LAS VEGAS — The people of Chicago debate the Cubs versus the White Sox. In Philadelphia, the cheese steak purveyors Pat’s and Geno’s have long divided the citizenry. Soon, the residents of Las Vegas - and the millions of people who visit - will be able to argue over which museum best depicts the moral turpitude of organized crime.
Dueling centers chronicling the history of the mob are planned for Las Vegas, and it seems almost certain that someone is going to get hurt. Well, feelings anyway.
“I am not the least bit worried about them,” Mayor Oscar Goodman said of the potential competition to the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, a city-sponsored project he has championed for years.That museum is set to open next March in the old downtown federal courthouse, the site of the 1950 mob hearings led by Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.
“They are no competition because we are the real thing,” said Goodman, a former defense lawyer for reputed Mafia figures. “Forget about it.”
But the rival, which involvesthe daughter of famed Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana, is promising a collection of mob memorabilia in the Tropicana casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
“Our experience will be very different from theirs,” said Carolyn Farkas, the spokesman for the museum, the Las Vegas Mob Experience. “Theirs is more a law enforcement accounting; for us it is more a personal view.”
The idea for the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement was seeded when the city bought the 1933 federal courthouse and post office from the federal government for $1 in 2002, with the strict understanding that the building - one of the oldest in southern Nevada - be used for cultural purposes.
For much of the middle of last century, organized crime ruled the Strip, developing and managing an array of casinos, skimming their way to success. Federal prosecutors put an end to their reign in the 1980s. The city determined its historical relationship to organized crime - and the role the courthouse played in it - made the site a perfect fit. “It came from the soil of this building,” said Nancy Deaner, the city’s cultural affairs manager.
The building is being meticulously restored, down to the original coffered ceiling and crown moldings hidden for years and the original mustard, oxblood and royal blue colors long ago washed in white.
The $42 million project has been financed through a series of state, federal and local grants, and the work has progressed a bit glacially as money has trickled in.
The museum will have three stories and nearly 17,000 square feet of exhibits, including an interactive courtroom in which visitors can get fingerprinted. It would also include the brick wall from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (it was removed brick by brick and put in storage but will be constructed, bullet marks and all, Deaner said), roughly 700 objects and extensive exhibits on law enforcement efforts against the Mafia.
“This story is so rich, our efforts to tell it are hard to do in a museum this size,” said Dennis Barrie, the creative director of the museum.
At the same time, Eagle Group Holdings - working with Antoinette McConnell, the 74-year-old daughter of Giancana - is looking to open the Las Vegas Mob Experience at the end of the year.
While executives from theMob Experience declined to identify the planned site, a document provided by someone involved in the transaction who was not authorized to speak shows an agreement with the Tropicana Las Vegas, which is undergoing a $165 million renovation.
The Mob Experience would include theme parkstyle exhibits, including one called “Final Fate” in which a visitor “gets made or gets whacked,” according to the description.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 04/25/2010