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Friday, Sept. 11, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Sun Archives
- 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)
- Chicago poor example for museum idea (4-11-2002)
Sun Expanded Coverage
A new mob war is brewing in Las Vegas. But this one isn’t likely to result in bloodshed.
On one side, you’ve got the long-planned, $50 million downtown mob museum sponsored by the city of Las Vegas and its mayor, former high-profile mob lawyer Oscar Goodman.
On the other, you’ve got three investors, including a former chief financial officer for several local casinos, who are planning their own mob-related display at a Strip hotel, to be called the Las Vegas Mob Exhibition.
As soon as 2011, Las Vegas visitors eager to revel in the world of the Mafia could have two options. According to Managing Partner Jay Bloom, a former New York investment banker, his group plans to have a collection of about 1,000 heretofore unseen artifacts of mob life. The group, which is being aided by the daughter of a well-known mob boss, is moving quickly.
Bloom said in an interview he has received offers from Strip hotels to host the exhibition, which would be comparable in scope to two attractions at the Luxor — “Bodies … The Exhibition” and “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition.”
Though no deal has been struck, he said he is confident that will happen soon and that the exhibition could be up within a year.
The 20,000-square-foot exhibition will include things such as home movies and a re-creation of the living room of former Chicago mob boss Sam “Momo” Giancana. Giancana’s daughter, Antoinette Giancana, has signed on as a paid consultant and spokeswoman for the project.
“We’re not going to set out to vilify these guys, and we’re not going to make them saints, either,” Bloom said. “We want to tell the complete story.”
Bloom said the exhibition will cost “somewhat” less than the estimated $50 million price tag for the mob museum, though he declined to be more specific.
Most of the needed artifacts, valued at more than $10 million, are in hand, he said. His group has retained a professional design team, including individuals with theme park and Hollywood experience. And the money is in place.
“We’re a definite go,” Bloom said. “We’re financed. This is as real as it gets.”
The other two partners are Louis Ventre and Charlie Sandefur, the former chief financial officer of the Sahara and before that the New Frontier.
According to records on file with the Nevada secretary of state’s office, Sandefur and Bloom are affiliated with the Las Vegas outfit Eagle Group Holdings. The group’s business license application with Clark County is pending, according to county records.
The exhibition and the city’s mob museum, officially called the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, will both charge an entrance fee, and both will feature a wide range of artifacts and exhibits of mob life. Both have been procuring artifacts from the children and grandchildren of top Mafia bosses and soldiers.
There will also be some notable differences.
The museum will be a permanent fixture. The exhibit won’t, though Bloom aims to have it run for perhaps 10 years or longer.
The exhibition will mostly be about the mob.
The museum, as its formal name suggests, will also aim to tell the story of the federal and local law enforcers who battled the mob and eventually drove it out of Las Vegas. Its organizers are getting items and other support from the FBI.
The museum has signed on the world-renowned museum designer Dennis Barrie, whose projects include the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland and the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.
Bloom said a design team for the exhibition will be announced soon. Giancana added that she, along with Nico Santucci, the owner of a mob-themed restaurant on West Sahara Avenue, will be involved in designing the re-creation of her father’s living room.
Santucci, a former pop singer and nightclub owner, could not be reached.
Bloom, like Mayor Goodman, is convinced the idea is a big money-maker. “As you can imagine, if the city is projecting 600,000 to 800,000 visitors per year (for the mob museum), what would a Strip property do?” he said.
The city’s mob museum, at the site of the former federal courthouse near City Hall, finally appears to be edging toward reality. Interior renovations began recently.
At his Thursday news conference, Goodman took a combative stance on the exhibition, which he said he hadn’t previously heard of: “We’re not afraid of any competition. If Ms. Giancana was smart, she’d give me a call and say, ‘Can I have a little cubby hole in your mob museum?’ ”
Goodman continued: “Ours is professional. This isn’t going to be a patched-up, fly-by-night organization. This is first-class. We have the best people in the world who are helping us plan it.”
