Update on Binion's, It's not completely closed and doing okay

Last month we ran the story about the closing of Binion's hotel tower, (the old Mint tower to us old-timers) and pondered what that meant for the venerable Downtown establishment.

Well, our  buddy Johnny Katz is back from holiday and has a follow-up to that story.  And the news isn't all bad, in fact, it's looking up, well sort of:

What's happened to Vegas landmark Binion's over the past five weeks reminds one of the Mark Twain quote, "Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."

Wait. That's not the line. I'm thinking of the famous quote, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

It seems a great many Binion's customers — past and potential — across the country and even the globe have wrongly deemed one of the city's most famous hotel-casinos as lacking a pulse. Out of business. As in, forever.

No.

It's like this: On Dec. 1 Binion's Gambling Hall & Hotel announced it was losing that "hotel" for a time and closing its 365-room tower. The closing date was set at Dec. 14. About 100 hotel employees would be out of work. Binion's Restaurant & Bar, downstairs, would close, too. All of that did happen.

John Katsilometes

Binion's Cafe, home of the $5 burger.

But crucial to this announcement was that the casino itself — including the poker room, all the gaming pits, the great Binion's Ranch Steakhouse and the somewhat great Binion's Café — would remain open for business as usual. The usual being that the steakhouse would be shut for a time in December for its annual two-week scrubbing, but is again open today. Still on the 24th floor, great view, warm wheat bread, flavorful beef-age, all that.

The problem has been that the closing of the hotel has resulted in the following thought pattern from those who have read or heard the news: "Binion's. Hotel. Closing." The reports have been accurate, but as Binion's General Manager Tim Lager said earlier this evening while sipping a Michelob Ultra at Benny's Bullpen Sports Bar andCigar Lounge, multitudes of tourists have mourned the closing of a casino still open.

"The power of our brand is such that whatever happens here makes news," Lager said, "and the news was that the hotel was closing. People saw that in the headlines, or heard it, and felt that was it for Binion's. This happened all across the world. We've received word from Australia that people were under the assumption that Binion's is closed."

Throw another mattress on the barbie, mate.

The evidence is mostly anecdotal, but it has mounted ever since the sad news was sent out Dec. 1: Loyal Binion's guests from tiny towns in Texas who received mailers from the hotel, only to have the postal worker remark, "Sorry to hear that your favorite hotel is closing." The longtime visitor to the poker room who bumps into Lager on his way to cash out his Club Binion's player's card because he wants to reap the benefits before the casino's doors are chained shut.

"I get it all the time," said Lager, who spends about as much time on the Binion's casino floor as I do these days.

The sagging business at the Binion's Ranch Steakhouse is a particular concern, as it is one of the hotel's most famous draws and a popular restaurant in times when it is not rumored to be out of business. Just a year ago, TLC Casino Enterprises, which owns the hotel (Terry Caudill being the owner of TLC, which also owns Four Queens) renovated the steakhouse with new carpet, wallpaper, china, even a new menu. The new ownership also topped the old hotel with an $800,000 roof, as even the finest resort is worthless if rain is pooling on the Pai Gow tables.

These moves were to indicate long-term commitment to Binion's, which has a very big casino floor — 80,000 square feet, more than double that of Four Queens — and needed a lot of vacuuming, to say the least. Caudill's plans were to tackle those rooms, too. The ownership knew it was buying into a hotel that needed some serious work, but those plans were mothballed during the subsequent economic cratering. Binion's operated at a loss as it offered rooms at $19 for a time, even less than the $29 rates offered at such Strip hotels as Imperial Palace. But guess what type of clientele a $19 room attracts: Cheap. These folks aren't lighting Macanudos with $100 bills at Benny's Bullpen, put it that way.

Caudill also has jousted with some of the owners of the land on which the resort sits. About a half-dozen different interests own the Binion's land parcels, many of whom inherited ownership from the original families who bought the land in auction back in 1905. There are dozens of ownership partners tied into those parcels, and TLC has been sued for failing to comply with terms of its lease of the Binion's land. TLC has been attempting to negotiate more favorable lease terms for nearly a year, arguing that if it continues to cut costs to meet the bottom line, customer service would suffer so acutely that guests might stay away even if they know the casino isn't closed.

