I'll always have a special place in my heart for the Riviera. I was on a cross-country trip in May of 2009 and always assumed the strip was expensive to stay in, never considering the fact that gambling is the primary income source. On a whim I called the night before and asked if they had a room available and of course, they did. It cost me $52 for the night and I still have the receipt somewhere. It was my first time in Vegas and I can still see the inside of that building in my mind. I've got a few photos but the memory is better. In the back of my mind I knew her days were limited but there was something about the Riv that made you feel like she was above the habits of Las Vegas...that she would somehow last forever. Obviously her clock finally hit midnight but I'm so glad I got to be a part of the history of that amazing building, if only for 16 hours or so.
There has to be one “leftover” building to keep all the kids off of the rest of the strip. Wish they would stay out of Excalibur, though it’s going so far downhill there’s not much reason to go there anymore.
How horrible, it was the brightest and most vibrant casino on the strip and so full of life for six decades and now it's just a sad parking lot. Yes, I cried looking at the implosion of this part of it and also the Monaco towers. I don't know, I got the same sad feeling I get when a loved one of mine has died. And watching the demolition was like being at a funeral. I almost couldn't take it. Back in the late 80's and early 90's my parents and big bro and I used to stay at this hotel. So many childhood memories here, the arcade, the food court, the pretty buffet place here--late 80's early 90's those were the glory days of this place and the whole Las Vegas for me. Not fun for kids anymore here, sad.
Sad to watch so much history get destroyed, I had stayed here back in 2004 for an A.P.A.Pool tournament and my room was over looking what looked to be an in ground pool on one of the roof tops.
Love the Flamingo! Went to Vegas in 2012 for the first time . The sidewalk bar had these LARGE beers for 1$ . Couldn't believe it- talked to a nice fellow from New Zealand who just got there as soon as I did .Love Vegas
The Tropicana is still there also, Bally's is the old MGM, and the Westgate was the LV Hilton and before that the International--all were there in the 70s and before..
While it looked great from the outside, the rooms were not as good as in most other hotels in Vegas. Also the Riviera had to go, because they wanted to build the new convention center extension on that place. However, still sad to see it go.
That was my father's regular stay whenever he went to Vegas back in the day... He'd been going to the Riv since it first opened in 1955, seven years before I was even born...
It had to go for a new convention center.... now a year later there is still only a parking palce, not the new convention center. Really sad, I loved this place.
Sometime in the late 90's or early 2000's there was a Vegas Hotel & Casino which was demolished on TV. What made this one different is that it ended up being aired on CNN because it was thought that someone was actually seen INSIDE the hotel just SECONDS before the explosion went off!... From the camera view that was pointed at the Hotel/Casino, a door was seen literally OPENING into one of the rooms from a high up floor, and a shadow that looked like a person could be seen running away from the door down the hallway. This was all caught on camera and filmed through the window of the Hotel. It was aired on CNN for DAYS afterwards, and they probably played the footage 100 times before it abruptly stopped being played. Fast forward to today, and it seems to be utterly IMPOSSIBLE to find any news reference of this occurrence. Granted, it was during a time when not everyone had a camera phone, so it seems plausible that it's difficult to find the video footage, but one would think at least the article would be available online, if only with still images. I have been searching for this news article and/or a video for years, but it seems as though it as literally been scrubbed from the internet. Many people I have talked to also remember this, and they do remember it the same way that I remember it, so it's not a misperception on my part. Does anyone else remember this? Does anyone have a link to the story? Did this really happen, or was it a mass imagination by dozens of people? Or even scarier yet, is this another example of the Mandela Effect? Any information, PLEASE!!!!
All buildings are completely gutted down to concrete and steel. Windows are gone all furniture removed from the rooms and the gaming floor is completely stripped bare....
Do people who are suicidal ever go into the danger zone of buildings that are imploded? Do the implosion conpanies make sure that homeless animals have no way of entering the buildings?
After the casino closed it was still open to the public for a while. It was very cool to get access to all areas in this casino you can normaly never go to (offices, back stage, restaurant kitchens, suites etc....) Sadly during the last days before the implosion a person jumped down from a suite at the Riviera :-( After that they closed the upper floors from public.
I used two cameras for this. A small Sony Rx100Mk3 and a larger Canon C100 (mostly tripod and mounted it also to my car when driving by the beautiful Riviera lights). Interior on the last day I think I used the smaller Rx100. Also when something is handheld it was the Rx100 I think.
I agree with you! When I was filming this I also could not understand why people were cheering. But I guess for a lot of people/tourists the implosion was just a great show. I live one block away from the Riviera so for me it was a sad day. Their neon lights were always amazing to see when I drove home!
No I am not realted to him. In the area of Germany where I am from it is still a normal name. I think it comes original from the old German word "gibbler" which means brewer.
There is ghosts and lost people who commit suicide and that place shut down because people jumping to there deaths. So the people are in heaven but they are in hell because they commit suicide :( R.I.P people who jumped there deaths
