November 3, 2006

Goodnight Stardust

Yes folks, yet another classic casino has met its maker.

The Stardust, the neon-wrapped casino with a mobbed-up past whose 1,065 rooms once set the standard for size on the Las Vegas Strip, witnessed its last roll of the dice Wednesday.
Wistful longtime employees and loyal gamblers gathered for a last farewell to the iconic 48-year-old institution, which is to be razed early next year to make way for Boyd Gaming Corp.'s planned $4 billion Echelon Place resort.

The Stardust opened July 2, 1958, as the world's largest hotel and catered to middle America with $6-a-night rooms and low-minimum stakes gambling.

But as bigger, classier casinos sprung up around it in the late 1980s and '90s and patrons began shelling out more for rooms, food and drinks, its luster began to fade.

"I'm really going to miss this place," said Jimmy Kunihiro, a 60-year-old Honolulu resident, as he took a last pass at the craps table. "It's a home away from home."
-- CNN

We join millions of others in saying farewell to this classic dame of the strip. With a rich and colorful history, and a tradition steeped in casino style, we will be having a moment of silence for her.

So long stardust...