Lager says the hotel one day will be reopened, but can't yet calculate what the economic indicators would be to start movement in that direction. Many consecutive months of robust business would be a start. There is hope that some powerhouse, one-off PR event — Mayor Oscar Goodman announcing he will or won't run for governor from the Steakhouse, for instance — would jar the public's perception of the hotel. It doesn't need any more name recognition, just a removal of the headstone from the entrance. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Meanwhile, those who had reservations to stay at one of Binion's dilapidated hotel rooms have been "absorbed" by Four Queens. Now, that's a hotel-casino that's doing pretty well. It's still open, and most important, everyone knows it.

A Conversation with the Mob Museum's Creative Director

Our friend, Kristen Peterson, has moved from the Las Vegas Sun to the Las Vegas Weekly in the aftermath of the lay-offs and tough times at the Sun last month.

She is the new Arts editor at the Weekly.

Here is her conversation with Dennis Barrie, the Creative Director of the Mob Museum, er the Las Vegas Museum of Law Enforcement and Underworld Crime, or something like that.  It will be known as the Mob Museum because the real title is too hard to remember and is a mouthful no matter what.

From the Weekly:

The planned mob museum has yet to receive a warm embrace from the community. Whether it’s feared gimmicky content or the outrageous use of public funds to the very idea of highlighting a violent past, there’s been a lot of complaining. So we decided to talk it out with Dennis Barrie, the museum’s creative director. Because if anyone knows about this type of situation, it’s this guy.

Barrie has spent most of his life in the museum world. He’s overseen the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, served as director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and helped create the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., to name a few.

And there was that little incident in 1990 when Barrie, then director of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, was arrested on charges of “pandering obscenity” for showing the then-controversial Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit, The Perfect Moment. He was acquitted following a highly publicized trial.

What do you say to concerns that this museum will glorify the mob?

I think places should be honest with themselves. This is an interesting part of Las Vegas’ history. We know the mob is controversial. Some people say that a mob museum is glorifying the mob. We’ve taken a very different view. Not to glorify the mob, but to take a look at the history of organized crime and its impact on America—what that has done to our nation and to law enforcement— and to tell the story the way it was, the way it is. There are volumes of books on mobs and mobsters. But people tend to look at the sensational aspect of it.

Photo: Arcadia Publishing

The post office and federal building, proposed site of the mob museum.

The story of mobs goes back to the various ethnic enclaves of America. Organized crime comes out of the tough neighborhoods of any society. These characters rise from the slums and wind up controlling big parts of the world in business, politics and all sorts of things.

What are the challenges with this museum?

You’ve really got to look at ways of presenting topics that are engaging and that will draw half a million people a year to ensure operating success. In Las Vegas that’s a real challenge because there is so much glitz. The biggest challenge is getting people to come off the Strip into Downtown Las Vegas.

Is it for tourists?

The local population, at least at this point, doesn’t go to museums—your percentage is about 2.5 percent. So mostly it’s a tourist destination, so for whatever you develop, that’s something you have to take into consideration.

Do you see it as an economic booster?

There is a point in which any city has to have more. In Las Vegas, there are some people who could never leave the casino. But by the third or second day many people want to do something else, whether it’s shopping or the Hoover Dam. The city has to recognize that more attractions and museums diversify options for your audiences.

What about serving students in the community?

There will be an educational department and programming. You can do a whole American history tour at the museum because of all the topics you can discuss—ethnicity in America, immigration in America, prohibiting of substances in America, the legal system in America, race, entertainment, international politics, unions. All of that is built right into the subject. There’s not a topic it doesn’t touch.

How does this subject compare to that of the spy museum?

