Monday, September 21, 2009

vegas (and bust)

Hotel Nevada & Casino

Here we have some photos of a few defunct casinos around Las Vegas. First up, the former Hotel Nevada and Casino, on Main St. in downtown Vegas, a bit south of Fremont St. It looks like it's been vacant for many years, but according to the only review I've found of the place it was still open in August 2005, and was a complete dump. The review's titled "Welcome to the Bates Motel", and suggests that sleeping there would make for a good "Fear Factor" episode.

For photos of the Hotel Nevada in (relatively) better shape, I ran across photos from before and shortly after it closed.

All in all, this one's probably no big loss.


Hotel Nevada & Casino

Hotel Nevada & Casino

Hotel Nevada & Casino


Next up is this ghostly sign for the former Silver City Casino, just off the Strip near the Convention Center. The casino itself was demolished a few years ago, but the sign lingers on.

Silver City Casino sign


I'm actually not sure this next one is really defunct, since I just glimpsed it from the taxi on the way to the airport. The Key Largo certainly looked like an ex-casino, but I ran across reviews here and here dating to late 2008. The small attached hotel is/was a Quality Inn, but the Quality Inn website doesn't contain any mention of the place, so it may be a recent casualty of the economy or something.

Key Largo Casino, Las Vegas


And finally, a couple of shots of the Lady Luck, which stands tall, dark and vacant just north of Fremont Street. It was one of the larger casino hotels in downtown Las Vegas until closing in February 2006. That was supposed to be temporary while the buildings were renovated, but then the developer ran out of money, and here we are going on four years later. Still, the hope is that the place isn't permanently defunct. The city's offered various incentives to the owners to renovate and reopen the place, but nothing's happened just yet. Maybe things will turn around once the economy improves. With any luck.

Lady Luck, Downtown Vegas

Lady Luck, Downtown Vegas

No comments :