11-12-07: Dropped by today while the sun was going down to snap some last photos of The Atrium Tower and say bon voyage before the show tonight. Lots of people were doing the same, and it was nice that some of you approached me and said hi! The pyrotechnics are all set and ready to give the tower a proper Vegas send off and usher in yet another new era in our city. Heavy machinery is starting to fill the front parking lot in preparation for bringing down the casino and rest of the Lanai Tower. Asbestos removal is almost done in the Frontier tower and it will follow soon. Bad news: the fashion show mall parking garage closes at 10:00, so most of you have to scout a new vantage point! Sorry! More to come tomorrow. May be a little late though, LeavingLV.net and vegastodayandtomorrow.com are paaartying tonight! w00t!
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11-11-07: Well tomorrow the Atrium Tower comes down. The rear third of the Lanai Tower has been obliterated to make way for the equipment and the implosion. Stopped by this morning to snap some photos. Everything's set and ready to go! The Frontier tower is steadily losing it's facade of glass. Won't be long before it starts to come down. The rest of the Lanai Tower and the casino should be coming down soon as well. Hope to see some of you tomorrow!
Don't forget,LeavingLV.net has been nominated in TWO categories for the Trippies on vegastripping.com; Best Website and Best Blog. Please take five minutes to vote for us! Also, add us on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/leavinglvnet
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11-8-07: As reported yesterday, only hours after we left, the Lanai tower was demolished to make way for more equipment to aid in the implosion of the Atrium Tower. Here's some pictures. More later.
Don't forget,LeavingLV.net has been nominated in TWO categories for the Trippies on vegastripping.com; Best Website and Best Blog. Please take five minutes to vote for us!
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11-7-07: Demolition of the 3-story Lanai Tower began today. This hotel building once housed Howard Hughes and included a private garden connected to his suite. Being the oldest part of the hotel, it was replete with asbestos and even the outside stucco had to be stripped before the building could come down. It's going before the implosion to facilitate final preparations for the Atrium Tower to come down in less than a week. MUCH thanks to Aaron Vincent, once again, who explained in detail the stages and processes of the gutting of the towers and such. He also allowed LeavingLV.net to come on site and take some photographs! What an exciting, but sad time. A walkthrough revealed the Lanai tower mostly still intact save for paneling and fixtures of course. The garden and pool area remains mostly untouched, but is piled with debris. Inside the Atrium tower, the noise was loud as jackhammers prepared the pillars for the dynamite. Looking up through the tower from ground level, it just looks like, in Aaron's words, a parking structure. I'll be updating again tomorrow with pictures from tonight. Within four hours of leaving the property today, the west two thirds of the Lanai tower necessary to give access to the pools and gardens was reduced to nothing! We arrived too late to see the actual demolition, but have pictures of the aftermath coming soon. Again, thanks so much to Aaron and Clause for the opportunity and support!
Also, in case you missed it on our homepage, LeavingLV.net has been nominated in TWO categories for the Trippies on vegastripping.com; Best Website and Best Blog. Please take five minutes to vote for us!
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11-01-07: Finally some answers for me and all of you who've been emailing me. Thanks to Aaron Vincent, Project Coordinator for Clauss Construction, we've learned that the Atrium Tower is on schedule to come down at the reported date and time, November 13th, at 2:30 a.m. Also, it will just be the Atrium Tower. The two other hotel towers and casino will be taken down via heavy equipment, not explosives. Demolition of those structures will begin very shortly after the Atrium Tower comes down. Lastly, the number one question I get asked: The sign is not contracted with Clauss. They have no plans of taking it down with the rest of the structure. As for what will be done with it, we're still not sure. More to come on that later. Again, thanks to Aaron and Clauss Construction for this much wanted information! On property, asbestos removal continues, and the tower is being prepared for explosives on the bottom two, seventh, and tenth floors.
Also, it was one year ago today that the Stardust closed it's doors.
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10-26-07: It's official. The Las Vegas Review Journal reports that the November 13th implosion date has been approved. Mark your calendars! Asbestos removal continues in the two lower hotel towers and the casino building. The Frontier tower is being readied for demolition as well, but it's yet to be known whether it will go down at the same time as the Atrium Tower. The day we were there, the sign was being prepared for a banner advertising the demolition company. A view from the Stratosphere and through the tower shows that the pool and garden area remains mostly untouched as of yet. More to come...