There are similarities in terms of topics—politics and American history and the difficulty of the topic. The Spy Museum was not easy, nor is the Mob Museum, because of the secret nature of the world you’re exploring. Not everybody loves the CIA or the FBI or the KGB. They’ve always been controversial agencies, so we had people that challenged us about doing a legitimate museum about espionage, that somehow we’d be glorifying these agencies and whitewashing some of the things they’d done that aren’t so savory or caused us political and moral difficulties. We said we were going to do an honest account of the history of espionage, and we kept our word on that.

How do you separate the attraction from the museum?

Whether it’s the Spy Museum, the Rock and Roll Museum or the Mob Museum, these topics have a lot to teach you about American and world society. They’re real touchstones to understanding what went on in the 20th century. They can be very serious places and still be entertaining.

Where do the acquisitions come from?

We’ve had cooperation from collectors of crime memorabilia, law enforcement memorabilia, cooperation from the FBI, cooperation of law enforcement agencies from Las Vegas and other cities, and we’ve had cooperation from family members whose family relation was in organized crime. We have the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre wall from Chicago that was owned by a woman who was in Las Vegas, whose uncle purchased it when they were tearing down the building in Chicago.

Do you see the mob museum as a conflict of interest for our mayor, who represented noted mobsters?

I think Mayor Goodman is fairly open about his past. I don’t think it’s a conflict of interest.

You were the only museum director arrested for pandering obscenity with the 1990 Mapplethorpe exhibit. How did that incident influence your approach to museums?

It made me firmly committed to telling it like it is. You’ve really got to be honest with your audiences.

Las Vegas Mob Museum gets more money

While the Neon Museum continues to struggle to find funding to build their dream, the Mob Museum continues to get financial support from the Las Vegas City Council.

From the Las Vegas Sun:

The Las Vegas City Council quietly approved spending nearly $2 million more last week for the mob museum project, which is on track to open in 2011 in the city's downtown.

But City Councilman Stavros Anthony made it clear he still doesn't like the project, which will be officially known as the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement.

Anthony didn't speak out today about the project, which is estimated to cost about $50 million. But his actions were fairly loud and consistent with his past votes.

He asked to have the item pulled from the council's routine consent agenda so it could be voted on separately. Then he was the lone vote against the extra funding among the seven council members.

Anthony had also voted against additional funding for the retrofit project back in November. At that time, he had explained he could not justify spending money on such a museum.

The extra money approved today, amounting to $1,958,908, is needed to take care of some structural retrofit work on the historic 1933 federal office building and post office building at 300 Stewart, which will house the museum.

The work includes modifying the beams on the second and third floors, removing more hazardous material from the building, doing more work on the exterior plaster and courtroom ceilings and installing a new remote fire pump assembly that's needed because of failing water pressure in the downtown area, according to the city's finance and business services department.

The museum, which is expected to open in the first quarter of 2011, would tell the tale of how federal and local law enforcement officers fought the mob and eventually drove it out of Las Vegas' casinos.

The exhibits would features items from the FBI, plus artifacts from mob life, including many donated from the children and grandchildren of top members of organized crime and their underlings.

The museum has been pushed by the city's mayor, former high-profile mob lawyer Oscar Goodman, and by the FBI.

Councilman Ricki Y. Barlow, who made the motion to approve the extra funding today, has said in the past he supports it as an additional tourist attraction for the downtown.

Help ID this Mid-Century Modern Las Vegas Church

Okay, Dennis McBride and Tom Dyer and crew at the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas are putting together a wonderful exhibit (hopefully to open in January) on Mid-Century Modern architecture in Las Vegas.

They are asking for our help.  Can you provide any information about this church:

Bishop Gorman, the old Bishop Gorman on Maryland Parkway, is the front runner but if you have more info, please post it here.  I'll pass the info on Dennis and crew.

Since we are in a mid-century modern frame of mind (and working on ideas for next year's event), here are some other mid-century modern gems:

Coming up later this week, all the info on New Year's Eve fireworks as well, as things we are grateful for this year as well as an update on our Archive Project. 

Stay Tuned!