"What Las Vegas has done, in classic Las Vegas style, they've turned many of these implosions into spectacles," said Geoff Schumacher, historian and vice president of exhibits and programs at the Mob Museum.
From then on, Schumacher said, there was a sense in Las Vegas that destruction at that magnitude was worth witnessing.
This time, the implosion cleared land for a $1.5 billion baseball stadium for the relocating Oakland Athletics, part of the city's latest rebrand into a sports hub.
It opened in 1957 with three stories and 300 hotel rooms split into two wings. Once known as the "Tiffany of the Strip" for its opulence, it was a frequent haunt of the legendary Rat Pack.
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