Both Giancana and Goodman denied that an old potential connection between them is spurring a rivalry between the projects.
Tony “the Ant” Spilotro — the Chicago mob’s Las Vegas enforcer and Goodman’s erstwhile legal client — has long been suspected in the unsolved 1975 slaying of Sam Giancana.
But Antoinette Giancana, who has theorized that the CIA and the mob were behind the murder, said she didn’t care who Spilotro retained as an attorney those many years ago. Goodman’s involvement with the museum, she said, has nothing to do with her involvement with the exhibition.
“I’m beyond all that,” she said.
Goodman concurred.
“I’m sure there’s no story in that one,” he said.
In fact, Giancana said she’d like to meet with Goodman, perhaps at Capo’s, her friend Santucci’s restaurant, where they play movies such as “The Godfather” and “Casino” to enhance the Mafia aesthetic.
The mob era in Vegas may be long gone. But maybe there will be one more sit-down between two with ties to that past.
While we cannot afford pay to house our current criminals I cannot imagine why any sane person would want to invest $50 million to HONOR past criminals. It's simply a glorification of sick criminal behavior. This is not like a holocaust museum that serves to remind us of past horrors so we don't repeat them. Our Mayor even dressed up like a mobster to promote it. Would he dress up like a nazi if he was promoting a holocaust museum? Not one public dime better be used on this stupid idea. What a waste of time and money. If the Mayor thinks this is such a good idea let him put up HIS OWN money... or get some money from his mobbed up buddies... but Leave MY money alone!
The development and creation of the Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement is a good and welcomed addition to Las Vegas' cultural landscape. It is along the lines of the Spy Museum and Newseum in Washington DC. This museum does not glorify the crime but rather educates the public to the truth from both sides of the story.
Las Vegas has a unique history that needs to be told and one which locals and tourists alike want to know about. Museums like the Neon Museum, Liberace Museum and Atomic Testing Museum are unique to our community and the Mob Museum will only enhance the cities ability to market itself culturally.
Economic diversification is not only positive but needed for sustainability.
Nothing the government can do someone in private enterprise cannot do better. This exhibit will destroy any visitation to the city's mob museum. With an exhibit inside a strip location, no one will cab over to the city spot. Stop the government museum and save the money.
For an Agency known for "no comment" on just about everything as a matter of policy, this should send some alarm bells ringing. The local office cannot go to the john without clearing it with DC first - so that tells you how far this "support" goes.
But if the FBI wants to grab some glory on organized crime - HERE is an EXHIBIT to get things started:
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news...
Gary Primm used to have a collection of mob memorabilia out at Whiskey Pete's, LOL. Mob museum...$50 MILLION, what a waste of tax payers hard earned and stolen income!
Waste of money.all anyone has to do is go rent a dvd of "The Untouchables",that's all they need to know about the Mob or even "Casino" or read the book, both are educatoinal and wont cost the City a dime.
LVPaco
this is a part of history Las Vegas doesn't need to glorify. we have enough to deal with now with all the recent headlines. it will only confirm what people know or think about Las Vegas - a corrupt city with an 'anything goes' mentality.
PS I'moriginally from CHicago, a city very well know for Mob history (who do you think came to Vegas first along with the NY mob and Milwaukee outfit?) About 15 years ago, maybe more, someone came up with a smarat idea to open up a Mob museum also and it happened to be across the street from a Hard Rock Cafe. It closed after not even 6 months because NO ONE CARED (the locaton is now a Rainforest Cafe), they cared more about seeing Jimmy Hendrix guitar across the street. I think they stll have the bus tours where you can drive by places where Mob stuff happened, like the site of the St. Valentine's day massacre and also the Biograph theater, which I think is still open. If the city where it all started can't make it work,what makes Vegas think they will succeed? Times have changed. theMob isn't an issue any longer. In 10 years, will they open a museum dedicated to gangbangers?
