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Las Vegas has developed a reputation for imploding its past. Actually, the reputation is neither deserved nor unique. Other cities have blown up historic buildings whose owners or the community had decided had outlived their usefulness—Reno’s Mapes Hotel serving as an example. And Las Vegas has imploded mainly hotel-casinos in financial trouble or unlikely to compete with newer, more modern, larger resorts. What Las Vegas has done differently, though, is turn these implosions into spectacles. This multimedia presentation includes eight of the eleven implosions since the first in 1993, excluding the Hacienda, now Mandalay Bay, in 1996; the El Rancho, originally the Thunderbird, in 2000; and the Boardwalk, imploded in 2006 to make room for MGM Mirage’s Project City Center.

Exhibit gallery text by Michael Green.

Implosion videos courtesy of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is the copyright holder of these videos. The material cannot be used without their permission.