Las Vegas embraces its mob history

Published 5:00 am Thursday, September 1, 2011

Las Vegas has never shied away from putting its vices on display, with one exception: its connection to the mob. Until now.

One of Sin City’s newest attractions pays homage to its Mafia roots with more than 1,500 artifacts provided by the families of such notorious gangsters as Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky and Tony Spilotro. The $25 million Las Vegas Mob Experience at the Tropicana hotel, one of the oldest properties on the Strip and a former playground for the gangsters who helped shape the Vegas landscape, opened earlier this year. And the $42 million Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, which has the backing of the mayor, is scheduled to debut in December.

Having grown up in a household where it was considered a sin to channel-surf onto any of “The Godfather” movies and not stop to watch, I couldn’t resist heading to the Tropicana on a recent trip to Vegas. The $30 price of admission was a bit over the top, which made sense once I entered the museum, where everything is over the top.

There’s a reason it’s called the Mob Experience. You don’t just walk through the 33-room, 26,000-square-foot museum, gaze at photos and exhibits and read the descriptions. The museum uses what it calls “interactive entertainment technology” to make you feel like you’re a participant, not a spectator. In other words, expect to do some role-playing.

I especially liked the Meyer Lansky rooms, which displayed his Presidential Medal of Freedom and had touch screens with his handwritten journals. Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo, a New York mobster, got his own display too, which included his matchbook collection.

And lest we forget that the mobsters committed serious crimes, and that crime doesn’t pay, there is much space devoted to the telling of how Nevada State Gaming and law enforcement officials eventually took down the Mafia.