Tuesday, April 28, 1998 | 2:05 a.m.
Heavy equipment chipped away at a mountain of debris from the once-opulent Aladdin Hotel-Casino Tuesday, hauling away the remnants of another Las Vegas era.
The cleanup began at dawn, just hours after the 17-story hotel tower was reduced to a 40-foot pile of rubble in the fifth hotel-casino implosion here in as many years.
New York-based LVI Demolition Services has 30 days to clear the site of what is estimated to be more than 30,000 tons of steel and concrete.
Aladdin Gaming LLC plans to build a new $1.3 billion resort on the Las Vegas Strip site, with opening of the project scheduled for April 2000. Included will be two hotels of 2,600 and 1,000 rooms, and a massive shopping-entertainment complex.
Monday night's implosion dropped the 32-year-old structure in a matter of seconds, with the building folding inward.
The results of the blast were evident Tuesday morning as giant trucks capable of carrying 22 tons of debris began parading to and from the site.
Ruben Vasquez, president of the Nevada division of LVI, said the Aladdin demolition was made easier because "the building itself was very poorly built."
"It was evident to us during our prep work, the way the shear walls came apart, that it was going to be an easy project," Vasquez said.
The building was seismically reinforced a couple of years ago, Vasquez said.
LVI also handled demolition of the Sands Hotel two years ago. The Aladdin, Sands, Dunes, Landmark and Hacienda hotels were all imploded by Controlled Demolition Inc. of Phoenix, Md.
"The Sands was a fortress," Vasquez said. "The amount of steel reinforcement and rebar at the Sands was at least triple that used at the Aladdin."
Crews are separating structural steel, concrete and wiring to be recycled.
"We're trying to recycle as much of the building as we can" Vasquez said.
The Aladdin - which featured some of the top names in the entertainment industry - also had its problems. Authorities said mob figures from Detroit, St. Louis and Tokyo had their hands in the till at various times during the hotel's history.
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