The Landmark Hotel and Casino

The Landmark Tower was a hotel/casino located in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Landmark opened on July 1, 1969. The Landmark closed on August 8, 1990.

The Landmark played host to famous celebrities such as Danny Thomas, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.

With just 525 rooms, the Landmark was small in comparison to the newer Las Vegas megaresorts.

History

In 1961, Frank Carroll bought a 22 acre lot at the corner of Convention Center Drive and Paradise Road in Las Vegas, Nevada. The lot was empty with the exception of a gas station on the corner. It was here he planned to build The Landmark Tower.

With a $3,000,000 loan from the Appliance Buyers Credit Corporation, Carroll and his group hired John W. Jamieson of Tustin, California to design the tower and Edward Hendricks of Los Angeles was contracted to oversee its construction. The original plan was to build a 15 story tower, the tallest in the state. This was increased to 31 stories, however when The Mint hotel downtown decided to add more floors onto its tower to claim the height record. In the end, the title went to Landmark.

In December 1962, Carroll ran out of funding. His creditors refused to loan him any additional money to complete the tower and work halted. The tower sat 80% complete - an empty shell.

In 1966, after four years of dormancy, the Teamsters Union Pension Fund awarded Carroll $5.5 million to complete the Landmark. Work resumed and the tower was completed by early 1967. Landmark announced the opening of its main showroom and lounges on New Year's Eve, 1967 but due to lack of funding it did not open on time.

The owners expected to have the hotel open in April 1968, however a February edition of the Las Vegas Review Journal noted that the hotel had yet to apply for a gaming license.

On January 17, 1969, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes purchased the Landmark and agreed to pay off the nearly three dozen creditors and contractors Frank Carroll owed money to. Unlike Hughes' other Las Vegas hotels, Landmark had yet to be opened. This allowed Hughes to make all design decisions from room decor to employee uniforms.

Finally, after eight years in the construction phase, The Landmark Hotel & Casino opened on July 1, 1969, with a celebration of 500 invited guests and Danny Thomas headlining the main showroom. The hype was short lived, however, when it was soon apparent that Landmark was not bringing in much profit. Throughout the 1970s, never-ending financial troubles and bad publicity plagued Landmark. In 1970 Hughes fled Las Vegas, leaving control of his hotels to his company, Summa Corp. Landmark reported a loss of $5.9 million this year. In 1974, William G. Bennett and William Pennington made an offer to buy the Landmark but every time they came close to a deal, Hughes raised the price. They bought Circus Circus instead. On July 15, 1977, Carbon monoxide gas leaked into the hotel's air conditioning system killing 1 guest and injuring 138 others. This was followed by a power failure and flooding in the basement.

By the 1980s, The Landmark was in major financial trouble. Summa Corp. began selling off its hotel properties and the Landmark was at the top of the list. In 1983, William Morris - a Las Vegas native - purchased the hotel with plans to breathe life back into it. During an extensive exterior renovation, new red stripes were added along the windows running up the tower and the roof was painted red to match. The entrance had red-lit outriggers added and a new side entrance was added to the casino. Although these were nice visual additions, the rooms remained untouched which contributed to the hotel's eventual downfall. The hotel was renamed "The NEW Landmark". [UNLV Leid Library > Archives > Collections > Martin Stern Jr. > Box 2 > Brochure 334b]

Even though the hotel failed to bring in much profit, it made enough to remain open throughout the 1980s, but with the opening of the city's first mega-resort, The Mirage, in 1989, The Landmark's fate was sealed. Without the money necessary to renovate the rooms and certainly not enough to pay back the creditors, The Landmark closed her doors in August 1990. The hotel sat empty for 3 years until, in 1993, The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (which owns the Las Vegas Convention Center across the street) bought the Landmark for $16.7 million. A year-long debate followed within the L.V.C.V.A. about the fate of the aged and run-down hotel. Some wanted to make the necessary repairs and re-open it to house the many convention attendees who visit every year. Others wanted to demolish the buildings to add 2,000 much-needed parking spaces for the Convention Center. In the end, after much protest, it was decided that the Landmark would be demolished.

Shortly after the announcement of the hotel's pending destruction was made, a motion was filled by several historical preservation groups to have the tower declared a historical landmark thereby preventing the L.V.C.V.A. from destroying or modifying it in any way. However, in the end, the judge ruled in favor of the L.V.C.V.A.

In mid-1994, AB-Haz Environmental began removing asbestos insulation from the Landmark. The company was cited for violating local air emission standards during the removal of the asbestos. AB-Haz signed a settlement in which the company agreed to pay an $18,000 fine. [Las Vegas Sun newspaper - http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2002/dec/27/514439968.html?landmark%20hotel] In early 1995, Maryland-based Controlled Demolition Inc. and California-based Iconco Inc., began clearing the property and prepping the tower with 100 pounds of explosives. The casino, shops, and room wings were cleared away leaving only the gutted out tower.

At 4:39AM on November 7, 1995, the Landmark was demolished in seventeen seconds. Today, the property which once housed the Landmark is a 2000 space parking lot for the Las Vegas Convention Center. [Landmark Tribute Site http://landmark.startrekxtreme.com (copied with permission)]

Film History

The external elevators were used in the filming of a scene in "Diamonds Are Forever".

The Landmark's parking foyer was used during filming of Martin Scorsese's "Casino" starring Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone.

An empty Landmark can be seen behind Elvis in "Viva Las Vegas".

The Landmark had recurring roles in both "Vega$" and "Crime Story (TV series)"

Whereas buildings are usually gutted to prepare for demolition, electrical wiring and lights were allowed to remain, so as part of the movie's special effects, the lights in The Landmark were left on before and during the implosion. The implosion of The Landmark was used in the film "Mars Attacks!", and in the closing credits of "The Cooler".

In "Mars Attacks!", the Landmark Hotel was shown under the name "Galaxy Hotel". Pyrotechnics actually set off at the base of the Landmark were part of the special effects for this movie of Resembling a UFO's Laser shooting the base and collapsing it.

References

External links

* [http://landmarkhoteltribute.com/ The Landmark Hotel and Casino Tribute Site]
* [http://youtube.com/watch?v=N1SREuX3pXs Slideshow of Landmark photos]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlUY2Iq9-AI Landmark demolition video]
* [http://youtube.com/watch?v=m9CVFozqqvc "Death of the Landmark Hotel" (Tribute video)]