29 Comments
Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Steve Marcus
Museum designer Dennis Barrie, left, speaks during a media tour of the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement (the “Mob Museum”) in the former U.S. Post Office and Federal Courthouse building in downtown Las Vegas Tuesday, May 25, 2010. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, center, looks on. Dennis’ wife and co-designer Kathleen Barrie is at far right.
Published Tuesday, May 25, 2010 | 1:30 p.m.
Updated Thursday, May 27, 2010 | 12:47 p.m.
Related Story
Sun Coverage
Sun Archives
- Mob memories: Family members will tell their side (4-24-2010)
- ‘Experiential entertainment’ to be a hallmark of Las Vegas Mob Experience (4-25-2010)
- Report: Las Vegas Mob Experience, rival of Mob Museum, to open at Tropicana this year (4-24-2010)
- Downtown Mob Museum set up to be self-supporting (4-21-2010)
- Downtown museum to tell story of mob in Las Vegas, elsewhere (3-25-2010)
- Las Vegas mob museum continues to move forward (11-18-2008)
- Not yet built, mob museum may get rival (9-11-2009)
- Goodman marks Mob Museum progress (8-4-2009)
- Mob museum contractor at odds with city (8-8-2009)
- Oh, the irony: The former mob lawyer gets FBI support for mob museum (8-17-2008)
When the city’s mayor is also one of its foremost mob authorities, there will be no competition among organized crime-themed attractions in Las Vegas.
That’s what the city’s former mob attorney mayor, Oscar Goodman, said today during a media tour of the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement. It’s called the Mob Museum in shorthand. The space at the under-renovation U.S. Post Office and Federal Courthouse building, the very site of the Kefauver Hearings that brought many mob members into the national discourse for the first time, is largely Goodman’s vision.
And he wants to hear nothing of any other mob attraction being built in Las Vegas, specifically the Las Vegas Mob Experience being planned for the Tropicana. When asked if intended to visit the competition after it opened, Goodman took a metal pipe to the question.
“There is no competition. Forget about it,” he said, standing on the court steps where he not only tried his first case in 1967 (and being handed a stack of $100 bills totaling $3,000 for his trouble), but where he actually retched because he was so nervous trying that case. “This is a real museum. It’s not some sensational depiction of a particular moment in time.”
Goodman expressed surprise that the family of one of his more notorious clients, Anthony “The Ant” Spilotro, was partnered in the project at Tropicana. As has been reported, Spilotro’s widow, Nancy, and son Vincent are among the families hired by Mob Experience chief Jay Bloom to contribute their time and artifacts to the interactive theme attraction scheduled to open at the Trop by the end of the year.
“I don’t have any idea of what’s going on there, only what’s happening here,” Goodman said. “We have the real story, the full story, here.” He also intimated that he wasn’t convinced the Mob Experience would open at all, saying, “I’ve been hearing about that place for a long time,” but offered no specific information as to why it would not be opened as scheduled.
He reiterated, “We are not interested in the sensational. This is the real McCoy. There is no competition. That’s not the story here.”
In Goodman’s hands, the story was to lead a group of media members through the latest phase of the $42 million project, set to open in about a year at 300 Stewart Ave., where Stewart T-bones the valet entrance to the still-latent Lady Luck hotel-casino and the businesses on Third and Ogden streets.
Joining the mayor were Dennis and Kathleen Barrie, who have enacted such similar museum projects as the Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. If there is a comparison, already, to be made between the Mob Museum and Mob Experience, it’s that the Mob Museum is taking a far greater interest (and spending ample space and resources) on the law enforcement component to organized crime. The downtown museum boasts the physical presence, stories and personal collections of many famous mob-connected families. The Mob Museum boasts one of the most famous physical structures in mob histories, which itself serves as part of the attraction.
“This is where the mafia was exposed, in a lot of ways,” Dennis Barrie said after today’s tour. “It will have to be told in an entertaining way, though. So much of Las Vegas is entertainment. You ask, ‘what do you learn at Madame Tussaud’s?’ And you do learn as you go through this museum. It will be both an entertaining and educational experience.”
Barrie later said the admission cost will likely be between $10-$15.
Asked by Kathleen Barrie to use our imaginations, as the exhibit is still largely in its larval stage, media first were shown the third floor, which visitors are shown after a ride on 1950s police-styled elevators. Guests enter a lineup in an attraction called “Mom 101,” just to get in that organized-crime mood. They can sit around a large table – to be literally around the table where mob business was conducted.
The second floor is the actual courtroom where such mob figures as Frank Costello were shown (or rather, his well-manicured hands) in public for the first time. The floor is dedicated to the 1950s and the Kefauver hearings. Video and audio presentations from the famous trials and hearings of the day will be detailed. Holographic images of figures who made the room famous — including Sen. Estes Kefauver — are planned for the space. “The Skim” attraction, which details how money was distributed from Las Vegas to the National Syndicate, is detailed on the second floor, which is also where the wall from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre will be displayed. An attraction labeled “Mob Mayhem,” centering on mobster-on-mobster violence, is planned for the second floor.
The first floor, the last to be visited, gives guests a chance to listen to actual FBI wiretaps and learn of the then-highly advanced practice of recording phone conversations. The gift shop and an exhibit detailing the still-alive “hot spots” of organized crime around the globe catch guests as they finish walking the exhibit. “Memories of the Mob” features the stories of family members and officials who have been interviewed over the years. “Myth of the Mob” takes on inaccuracies, glorification and exaggeration of organized crime in books and entertainment media.