Time to drop the city plan. NO need to waste taxpayer dollars now that private individuals are fronting the money to make their own exhibit.
Can we add a memorial wing to the Las Vegas Mob Museum for the victims?
William Coulthard, Ned Day and Don Bolles vindicated by Jon Ralston in The Las Vegas Sun
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/aug...
Ned Day (April 5, 1945-September 3, 1987)
http://www.lasvegasnow.com/global/story....
When will all the victims of Mob rule be vindicated?
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2...
http://www.lvrj.com/news/7387901.html
The scene is seared into Beecher Avants' memory.
Twenty-seven years later, and he can almost feel that scorching 115-degree day. It was 3:43 p.m. on July 25, 1972, and the veteran homicide cop felt like he was melting, turning into water.
He can still visualize the inferno. Cars were burning all over the third floor of the parking garage in downtown Las Vegas. And in the middle of all that smoke and fire and heat were the smoldering remains of a Cadillac blown apart by a powerful car bomb -- a blast so powerful it ripped a gaping hole in the concrete and steel-reinforced floor beneath the car.
Killed in the explosion was Bill Coulthard, a prominent attorney and the former head of the FBI's Las Vegas office.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2000/feb...
the mob museum is racist, because it doesn't include the contributions of black organisations, such as the bloods and the crips, and up and coming Hispanic syndicates like the MS13, Mexican mafia, etc. Also, Asian groups also are important, Yakuza, Triad, etc.
I wonder if the mob museum will be attacked by graffiti gangs trying to make a name for themselves??? They got the LV SIGN after all.
'Its organizers are getting items and other support from the FBI.'
It's a pretty sick joke for the FBI, Local Law enforcement and City Government to collaborate with the Mob while the brutal murder of the former head of the Las Vegas FBI field office remains an open homicide! Along with countless other unsolved murders...
At 56, he was a successful attorney who had been the FBI's first resident agent in Southern Nevada. After leaving the bureau in 1945 to pursue a legal career, he became known as a well-connected lawyer and civic leader. He helped run the water district, served two terms in the state Assembly, was a member of the Legislative Counsel Bureau, had been a deputy city attorney and even was mentioned as a potential U.S. Senate candidate.
But Coulthard was better known as the former FBI man who had been the president of the Nevada Bar Association.
The murder investigation went nowhere fast. Las Vegas homicide detectives were all but deafened by the explosion. They developed a couple of suspects, but no charges were ever filed.
http://jfkmurdersolved.com/phpBB3/viewto...
I am all for it! We need a permanent fixture about our cities history.
And the list goes on.
This is not a history to be proud of. This town was built by the Mob with Mormon money. Yes, it must have been interesting to putit mildly to be around those days, especially in the 60's and 70's - the Rat Pack days, but it shouldn't be glorified.I wonder how many skeleton remains were found during the building boom in the last 20-25 years? And nothing was said or reported.
I bet the law enforcement exhibit will be smaller than the mob one at this "museum'.
I think the money would be better spent, building a monument to Harry Reid...
Is this the way we want the world to view Las Vegas? It seems to me that this should just be our dirty little secret, not idolized in a $50 MILLION museum. Surely we can use that money for something more positive.
And we can't find better use of the money at this time when no one is working ? This seems like a "spend" that we don't need to build at this time..
Exactly where will the Harry Reid exhibit be if they're going to showcase NV's greatest criminal, thieves, and con men?
Will he be stuffed, wax, or live (who could tell the diff anyway)?
Probably enough material to supply both museusms.
I think its appropriate for the mob lawyer to want a mob museum.
This is the epitome of Las Vegas. Glorifying crooks in a city filled with crooks? Sounds about right.
Hopefully this museum is a reminder to all the people that visit this crooked city to watch your back.
The mob has never been cleaned out of this city. Go to the sportsbook at the Ramparts on a sunday and see the hot young girls walk in with thousands of dollars they are betting for their mob bosses.
Take a good look at Terri Lanni at MGM or any of the other crooks in charge of their operations.