LAS VEGAS, March 13 — With a deafening rumble and a cloud of debris that has become all but customary in this city of short-lived icons, the venerable Stardust Hotel-Casino was demolished early this morning.
The spectacular demolition ended a yearlong farewell to a classic 48-year-old resort that was, in its heyday, considered the ultimate in luxury and style.
It was a frequent haunt of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack, the original Las Vegas Strip home of the illusionist duo Siegfried and Roy, and the scene of reputed organized crime activity that inspired the book and film “Casino.”
In Las Vegas, where old structures are dismissed as soon as they outlive their usefulness, the Stardust was cleared to make way for a new $4 billion, 5,300-room mixed-used complex called Echelon due to be built by 2010 by Boyd Gaming Inc.
Hundreds of invited guests and corporate officials watched the demolition from across a parking lot on the Las Vegas Strip, the street of major hotels and casinos that runs through the heart of the city. The building came down at 2:30 a.m. local time.
“It’s always a little sad to see these places go, but that place was so old and gross — and old and gross don’t belong in Vegas,” said Jeff Remini, 49, of Los Angeles. Mr. Remini added two days to his vacation here after hearing that the demolition was planned for this morning.
Four grandsons of Boyd’s chief executive, William Boyd, pushed a wooden lever that signaled to the demolition crew to begin the series of dynamite explosions that caused the collapse of a 32-story tower built in 1989 and a nine-story low-rise structure that was an original part of the resort, built in 1958.
Fireworks marked the 10-second countdown in front of the buildings before the explosives were touched off. A planned laser light show was canceled when unexpectedly strong winds blew a cloud of dust toward the audience.
Las Vegas has become known in recent decades for tearing down the notable resorts that first put the Strip on the map.
Famous places like the Dunes, the Hacienda and the Sands have been replaced by the Bellagio, the Mandalay Bay and the Venetian.
“The Stardust was the Bellagio of its day, the most dazzling casino out there,” said Nicholas Pileggi, who spent four years researching the exploits of Frank Rosenthal, the mobster who ran the Stardust, for his bestselling nonfiction book “Casino” and the fictionalized screenplay for the Robert DeNiro film of the same name. “But time moves on,” Mr. Pileggi said.
The oldest casino structure on the Strip now is a part of a coffee shop at the Sahara that dates back just 55 years.
“Unlike most other cities, we in Las Vegas reinvent ourselves all the time,” said Mr. Boyd. “In order to keep up with the competition, you have to keep improving your product. That’s what we’re going to do here at the Stardust. But we still have great memories.”
Some are not so accepting of the changes. Joel Rosales, 23, owns the Web site LeavingLV.net, which pays tribute to each property that is razed.
The loss of the Stardust, he said, is particularly disappointing. “Having been born and raised here in Vegas, it’s always been a rock,” he said of the resort. “In this ever-changing city, the Stardust was always there. I wouldn’t say I’m as upset as I am disappointed, that we as a city have no sense of preserving our past and heritage, no matter how tacky or out-of-date it may be.”
Mark Loizeaux, whose company, Controlled Demolition Inc., has overseen the demolition, or “implosion,” of every major Strip structure since the Dunes was taken down in 1993, understands such sentiments.
“With the demolition of these structures, there’s a lot of change,” Mr. Loizeaux said. “We try to honor structures by making a show that lets it have one last day on the front pages of the paper.”
