I hear they were planning to tear this building down 3 years ago. I thought they just never would. For years it remained in operation.
Finally, on November 13, 2007....they brought it down.
You can see a
You tube Video of the
Frontier Hotel & Casino Implosion.
Normally I am fairly impassive when it comes to buildings being torn down in Las Vegas. But this one.....this one is different. A sense of gratification overwhelmed me when I saw this one go down. Had I known in advance it was going to take place, I would have bought a first class plane ticket to watch this.
So, here's my Vegas story about the Frontier.
If you ever wanted to see the original 'old guard' running a Vegas hotel (the same guys from the 1950s), then it was the Frontier. I dealt with them for the 2004
Casino Affiliate Convention. We had planned the 'mud wrestling competition' there. The idea was to be similar from the movie
Stripes, where John Candy wrestled in the mud with 5 women. We wanted the delegates to have that opportunity. It was a crazy and wild idea, but with certain rules in place , it would have worked.
We had a contract with the Frontier. They were chosen because they were the only venue with a mud pit and every Wednesday night the bar had a mud-wrestling competition. Those that know me know that everything was organized to the letter. Every i was dotted and every t was crossed. We even hired a former WWE (or WWF) wrester to announce. We had him meet with the people that ran the mud pit a week in advance so he understood what was involved.
The day of the event came. Everything was set up. The guy from the Frontier in charge of the mud pit (Stoney, yes that was his name) was used to holding the microphone during the Wed night bar sessions. This time Stoney had to share it with our guy. Stoney had a primadonna complex (you can't make this up). Yes. A primadonna complex for announcing a
corporate mud-wrestling competition. (Maybe he thought casino affiliate managers are talent agents, I don't know).
Stoney was intent on ruining the event. So he brought in 2 police officers. I asked why they were here. He said, "Safety." (I think he was afraid I would lash out once I figured out he had breached a corporate contract).
There were supposed to be good looking women in very good shape. That was not the case. Our delegates were not allowed in the pit, even though it was in the contract.
I tried to reach the casino management. In any casino, management's offices are always directly behind the cashier cage. Casino management generally doesn't expect outsiders to ask for them at that location, so when a request comes from the cage to see someone, they usually respond to it immediately.
Management was gone.
"Stoney," a bar guy, was in charge of the ENTIRE casino and hotel. He wasn't a VP or a director. He was a
bar guy. During the day he ordered beer and at night directed bartenders. That was it. Most likely, he had no approvals by the Nevada Gaming Commission to run a casino. So now you understand the 'old guard' was still running a casino on the strip. This is not in 1964, or 1974. This is in October 2004.
Bottom line: After jumping in the mud myself in a tux for comic relief, I shook the hands of everyone and I apologized to all my delegates. After everyone left, a security guard at the Frontier escorted me out. This place had dealt with every cowboy tough-guy you could imagine. The last thing I was going to do was start trouble at the Frontier.
But I always remembered what happened. And I looked toward the day I could walk over the property with no Frontier in sight. On my next trip to Vegas, I will make sure I get entry to the construction site to do just that. Poetic Justice.
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Edited 1 times. Last edit at 11/18/07 11:29PM by yorktown.