The mayor seems to benefit from a sense of that myth, as a one-time legal representative of reputed mob figures, which he acknowledges. He’s unique among mayors in that his affiliation with that culture is a benefit, not a hindrance.
“If anyone else running for mayor had my background,” he said, “they wouldn’t get elected.”
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at twitter.com/JohnnyKats.
So there are two, there is more than one casino
I would like to say something, but I might be wacked.
If anybody would know a mobster when he saw one, it would be that hack Goodman.
I hope it works, however I'm glad I'm not an investor...
This alleged competition between this project and the private one at the Trop seems silly. It's been said before, but why exactly is the mayor spending $40+ million of taxpayer money on a downtown museum when there's a competing (privately funded) project?
We're laying off city employees and the economy's in the toilet. Why not spend an exorbitant amount of tax dollars on something so frivolous?!?
Why does the mayor seems unhappy and/or jealous of the project at the Tropicana? While the Mayor has heard of the Tropicana project saying, " I've been hearing about that place for a long time", the taxpayers have been hearing about the Mayor's project for the past 9 years. A previous article stated the Tropicana project has been in the works for 18 months, so why has the downtown project been going on for 9 years?....With the Tropicana project opening first? I guess that is the difference between a private project and one run by the Mayor.
Are things really so bad in Las Vegas?
This is truly the WORST MAYOR IN THE WORLD, NOT THE HAPPIEST!! Is he out of his flippin mind when he has no qualms with devastating all the hundreds of families he has ruined while cutting jobs in his City. Does he not realize if he put off this Mob Museum for only one year he could have saved all those families. He only thinks of his legacy, not those people who sacrifice for his monuments to his legacy. He is truly more comparable to a dictator, than a compassionate Mayor. What a joke....
Will the mayor dedicate the museum to all the laid off employees and their families? Services reduced, taxes the same and politicians building pet projects on everyone's back. Strong work.
The mayor is only concerned about his legacy. He keeps talking about how bad the city finances are, but he has no problem spending tax payer dollars on a mob museum and a new city hall. When will the rest of the city council step up and oppose the mayor.
Goodman sold us all out, in favor of the unions. Why does this article not surprise me.
Who gives a crap about the stinkin Mob history in Las Vegas! It was a great time which has come and gone, next???
who cares about the mob museum other than his honor the Mayor,
waste of taxpayers money period
What Las Vegas needs is a Chicago casino with a 20s speak easy theme.
It could have chicago hot dogs, deep dish pizza, the water tower, buckingham fountain, an L train ride, and lots of traffic jams.
Bob
And the Mayor's legacy continues unabated by anyone else on the council, a city owned downtown arena, a new field for the 51's, free property for everyone, a new crocodile farm at old cashman field.
All that and no city employees left to serve the citizens, crazy
Give me another gin please
DLLV..The Mayor didn't lay enough people off. There is very little work being done with the present boobs in there.
They better have plenty of feather dusters ready for this place because it's gonna be empty.
Ah, don't you just love the history buffs here?
A museum? In Vegas? We need "culture" like a hole in the head. Next thing you know, someone will try to build an opera house here. Sheeesh!
Stan there is a large difference between people sharing art, culture and music through voluntary association and by stealing the wealth from others so you can entertain yourself with what you believe to be high brow entertainment so you feel better about yourself.
Can you imagine, a Mayor bragging about being involved in criminal activity. The sad thing about that bloated alcoholic is that most of the country thinks he is Mayor of all of the metropolitian area, they don't know that the real city is actually nothing but a dried up, dirty, crime ridden broke city. The real glittering "Vegas" the world knows he has nothing to do with, and is actually considered a joke.
Say what you want, most cities would love to have a mayor like Goodman. He actually likes the city, that's a hell of lot more than you can say for the officials in L.A. or Detroit.
In my opinion if there was no mob there would be no Vegas. I believe that Bugsy started it, without him there would no Vegas, just some small casino's along the side of the road.
By bkcc
By DykerBeach
By jrod
IT IS ALL ABOUT LEGACY.
Mayor Oscar is probably the only one left who (is still 98.6 and kicking) - was one of the original players (Mob, lawyers, et al) who built this town. He probably feels he should preserve what went on here so it can be remembered. After all, on the legal end - he was a part of it.
So if Mayor Oscar seems to be a bit touchy, it may be because "this time it's, personal."
@The-Socratic-Inkwell: And to preserve that legacy, he's willing to financially destroy a major U.S. city.
all of this is well and good, but Goodman sold us all out.
You goofballs that glorify the mob and claim that Las Vegas was "run better" under the mob's tutelage
ought to educate yourself a little bit.
Murder, Inc... it ain't just a Bruce Springsteen tune.
All these comments don't mean s***! Express your views in the voting booth. The reason the council stands by and watches Oscar is because 2 of them(woodsen and the barber) are going to make a run at mayor next year. Lois is a dottering old lady who signs off on whatever the last person told her. Barlow is solely about the westside and Anthony is about metro. No one stands up to Oscar as long as they are getting what they want.
This would be a great attraction. Lots of tourists would love to go see the history of the mob in Vegas. This is what made Las Vegas.
If it is promoted it will attract lots of visitors.
Bravo Mayor Goodman, continue on with the Mob Museum and in the meantime go fire more union leeches in this city. Show these greedy leeches they are not the ones in charge. I like the transformation of Downtown that I have seen in the last 24 years living in this city. I know more work needs to be done and goodluck!!!