Monday, March 7, 2011

A Mobster Week For Friesster

For a guy who doesn't much care about the Mob, I certainly got plenty out of my preview last Monday at the Las Vegas Mob Experience at the Tropicana. I went to do an AOL News piece on the competing Mafia attractions coming to Vegas, but I came away alarmed that the Mob Museum planned for downtown may have met its match. So here's this week's Las Vegas Weekly column on that, plus my Flickr slideshow behind the scenes the day before it opened for previews. Enjoy. -sf

The New Mob Wars
Could Goodman’s pet project get whacked?
By STEVE FRIESS



Back when concrete plans were coming together for the construction of a $43 million mob museum in Downtown Las Vegas, I was a vocal media cheerleader. Tourists constantly ask me how they can soak in the town’s Mafia lore, so if this was done right, it would be a slam dunk. On one TV show, I said I couldn’t imagine how Oscar Goodman’s big brainstorm could fail.

Well, now I can. I’m quite worried, in fact.

Read the rest at LasVegasWeekly.Com
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2 comments:

  1. Jeff SimpsonMarch 7, 2011 at 2:57 PM

    Will the Mob Experience attraction be a good value? Would you recommend it to friends and family?

    Dr. Dave Schwartz, on his blog, had this to say: "Ultimately, though, they would have been better off just making it a Mob-themed haunted house and abandoning any pretensions towards education or historical representation."

    Do you agree?

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  2. THE STRIP PODCASTMarch 7, 2011 at 3:05 PM

    Jeff --

    They're really different experiences. I agree that it's not as serious, but i'm not convinced that serious is what vegas visitors want. I do think that people can go to the LVME and feel like they got their money's worth, a few fun thrills and factoids and nifty technology. Dave's remark is looking at it from an academic's vantage point and is totally valid. But I just don't know that Vegas tourists actually want something brainy. Other than the Bellagio Fine Arts Gallery, there's nothing thus far that shows that that's so.

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