Tuesday, April 28, 1998 | 2:20 a.m.
The Aladdin Hotel-Casino, once the epitome of the city's flash and pizzazz, went out in style Monday night, making its exit in a fiery implosion witnessed by thousands on the Las Vegas Strip.
Charges placed strategically throughout the 17-story building caused it to fold neatly to the ground, sending a dust cloud 300 feet into the air.
"It was unbelievable," said Irene Springgay, of Chandler, Ariz., who watched the spectacle from a rooftop parking garage across from the hotel. "It was there one minute and gone the next."
Left untouched by the blasts was the resort's famous theater and a marquee that once featured the top names in show business. The message on the marquee Monday: "Out of the dust Aladdin rises anew. See you in 2000."
Coming in its place? What else, but another 10-figure megaresort.
It took only a matter of seconds for the 860 charges of dynamite to level the 32-year-old building that had been a haven for mob figures and a hangout for entertainment's elite. It was the fifth implosion spectacle here since 1993.
Before the implosion, crews combed the deserted shell of the building where Elvis and Priscilla were married, where Wayne Newton held sway as an owner and a performer, and where mob figures from Detroit, St. Louis and Tokyo once shared in the action.
The 1,100-room Aladdin, shuttered since November, was demolished to make way for a $1.3 billion resort that will include a new 2,600-room Aladdin Hotel and Casino, and a 1,000-room property developed by Planet Hollywood. Opening is set for April 2000, according to Richard Goeglein, president and chief executive officer of Aladdin Gaming LLC.
"We'll be back with the Aladdin like the phoenix, rising from the ashes," he said, comparing the resort to the mythical bird.
The year 2000 "can't get here fast enough," Goeglein said at midday Monday in the shadow of the once-elegant showplace. "This is an incredible time for us."
The Aladdin is the fifth local icon to be blasted into oblivion in the last five years, all succumbing to the city's megaresort mania.
The Dunes was imploded in October 1993, making way for the $1.6 billion Bellagio resort, scheduled to open this fall. The Landmark was felled in November 1995, replaced by a convention center parking lot.
The venerable Sands dropped a year later, and the $2 billion Venetian resort is rising in its place. The Hacienda came down in a 1996 New Year's Eve spectacle, and Mandalay Bay resort will open on that site next spring.
Since 1989, 10 megaresorts - each boasting 2,500-3,000 rooms and costing $800 million to $2 billion - have taken shape, and five more are under construction or planned.
The city is gaining 26,000 new hotel rooms in just three years, a 25 percent increase that will push the total room inventory past 125,000.
Goeglein said Monday those heady numbers don't bother him.
By the time the new Aladdin opens, the city's airport will have increased facilities and there will be new efforts at enticing conventions and foreign visitors, Goeglein said.
The Aladdin's roots go back to 1962 when New York toy manufacturer Edwin Lowe opened an English Tudor-style motel named the Tally-Ho. It offered no gambling and lasted 10 months. The motel reopened in 1964 as King's Crown.
Milton Prell, one of the state's early gambling figures, bought the resort in 1966 and named it the Aladdin.
The resort faced a host of financial and legal problems in the years that followed. Mob figures from St. Louis, Detroit and Tokyo were found to have had their fingers in the till at various times.
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