The Shifting Desert Sands of Fading Memories

By Gordon Hopkins

“I hear that the Hotel Tropicana is quite comfortable.” – James Bond (Diamonds Are Forever, 1971)

You know, it’s kinda funny. Just the other day, I was listening to a conversation about the old Jefferson County Courthouse. A few years ago, the county spent a whole lot a moolah to keep that regal old pile of bricks standing. More recently, a bit more cash went into fixing the ceiling on the second floor.
Whenever a few bucks need to go toward the oldest building in Jefferson County, someone always complains that we should tear down that venerable landmark and put up a new, more modern building.
I’m going to set aside the question of whether or not building a new courthouse would cost less than maintaining the existing one (it wouldn’t) and the fact that buildings built more than 100 years ago were designed to last more than 100 years, whereas anything built after the year 2000 was designed to last until the check gets cashed. Instead, I’m going to focus on history.

No, not the history of the courthouse. I mean history in general. I mean, the reverence, or lack thereof, that some communities hold for the existing remnants of a shared history, like an old building.

Jefferson County, like much of Nebraska, holds the past in great esteem. Some might say too much. Here in the county named after America’s third president (Wow, I really am on a historical tear today), there is a great deal of effort to protect those epochal structures of our past from the ravages of entropy. Just look at all the time and effort (and money) the Jefferson County Historical Society expended to put a new roof on the Rock Island Depot, one of only two such depots still standing in Nebraska.

I am thinking about this subject because of the news that came out of Las Vegas this week. The third oldest casino on the strip, the Tropicana, was imploded on Wednesday to make way for a baseball stadium as part of Sin City’s attempted pivot to a full-on sports destination.

It was done in classic Las Vegas style, of course. There were fireworks and cameras and lots of spectators to watch one of the city’s last remaining landmarks from the gritty/glamorous mob days crumble into dust before heading off to the buffet or the slot machines.

As Shakespeare’s Macbeth once famously said, it was an event, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
If Shakespeare were a casino, Vegas would have imploded him as well.

It was casino mogul Steve Wynn who came up with the idea of turning the destruction of a building into a media event. It was Wynn who came up with the idea of televising the demolition of the Dunes in 1993, to make way for the Bellagio. He built pirate ships across the street and make it seem they were firing on the Dunes, destroying it. Pretty soon, nearly every historic casino and hotel got a Vegas-style send-off. And why not? After all, they’re just old buildings nobody wants anymore.

History is little valued in Vegas. Indeed, the city seems a bit embarrassed by its colorful past. I think the Flamingo may be the only mob-era hotel still standing.
As for the lamented Tropicana, its (alleged) ties to organized crime was primarily via Frank Costello (born Francesco Castiglia), who had first alliances and, later, feuds with the likes of Vito Genovese and “Lucky Luciano.”

In 1957, Costello was in Manhattan, appealing a five year prison sentence for federal income tax evasion. He had already served one year but he was out while his appeal was being heard. He might have been better off had he stayed in prison. He was in a cab, headed out for a nice dinner with the misses and a few good friends, when a black Cadillac pulled up right behind his cab. Costello and company got out and headed into the restaurant. A big man jumped out of the Caddy and followed. He pulled out a gun and pumped a single bullet into Costello’s head.

Amazingly, Costello survived what was ultimately dubbed a “flesh wound.” The bullet evidently traversed the curve of his skull, carving a path from his right ear to his neck and exited without causing major damage.

Questioning of Costello by the police yielded little useful information. He claimed not to have gotten a good look at his assailant and didn’t even hear the shot.
Costello told police, “I don’t have an enemy in the world.”
Police did eventually arrest Vincent “The Chin” Gigante but he was ultimately acquitted thanks to Costello’s refusal to identify him.

While Costello was being treated for his gunshot, police searched his clothes and found a handwritten memo, “Gross casino wins as of 4-26-57: $651,284. Casino wins less markers $434,595.00. Slot wins $62,844.”

Costello was no more helpful about the note than he was about his would-be assassin. Frustrated, Judge Jacob Gould Shurman sentenced Costello to 30 days in “The Tombs,” New York City’s infamous municipal jail, though he only served 15 days before being released.

So, what has any of this got to do with the Tropicana? Good question. With a little help from Nevada investigators, police figured out the figures in the mysterious doggerel matched, to the decimal point, the casino winning at the Tropicana, which had opened that same year.
Yes, the history of the Tropicana is a bit sordid but still quite fascinating and I would have thought, worth hanging on to. But what do I know?

Some folks think Nebraska is a little too attached to this past. Perhaps this is true. As for Vegas, to quote another line from MacBeth, from the same speech in fact, Vegas thinks only of “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.”