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10-12-07: Still not a lot of visible progress. Lots of piles of debris all around the west side of the property. Gutting of all of the hotel rooms in the Atrium tower looks to be nearly complete. All that's left is to demolish the remaining interior walls and remove all of the glass. We're questioning the November 13th implosion date, as it's quickly approaching and the work seems to be progressing rather lazily. Blue scaffolding is going up around the 3-story Lanai Tower. Not sure why yet. It suggests it may be taken down the old fashion way, floor by floor, or perhaps it has something to do with asbestos removal. Or it could be something else entirely (what do I know about taking down a building? I just document it!). The lights finally stopped blinking in the casino. Final removal of fixtures and preparation for demolition is taking place inside. Plastic is up on all of the entrances and asbestos removal is underway. Won't be long now before we start seeing the casino buildings being bulldozed. Keep checking back!
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10-03-07: The first column of glass removal has reached the ground floor, and looking through the open windows throughout the building, it's apparent that the rooms on the first 5 or 6 floors are gutted or in the process of being gutted. Looking into the main casino entrance it looks like most of the main casino floor is empty. However, walking by the east entrance, there are still lights blinking inside. Other than that, nothing much to report to all of you. Don't forget to vote at Vegastripping.com!
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9-27-07:Not a lot of visible progress while I was out of town, but it seems that work has progressed very rapidly inside the tower. The rooms are all still fully furnished, so the debris piled up outside the tower consists of glass, girders, mattresses, and even televisions. Looking through the already gutted floors provided views of cascading debris falling into the center of the tower from above every few minutes. Loud crashes rang out all through it, and walking the perimeter of the rest of the property, hammers and breaking glass could be heard inside the Frontier tower as well. Workers are all over the place, looking out the windows and hammering away at windows and beams. Trees all around the towers have been uprooted and discarded. Other than that, nothing much to report this week. Don't forget to vote for the site, and other great Vegas things, at Vegastripping.com! More to come...
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9-19-07:This week the property really started taking on that "doomed" look. Between the rear entrance being gone, and the entire tower being exposed, the overall impression of destruction was conveyed. The bottom floors of the Atrium Tower are gutted and you can see right through to the garden and pool area. At the top, the rooms that were previously just opened are now gutted, and the succession of rooms below them seem to be following suit. Across the top of the tower, more windows are pushed open and ready to be dismantled. Around the rest of the property, nothing much has been done. A few fences taken down or in the process of being taken down, some foliage uprooted, and more windows in the other towers open. On the north end, the attic space is being cleared out. This area was apparently used for storage, and is where I found the stacks of plans and drawings for the proposed convention center expansion of The New Frontier (pictured in the 7/27 entry on this page). A hole has been punched in the side, approximately where the staircase leads up to this area (also pictured in the 7/27 entry). Work is moving at a steady pace, unlike those people I've contacted about the sign and other things. Sorry people! Will be out of town for a week, so if anything major happens and anyone happens to see it, shoot some photos and send them my way!
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9-13-07: The rear porte cochere has been obliterated, and lays in a pile with the second floor of the Atrium Tower. The first hotels rooms in the upper floors have been opened, and a close look reveals that the rooms are still mostly full of furniture with the frames, windows, and remaining pieces laying on the beds. It looks like no one purchased any of the floors of rooms at the auction. Very reminiscent of the beginning of the first pictures of the gutting of the Stardust's West tower. If you look closely you can see the difference between the suites on the 16th floor and the normal rooms on the levels below. Gutting should move fast, as with the Stardust, and it looks like we'll be on schedule for a November 13th implosion. Still no word from anyone on which towers or the sign, so sorry to all those who are emailing me! You'll be the first to know when someone actually gets back to me...
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9-07-07:Gutting of the first floors of the Atrium tower has commenced. The first visible level on the west side of the tower is a basement level which could easily be viewed through glass windows and doors on the east side near the pool. It was used for storage and I've included a picture of this area before the closing. The second visible level was the first floor of hotel rooms which have been exposed, curtains flapping in the wind. It's hard to tell how they will proceed as everything seems to be happening with no plan or reason, to the out of the loop observer at least. As of yet, no one has commented on what will happen to the sign or which towers will be imploded and in what manner. Clauss Construction is apparently very hard to get a hold of, via phone, email, or otherwise, and the people on property certainly aren't as accommodating as the Boyd/LVI staff were with the Stardust demolition, but I'll keep everyone up to date as more information becomes available!
The basement level of the Atrium tower is accesed via staircases at the pool and was intended to be a poolside banqueting area when first built, but has remained unfinished and used for storage for it's entire existance.
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9-05-07:Apparently, just after we left the property last Wednesday a small fire broke out in the pile of debris outside the Frontier tower. Damage was minimal (not that it would matter) with four or five rooms on the first and second floors being exposed, and smoke damage to the glass. Most of the first wave of obsolete materials has been cleared in preparation for the rest. A few mattresses still hang in trees. Out front, the main entrance is cluttered with the remnants of casino and hotel pieces such as luggage and chip racks. At the rear valet, all of the doors from the Atrium tower rooms are piled neatly in the grass. No changes regarding the implosion date, yet...
