The Mob Skimmed the Stardust. Then Its Owner Blew It Up.

For 48 years, the Stardust's giant sign lit up the north end of the Las Vegas Strip. Then, in 2007, its own parent company blew it up. This is the story of who was really counting the Stardust's money, and why the building came down anyway. The Stardust opened in 1958 and billed itself as "the largest hotel in the world": about a thousand rooms at six dollars a night, the Lido de Paris, and a front wall lit by 11,000 bulbs. Behind the cashier's cage, the names on the paperwork were never quite the people in charge. In 1974, Allen Glick's company Argent borrowed $62.75 million from the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund, while Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal ran the casino without a Nevada gaming license. A federal court later wrote that cash skimmed from the casino was headed to Chicago. Then came death threats, a car bomb, a federal trial, and two bodies in an Indiana cornfield. In 1995, Hollywood told a version of it in the film Casino. Boyd ran the Stardust clean for more than twenty years. It closed on November 1, 2006, and on March 13, 2007, 428 pounds of explosives brought both towers down. The resort meant to replace it was never built. CHAPTERS 00:00 The Biggest Sign on the Strip 02:26 The Admiral 06:14 The Front 08:11 The Loan 10:29 The Count 12:45 $7,200 in Quarters 15:13 The Cornfield 17:58 The Route 20:21 Mr. and Mrs. America 23:23 The Clean Years 27:07 Stardust MUSIC Original score, made for this video. PHOTO & FILM CREDITS Creative Commons, author (license): Alex Gorzen (CC BY-SA 2.0) Andrew Ferguson (CC BY-SA 4.0) André Corboz (CC BY-SA 4.0) anetode (CC BY-SA 3.0) Angel (CC BY 2.0) APK (CC BY-SA 4.0) billy kerr (CC BY 2.0) Billy Morrison (CC BY 2.5) Bobak Ha'Eri (CC BY 3.0) cliff1066 (CC BY 2.0) Dale Cruse (CC BY 2.0) Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 3.0) Downtowngal (CC BY-SA 4.0) Dpo1013 (CC BY 2.5) Elisa.rolle (CC BY-SA 4.0) Elizabeth K. Joseph (CC BY 2.0) ercwttmn (CC BY 2.0) Fuzzy Gerdes (CC BY 2.0) Gilda (CC BY-SA 2.0) Henning Schlottmann (User:H-stt) (CC BY 1.0) James Havard (CC BY 2.0) Jason Mitchell (CC BY-SA 2.0) Jeremy Thompson (CC BY 2.0) Julie Mac (CC BY 2.0) Ken Lund (CC BY-SA 2.0) kl91711 (CC BY 3.0) Larry D. Moore (CC BY 4.0) LBM1948 (CC BY-SA 4.0) Los Angeles Daily News / Los Angeles Times, UCLA Library Special Collections (CC BY 4.0) Los Angeles Times (CC BY 4.0) LVLights (CC BY 2.0) Missvain (CC BY 4.0) Nate Grigg (CC BY 2.0) Neaco (CC BY-SA 3.0) Peter Garwood (CC BY 4.0) Pierre André Leclercq (CC BY 4.0) pony rojo (CC BY-SA 2.0) rspoppel (CC BY 2.0) smneale (CC BY 2.0) Steve Cadman (CC BY-SA 2.0) Steven Lek (CC BY-SA 4.0) Tomás Del Coro (CC BY-SA 2.0) Yelderberry (CC BY-SA 4.0) License texts: CC BY 1.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/ | CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ | CC BY 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ | CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ | CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa... | CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa... | CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa... Changes: images and film cropped, resized, color-adjusted, and animated. Photos via Wikimedia Commons and UCLA Library Special Collections. Implosion footage via Internet Archive. Public domain film: "Las Vegas Strip At Night May (1980)" and Sid Davis Productions' "Show 'Em the Road (Part II)" (1954), via Internet Archive. Public domain and CC0 images: Library of Congress (Carol M. Highsmith Archive), U.S. National Archives (DOCUMERICA, Charles O'Rear), FBI, Las Vegas News Agency, and vintage postcards, via Wikimedia Commons. AI DISCLOSURE 44 shots in this video are AI-generated illustrations made for it. They are period-style recreations, not historical photographs, and none of them shows a real person. The thumbnail is an AI illustration too. This channel is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Boyd Gaming, Resorts World Las Vegas, or the Neon Museum. #Stardust #LasVegasHistory #OldVegas