LAS VEGAS — Speakeasies, bootleggers, gun-wielding crime bosses and tough-guy accents pay homage to Las Vegas’ mob roots in a pair of new attractions showcasing Sin City’s criminal history.
An interactive attraction featuring gangster memorabilia and commentary from film mobsters James Caan,
Mickey Rourke and Frank Vincent opened recently on the Las Vegas Strip. A publicly-funded mob museum, meanwhile, is slated to open in December at a downtown Las Vegas courthouse where a detailed mob hearing that helped expose organized crime to ordinary Americans was held in 1950.
For Las Vegas, the attractions represent an unprecedented embrace of its infamous founders.
“What differentiates us from any other city is our history,” Mayor Oscar Goodman said. “This is the story of America.”
The desert oasis made famous by scantily-clad showgirls, ubiquitous slot machines and 24-hour happy hours has long celebrated its reputation as a haven of vice, but its relationship with the mob has taken a few hits in recent years.
The city that once proudly boasted of its ties to organized crime — Goodman played himself in the 1995 mob movie “Casino” — has instead promoted its family-friendly restaurants and Broadway shows for the past decade.
No more.
The Tropicana casino and hotel, a one-time hangout for organized crime now more known for its bargain-counter room rates, now features its new “Mob Experience” attraction: the diary of mobster Meyer Lansky, Tony “The Ant” Spilotro’s gun and family photos, and home movies from other infamous criminals. Visitors are greeted by life-size holograms of chatty gangsters and a chance to get “made.”
The $42 million public museum started as an effort to save one of Las Vegas’ few historic buildings. It’s amassed a wide collection of gangster artifacts, including the wall from Chicago’s St. Valentine’s Day massacre, the only gun recovered at the mass shooting and the barber chair where hit man Albert Anastasia’s life came to an end in a 1957 New York murder.
The museum will highlight money laundering schemes, mob violence and the role organized crime played in Las Vegas and other cities.
Neither attraction has sidestepped controversy.
The Tropicana’s Mob Experience was recently sued by the daughter of notorious gangster Sam Giancana over an alleged breach of contract involving the purchase of Giancana’s furniture.
Critics have also slammed the attraction for being too deferential to the family members of the gangsters. The exhibition glosses over the mob bosses’ violent histories while praising them as handsome fathers.
The mob museum has been hounded by criticism that Goodman, a longtime mob ally, is glamorizing organized crime.
“Why are any of these brutal killers being honored? This is nothing but gross sensationalism,” said William Donati, an English professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the author of “Lucky Luciano: The Rise and Fall of a Mob Boss.”
To appease critics and burnish its academic credentials, the mob museum brought in historians, law enforcement officials and acclaimed museum leaders to help build its collection.
Ellen Knowlton, a former FBI agent based in Las Vegas, said she focused on the consequences of crime and persuaded collectors and federal investigators to provide photographs, transcripts of wiretaps and other materials from various mob investigations.
“If you thought organized crime was a glamorous lifestyle when you walked into the museum, you won’t feel that way when you walk out,” she said.
The city’s backroom deals gained worldwide notoriety because of criminal legends such as Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, who ran the Flamingo hotel in the 1940s. The racketeer was implicated in at least 30 murders, according to the FBI.In later years, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal ran the Chicago mob-owned Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda and Marina casinos.
Unlike in other cities, where mob bosses fought for territory, Las Vegas was deemed an open playground for gangsters of all nationalities.
“This was the golden goose,” said Michael Green, a historian at the Community College of Southern Nevada who is working with the mob museum.
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