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8-29-07:Gutting of the bottom floor of the Atrium tower has begun while the clearing out of the Lanai and Frontier towers continue at a steady pace. Mattresses, ironing boards, tables, chairs, curtains...everything from the rooms is being discarded out onto the pavement, and into the trees, below. Apparently no one bid on any of the fully furnished rooms at the auction and everything will just be scrapped. On the Las Vegas Blvd. side of the property, a pile of the casino carpeting lays in front of the porte cochere along with fixtures from the casino cages and various change and floor drawers on that side of the casino. No new rumors on the implosion of the towers yet.
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8-21-07: The last of the furniture in the hotel towers is being cleared out. The Atrium furniture is being trucked out, while the fitting and furnishings from the Lanai and Frontier Towers are just being chucked out the windows. Every floor of the Lanai Tower is being worked on while just this morning the first windows of the Frontier Tower have been pushed out onto the sidewalk. Clause Construction put up their signs today as well. Lights are still twinkling in the casino and guards still sit at each entrance. And the news that everyone's waiting for: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2007 2:00 A.M.....is the first rumor. As with all other implosions here in town, that date is tentative and rumored, although sources seem to be quite reliable this time. As for which towers will be dropped, speculation is varied. Lanai tower is small enough to be taken care of via wrecking ball, but the Frontier tower may be imploded with the Atrium Tower (which is a sure thing, of course). More to come!
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8-14-07: The marquees on the signs are blank. The ghost of the Gilley's lettering remains, but even the neon bull and riders that would move back and forth are off at night. Signage has already been ripped from the back cochere entrance and all of the street lamps that lined the walkways from the strip are gone as well. Inside there are still lights blinking. All rumors point to demolition actually beginning the first part of September. As for the sign, you guys will be the first to know when I know anything. I get email after email asking me about it, but as of now, no one has gotten back to me about my inquiries. More to come soon!
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7-27-07: "Turn off the lights. The Party's over..." read the 15th on one of the desk calendars in one of the Sports book offices. The party is most definitely over. Empty casino floor. Deserted bars. Abandoned offices...well, mostly. There's still a few stragglers in the upper management offices clearing out their things, but for the most part, everything Frontier is gone. Phil Ruffin didn't leave much behind for the auctioneers or the demolition crew. Although there wouldn't have been much worth mentioning even if he had. All generic games. No Frontier slot bellies or signage. All slot and video machines are gone, and as of today, most of the table games, office furniture, and anything auctioned off is gone as well. The porte cochere is void of vehicles and people. The pool is already turning green with algae and the grounds are all dead or dying from the heat and drastic change in weather over the last week. The kitchens and working alleys all smell of mildew and defrosted freezers, not very pleasant. Upstairs, it looks like Chernobyl. Locker rooms and offices are scattered with debris. Everything from shoes and cologne to name tags and Bibles. They weren't messing around when they said “everyone out”. Employee graffiti is everywhere as well, documenting their time of employment, many over 40 years, and goodbye notes to coworkers. Things should be cleared out by the end of the week, and then the crew will come in to strip the panels, carpeting, and decor to ready the buildings for bulldozers and wrecking balls.
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7-17-07: The last nights at the New Frontier were craziness. We arrived at ten to find nothing out of the ordinary. A few more people than would have usually been there, but nothing too hectic. A stage had been set up and there was a jazz band playing, along with a Frank Sinatra impersonator! We met up with some friends and family, including my parents who actually met at the Frontier! Some observations made around the resort were every hotel room being marked with an "out of order" sticker, the pool surrounded by caution tape, and a few very rude security guards among many other awesome ones! At 11:45 minutes to midnight an announcement was made that the doors would be closing in 15 minutes over the intercom system. As midnight drew closer, the fire alarm was pulled to get people heading toward the exits, which they didn't do. The cages had lines of people cashing out while they still could (no more $1 chips!), and people lingered and hugged, while most meandered outside. Quite an uneventful exit, compared to the conga line at the Stardust! The auction is next Thursday. Hopefully I'll see some of you I met at Nevada Landing today there! After the auction, the bulldozers move in...more to come!
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7-11-07:Well it seems appropriate that my first entry in this Frontier Journal be posted from the Frontier. Booked a room for a couple nights and I'm in the Atrium tower overlooking the pool. Across the street Wynn's Encore is going up, and to the north the big empty lot where the Stardust stood continues to be cleared of debris as they prepare to dig the basement levels of Echelon. In the casino, most of the quarter machines have been turned off and some of the tables are already missing their layouts. A chain link fence is alreay going up around the perimeter of the property. Part 1 of this shoot is some exterior photos of the resort. Part 2 coming soon!
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