Stardust Just Dust
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
LAS VEGAS (AP) – The venerable Stardust casino-hotel on the Las Vegas Strip was imploded early Tuesday morning in a hail of fireworks to make way for Boyd Gaming Corp.’s $4.4 billion megaresort Echelon.
The property, known for its bargain rooms, friendly service and mobbed-up past, opened on July 2, 1958, billing itself as the world’s largest resort hotel with 1,032 rooms.
It is also credited with being Las Vegas’ first mass-market casino, thanks to cheap rates and loss-leading food and drinks.
The implosion of two towers, gutted to bare concrete and steel over the past three months, included a 32-story building that was the tallest ever felled on the Strip.
In its place, Boyd plans to build a new resort, Echelon, to open in late 2010 with more than 5,000 hotel rooms, a production theater, concert venue, shopping mall and more than 1 million square feet of meeting space.
