FAREWELL TO THE NEW FRONTIER: Going, going, gone

Reporter recounts night of fireworks, rubble and history

photos by Louie Traub/ViewLeft, a fireworks display precedes the implosion of the New Frontier on the Strip in the early morning hours of Nov. 13. The hotel-casino was imploded after closing its doors for good in July to make way for The Plaza, a project to be modeled after the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Center, the New Frontier begins its tumble to the ground. Right, the hotel-casino is reduced to a massive cloud of gray dust after a 65-year run. photos by Louie Traub/ViewLeft, a fireworks display precedes the implosion of the New Frontier on the Strip in the early morning hours of Nov. 13. The hotel-casino was imploded after closing its doors for good in July to make way for The Plaza, a project to be modeled after the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Center, the New Frontier begins its tumble to the ground. Right, the hotel-casino is reduced to a massive cloud of gray dust after a 65-year run. photos by Louie Traub/ViewLeft, a fireworks display precedes the implosion of the New Frontier on the Strip in the early morning hours of Nov. 13. The hotel-casino was imploded after closing its doors for good in July to make way for The Plaza, a project to be modeled after the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Center, the New Frontier begins its tumble to the ground. Right, the hotel-casino is reduced to a massive cloud of gray dust after a 65-year run. Advertisement

(Editor's note: The following is a firsthand account from reporter F. Andrew Taylor of his observations while attending the implosion of the New Frontier last week.)

Accompanied by the flash of fireworks, the New Frontier was imploded in the early morning hours of Nov. 13. The hotel was one of the oldest properties on the Strip, living up to its name after opening its doors in 1942. Back then, it was known as The Hotel Last Frontier, later becoming the New Frontier, then simply The Frontier, before reverting back to the New Frontier.

The history of the property actually goes back further to 1930, when the speakeasy nightclub Pair-O-Dice opened and eventually became the second location on the Strip with legal gaming.

The crowds showed up early and jockeyed for good viewing spots, many of which proved to be too close for safety -- the Metropolitan Police Department and security guards spent a lot of time shooing people off to safer quarters. The upper deck of the nearest parking garages, including those of Wynn Las Vegas and the Fashion Show mall, were emptied, and the entire structure was cleared of pedestrians.

Across the street at the Can Can Club, some people had procured a 40-foot ladder and had taken up positions on the roof.

An unobstructed but distant view of the implosion also was available over a half mile away on the upper deck of the Circus Circus parking garage, where security had cordoned the area off to vehicular traffic, but seemed to be taking a more laissez-faire approach to the several hundred observers there on foot.

The crowd of onlookers looked to be mostly young; there didn't seem to be a lot of old-timers there to say goodbye to their old stomping grounds.

When the fireworks started, the crowd oohed.. A few minutes later, one bystander remarked "Uh oh, it looks like they're running out of fireworks."

Another onlooker replied in what could easily be the next Las Vegas tourism slogan -- "Las Vegas never runs out of fireworks."

When the end finally came for the old casino, a great whoop and a roar went up from the crowd. A young woman kept repeating "that was awesome!"

A great plume of dust floated east, wrapping itself around Wynn Las Vegas. A woman observed the clouds and remarked with relief, "I can't believe we were almost down in that!" The crowd slowly dispersed, many of them heading out into the traffic jam that clogged the early morning streets.

An hour after the dust had literally cleared, the streets were still peppered with stragglers. A middle-age man shadowed a pair of young women trying to regal them with tales of the Frontier. "I won $700 dollars at the Frontier once, and then I took it over to the Showboat and won some more."

A pair of police officers manned a patrol car blocking off traffic from going south of Circus Circus. "When are they opening up the street again?" asked a passer-by. "At least another 40 minutes," the officer replied. "I hope it's soon; we can't go home until they do."

Soon the rubble will be cleared and a new hotel casino and multi-use property, The Plaza, will rise up in its place. Now the New Frontier, which helped start the Strip, hosted Elvis Presley's first Las Vegas appearance, as well as a six-and-a-half-year strike, and ended its life as the only hotel casino on the Strip with weekly mud wrestling, lives on only in memories.