Stardust casino imploded in Las Vegas

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Tuesday, March 13, 2007 | 9:35 a.m.

The property, known for its bargain rooms, friendly service and mobbed-up past, opened on July 2, 1958, billing itself as the world's largest resort hotel with 1,032 rooms.

It is also credited with being Las Vegas' first mass-market casino, thanks to cheap rates and loss-leading food and drinks.

The implosion of two towers, gutted to bare concrete and steel over the past three months, included a 32-story building that was the tallest ever felled on the Strip.

In its place, Boyd plans to build a new resort, Echelon, to open in late 2010 with more than 5,000 hotel rooms, a production theater, concert venue, shopping mall and more than 1 million square feet of meeting space.