Nick Christenson
May 1, 2007
In the early morning hours of March 13, 2007, Boyd Gaming imploded the legendary Stardust Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV. The Las Vegas Casino Death Watch staff was on hand to mark this event. This web page chronicles the demise of this storied place.
In June 2006, it was announced that the Stardust Hotel and Casino would close on or shortly after November 1, 2007. It had been known for some time that this place would close and be demolished by its owner, Boyd Gaming, in order to make way for a massive metaresort that would cost in excess of four billion dollars.
As the days count down to closing day, services at the resort begin to shut down. Some of the Death Watch editorial staff and friends gather on October 26th for a meal and last look around at this place. By this time the gift shop has been picked clean of most anything that has the hotel's name on it, and the vast majority of the staff has secured positions at other resorts, mostly those within the Boyd family.
I would describe the atmosphere around this place as upbeat but wistful. The run up to closing time has been a long time coming, everyone knows it has seen better days, and the future that Boyd has planned for this place makes good sense. Also, Boyd Gaming has done an excellent job by all accounts making sure that Stardust employees will have a place to work next week. We enjoy a last walk around this place and head out for the last time.
Many have written a requiem for the Stardust. Links to some notable ones are included here:
Soon after closing folks got to work on the carcass. In mid-November nearly everything that wasn't nailed down, and a bunch of stuff that was, is auctioned off. A listing of some of the stuff that was sold to the public is still available online. Blackjack tables, televisions, neon signs, art work, photographs, chairs, bed frames, just about everything in the place was on the block. The auction was well attended, and I was told that there weren't a lot of bargains to be had.
After the auction, work started in earnest on demolition of the site. Much of the signage was taken down in stages. I hear some of it will end up in the Neon Museum at some point.
They went to work in a serious way on the demolition necessary before the implosion. The rooms in the hotel tower were entirely cleared out, including the windows, leaving an eerie hollow skeletal shell. On February 6, 2007 I took some pictures that I have made available that show the Stardust in this state from several different views.
Boyd Gaming was awfully tight lipped about the date that the hotel tower itself would be imploded. Presumably, this is to limit liability. Finally, the rumors about a date and time converge on March 13, 2007 at 2:30 AM.
I had already scouted locations for this event, coming to the conclusion that the best spot would be the roof of the Circus Circus parking garage. With about two hours to go before the big boom would occur, I made my way down to the Strip to stake out a spot. My planned route was interrupted due to the fact that Industrial Boulevard on the west side of the Stardust site was blocked off. This means that in order to get in position, I'd have to navigate the dreaded Strip traffic.
Traffic on the Strip was bad, but not quite as bad as I feared. I was able to make my way onto Las Vegas Boulevard heading north from Spring Mountain in traffic that was merely very heavy, not completely gridlocked. The main drag and nearby side streets were already heavily populated by those seeking a ring-side seat. As I had expected, the New Frontier parking lot and the top floor of the Wynn parking garage were already pretty crowded. I hoped there would be room in the spot I had staked out earlier.
I made it into the Circus Circus parking garage. It was already bustling, and the lower floors will full of cars. I managed to find a spot to park on about the fourth or fifth floor. This was just about where I intended to park anyway, so it worked out well. One of my concerns would be the amount of dust generated by the implosion. Expecting the density of the dust cloud to be highest closer to the ground, and expecting the walls and floors/ceilings of the parking structure to provide some protection, I had planned to park on a high, non-roof floor anyway, so this worked out according to plan.
I took the stairs up the additional two floors to the roof, carrying my camera equipment and tripod. There were already a bunch of people up there milling around and generally having a good time. The south third or so of the roof was blocked off by "Do Not Cross" yellow tape, so I couldn't get to the place I originally intended, but found a spot that worked pretty well.
The outside of the Stardust was lit by moving spotlights, and the crowd grew as we waited for the main event to occur. I got there about 1:30, the King Fish, a colleague and Death Watch contributor, arrived about 2:00. I took some of the last photos of the Stardust that anyone would take waiting for the countdown to begin.
At the appointed hour, an intense fireworks display started up. It was pretty spectacular, and my video of the event doesn't do it justice, but I wanted to be fairly tight on the building to get the best view of the tower collapse that I could. The fireworks lasted for about five minutes before the lit countdown on the front of the building started.
The problem was we had no idea that the whole presentation, especially the countdown, would be set up with viewers from the south and east in mind. Since we were north and a little west of the tower, we didn't have such a good view. In fact, I didn't know that the ending fireworks on the far side of the building were a countdown until I saw other video after the fact.
After the countdown hit zero, we heard the charges go off and got an inkling that the building was collapsing. For some reason, at the time the collapse actually occurred there was no external lighting on the building, so it's very difficult to see the main part of the show from anyone's video of the event, including my own. The only way one gets a sense of the collapse from my video is because before the implosion one can see lights through the Stardust shell before the building collapses, and these disappear as the building falls.
One thing worth noting is that the percussion felt from the fireworks was pretty intense (the video will show some camera jitter, and it's entirely due to the tripod bouncing on the concrete roof of the parking garage), but the implosion charges themselves had far less of a tangible effect.
Of course, after the building collapsed, up came the massive dust cloud. Fortunately for the King Fish and myself, I had thought to bring filter masks, as I had anticipated this would be the case. I had considered bringing goggles as well, but decided that this would be overkill. As it turned out, though, the dust was thicker than I had expected, and if I could do it over again, I would have brought the goggles. It was pretty amusing to see those without any form of respiration protection scurry for cover, but I couldn't really blame them.
I didn't measure it directly, but it honestly looked to me like there was a half inch of dust coverage on the vehicles parked on the garage roof. I found less dust on my car partially protected within the garage, but it was still well coated. Cars parked on the surface at Circus Circus, but shielded by the two garages, had more dust on them than my car but less than those on the roof. The whole thing reminded me of pictures I had seen of communities downwind of volcano eruptions. It took quite a bit of effort to get the dust off of all my equipment and out of the car after the fact.
Video of the fireworks and the implosion (5 minutes, with sound):
I also have some pictures of the dust accumulation after the implosion.
Overall, the Stardust implosion was quite an event. Boyd put on quite a show, especially for those on the other side of the building from where we were. My only real complaint is that they failed to light the building during the actual collapse. In any case, it was certainly a memorable experience, and one I was glad I had attended.