Las Vegas hotel that hosted James Bond torn down for baseball team

There was a time when everyone who was anyone wanted to be associated with Tropicana Las Vegas.

Built in 1957, making it the city’s third oldest casino, the Tropicana was once a hangout for the likes of Rat Pack stars Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr, and the place for acts such as the topless Folies Bergère show and jazz great Louis Armstrong.

Even James Bond stayed there in the 1971 film Diamonds Are Forever, with Sean Connery saying: “I hear that the Hotel Tropicana is quite comfortable.”

Now the resort once nick-named “the Tiffany of the Strip” is being pulled down to make way for a new Major League Baseball stadium.

The casino officially closed its doors at 3am on Tuesday after regulars, staff members and curious tourists gave it a proper send-off. Many of the old-time dealers wept.

“It was kind of a special time,” Joe Simonetti told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, as he walked from the casino’s floor at the end of his final shift.

“We just closed the pit, had some champagne and said goodbye. Now we’re going to go to a bar and have a drink and move on with our lives.”

When it opened in April 1957 with a price tag of $15 million, the Tropicana was considered one of the most luxurious of Las Vegas’s hotels.

It also became integral to the city’s lore, in part of because of its alleged links to Mafia-era figures such as mobster Frank Costello.

It was also the place where magicians Siegfried & Roy, known for their performances with white lions and tiger, made their Vegas debut.

In 2003, Roy – whose real name is Uwe Ludwig Horn – was attacked by a seven-year-old white tiger named Mantacore, severely hurting him and leaving him with permanent injuries.

Following the demolition that is due to start in October, around nine acres of the 35-acre piece of land will be handed to the Oakland Athletics baseball team for the construction of a 30,000-seat stadium, the resort said. It is expected that the team will relocate from California, in 2028.

In a statement, the owner of the property, Bally’s Corporation, said: “The master plan for the rest of the property will accelerate once the Athletics’ ballpark concept design is finalised. Bally’s is aligned to deliver a unique development worthy of this iconic site on the strip.”

The Tropicana underwent two major hotel expansions – the Tiffany Tower opened in 1979 with 600 rooms and was renamed the Paradise Tower. In 1986, the Island Tower opened with 800 new rooms.

‘New standard for the time’

Michael Green, professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said what made the Tropicana unique when it opened was that it was “a new standard for the time”.

“It cost a record $15 million to build … with everything from a production revue that opened with Eddie Fisher, one of the biggest names of the era, as well as a gourmet room with a prominent chef and four different room designs based on various kinds of international architecture,” he added.

In October 2017, when a gunman opened fire into a crowded country music festival from a high-rise suite at the Mandalay Bay in October 2017, the nearby Tropicana sheltered thousands of people fleeing gunfire. Sixty people were killed.

“The Tropicana welcomed them all in. They provided some first aid as needed and a safe place for them until the danger passed,” said Tennille Pereira, director of the Resiliency and Justice Centre.

Yet for all its past glories, the Tropicana struggled after the 2009 recession that led to the end of many of its most celebrated acts.

Now the only remaining casino from that era is the Sahara.