Editorial: Stardust memories

Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006 | 7:22 a.m.

The Stardust closes its doors today to await the implosion that will forever strip it from the Las Vegas landscape.

Closure and demolition of the longtime Las Vegas icon will make way for Echelon Place, a $4 billion megaresort that Boyd Gaming will begin building in June. That project is part of the new Las Vegas, for which the Stardust and other old-time casinos have had to move aside. In the not-so-distant past, Las Vegas also bid farewell to such staples as the Desert Inn, Sands and Dunes.

The Stardust opened in 1958 as a place of legend. At the time it was the largest resort hotel in the world, boasting 1,000 rooms and Nevada's biggest casino. Its "Lido de Paris" show was one of the first in Las Vegas to feature topless dancers. Siegfried and Roy got their start in that show.

The casino has an infamous past, too. Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal ran the Stardust during the 1970s and '80s, when he was a reputed associate of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, the Chicago mob's main man in Las Vegas. The mob's skimming operations at the Stardust and other hotels of that era were the basis for the movie "Casino." Federal prosecution of such operations played a role in dismantling organized crime's control of Las Vegas casinos.

The Las Vegas Sun's John Katsilometes noted in a Monday column that Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme were among the entertainers who performed Saturday at the closing of the Stardust's showroom, which also has hosted such acts as Wayne Newton and George Carlin. Still, Las Vegas isn't a city that sheds too many tears over saying goodbye to an old friend. Katsilometes reported that Lawrence joked, "We're closing another hotel. That's what we do. We've closed more hotels than Steve Wynn has built."

A hotel, no matter how famous, is merely a tangible symbol of what Las Vegas really is - a city that is constantly rebuilding itself. It is a city that remembers its past without being afraid to face its future. People often move here to start over. And Las Vegas visitors can always count on finding something new. That is what brings them back.

The closure of the Stardust marks the end of one era as it opens the exciting beginning of another. Las Vegas isn't losing an old friend as much as it is making room for new ones.