured a giant 60-foot tulip-shaped neon fountain in the center of a 100 foot diameter pool along with a Porte cochair decorated with many different country flags on each side the 300 rooms that it had were inside three separate Wings spread out in the shape of a y in order to maximize its efficiency each room were air-conditioned which was considered a luxury at the time along with private Terraces used for relaxing or sunbathing the resort also contained a scalloped Olympic-sized pool in the center of its Courtyard area surrounded by eighty thousand dollar floral Gardens inside the casino was covered in Mahogany's panels and contained ornamental decorations along with quote unquote peacock alleys going from its front desk to its gambling tables one of the restaurants featured inside the casino was the 450 seat theater restaurant which gave guests a few of a rather large stage this restaurant showcased Stars including Eddie Fisher and business veteran Monty proser along with her previously mentioned Tropicana review the restaurant would later be changed to the Fountain theater another restaurant was Purina's Gourmet room which was advertised to have Regal service within the area known for its serving cocktails that a nearby Brazilian Room showcase lounge and the celebrity room the Tropicana during its early years would become a success thanks to its support for veteran leadership some of the most notable workers at the hotel and casino at the time included Luis Lederer who served as a secretary treasurer the soft drink king of Chicago t.m schimberg and JK houses a former minor and U.S Army Air Force pilot despite the success the Tropicana will receive its first major incident involving the mob not even a year into operation one of Phil castel's friends happened to be Frank Costello who just so happened to be a Crime Boss of the infamous Luciano crime family on May 2 1957 Costello was living in the lobby of an apartment house that he lived in when all of a sudden he was shot in the head and wounded by a guy by the name of vintage giganti during investigations by the police it was found that the inside of a coat that Costello was wearing during the incident contained what is known as a gross win from the Tropicana dating April 27 1957 with hundreds of thousands of dollars printed out Costello survived the shooting with a head wound although by that time the incident had gained national news coverage one thing to know about the gross one was that part of it was written by Louise J letterer who happened to be a general manager of the Tropicana because of this suspicions arose from the authorities and thus that error was banned from the gaming industry later on after the incident in 1959 Jacob hausel manager of the resort and casino bought out the Tropicana ending jaffe's ownership of the building at the end of the decade the Tropicana would begin its first ever expansion adding a new wing of hotel rooms bringing the Rune count up to 450. also at that point Eddie Fisher who is performing at the Resort's theater was giving the Tropicana an intense attraction from visitors and tourists in fact the resort and casino would see a massive increase in celebrities including Elaine Dunn Sean Garrison Kathy Crosby George chakoris and more on the downside though Eddie Fisher's appearance at the Tropicana will only last for an incredibly short time when in late 1959 the Desert Inn but a 10-year contract for him to stay at their Casino showroom this caused a major downfall for the short-lived Elegance of the resort by that time several of the casinos on the Strip had made new Renovations making their appearance look much more Grand than the South End property this would quickly be fixed however on the date of December 24th 1959 with the introduction of the tropicana's most famous show in its entire history a show that made Paris famous Follies Berger based off of the famous Cabaret Music Hall in Paris the show cost about 800 million dollars to perform and included 80 performers Follies Berger was a huge success for the resort quite possibly the most successful in Las Vegas at the time alongside the Stardust Lido to Paris it in fact made the Tropicana arise from its slow business that it had earlier the same year and became a rival for many of the Las Vegas strip hotels this would become the largest and longest running show at the resort and casino would ever have the resort and casino would expand once again this time across the street in 1961 with the grand opening of the Tropicana golf course and Country Club the golf course contained 18 holes and was spread out across 125 acres of land a small country club would also be included within the golf course containing a cocktail lounge and a coffee shop this was followed by a new 116 room Wing surrounding the pool about a year later in 1962 increasing the room count to 566. another hotel Edition was added in 1964 with a fourth floor 132 room Hotel Building located on the side of the Tropicana Avenue including 12 new suites the rest of the 1960s would see an ongoing increase in Celebrity vegetation at the Tropicana including Roger Williams Mary Jane Judy Kelly the three cheers and even Walt Disney as the decade came to an end Follies Berger would see a 750 000 change it was now 90 minutes and would show twice nightly the number of performances increased to 100 and was now produced by Michael dramathie in Maynard Sloat along with that houses will sell the hotel and casino to Texas International Airlines mainly due to it being the hotel and casino nearest to the McCarran Airport however the newly renovated show and ownership would not help see the survival of the glamor the Tropicana would see in the beginning of the 1970s by the beginning of the 1970s the Tropicana which had previously been uplifted by the beauty of Follies Berger would see another drop in quality only this time much harder the Tropicana was heavily run down and by 1971 a guy by the name of deal Gustafson was tired of the lack of quality within the casino thus he bought out the building and planned on doing a 12.5 million dollar expansion and renovation of their property according to him the Tropicana was in such dilapidated state that he called it by quote an old elephant that needed a stab in the rear during this time new casinos such as the international and Caesar's Palace along with already existing ones were booming in popularity showcasing many famous talents such as Elvis Presley Frank Sinatra Dean Martin and many other famous celebrities even with the fathers per share the Tropicana would not withstand the amount of entertainment other casinos and resorts on the Strip had desperate times called for desperate measures in 1973 a near 1150 C showroom called the Superstar theater was built Aegis into the hotel so they designed for one of the stars of Las Vegas Sammy Davis Jr along with other famous performers the Tropicana became Davis's main showcase area for the rest of the 70s along with that came new ownership Mitzi Stauffer brings the inheritor of the Stauffer chemical company but out in interest to the resort and casino in 1975. this time she had decided that she wanted to actually do something with the resort and thus construction of a new hotel Tower then named the Tiffany Tower began in 1977. even then that would not help struggling Resort and Casino by the heart of the decade gustafson's planned renovation and expansion had already met the deadlines and nothing had been done to do any of that to add insult to injury in 1978 the resort went under a money skimming scheme by joke Agosto who owned the followers Berger at the time he noticed that people from the Kansas City crime family was stealing money from the casino's cashier cage and thus the Tropicana was losing even more money from before the money laundering scheme was exposed by the FBI along with them exposing a ghost of for managing part of the casino without license because of this deal Gustafsson and Briggs were also revoked of their license skimming incident of 1978 would only Force the mop out of business from the heavily struggling hotel and casino and thus the building had to be forced to be sold out to Ramada Inns gone were the tropicana's era of the mob and the year began the era of the corporations not to mention the fact that by the beginning of the 1980s the Tropicana was about to enter its largest set of expansions yet foreign [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Velvet the Lion

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Keywords: casino, hotel, hotel history, history, velvet, velvet the lion, reupload, re-upload, velvet the lion re-upload, tourism, nevada history, casinos, hotels, resort, resorts, tourism history, las vegas, las vegas strip, las vegas history, las vegas casinos, las vegas resorts, las vegas hotels, early vegas, casino history, las vegas strip history, resort history, early las vegas, tropicana, tropicana las vegas, tropicana lv, the mob, mob, mafia, the mafia, early vegas strip, follies begere

Id: 1vOTMHMlZjg

Length: 13min 22sec (802 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 13 2022