The Clarion hotel and casino, which resides just off the Las Vegas Strip, was imploded Tuesday morning.

Vegas Casino Imploded

After the doors to The Clarion were closed Sept. 1., the building was prepared for demolition – the 200 rooms emptied and explosives readied. Its implosion marks the 13th implosion of a Las Vegas gambling property in history. The last one to go out with a controlled demolition was the New Frontier hotel-casino in 2007.

The explosives went off at The Clarion between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. with owner Lorenzo Duomani nearby to watch it come crashing down, reported the Los Angeles Times. Despite the large amount of dynamite, the implosion left the structure’s elevator shaft intact, though tilted.

The Clarion is following a long list of old Sin City haunts – such as the Dunes, Stardust and the Aladdin – with a demolition that doubles as a spectacle. According to Clark County Museum administrator Mark Hall-Patton, it’ll likely be one of the last to do so.

“The era of the big boom as performance piece is over,” Hall-Patton told the LA Times. “Implosions became too big — middle-of-the-night spectacles that were just over the top. They were victims of their own success.”

“They were events for the nation’s evening news,” Hall-Patton said. “Crowds watched from lawn chairs, some people holding up numbered cards to rate the display, people saying, ‘Well, there goes another piece of Vegas history.’ “

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Article by Chelsea Regan

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