The Sands Hotel and Casino is a historic hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada, United States, operating from 1952 to 1996. Designed by architect Wayne McAllister, with 56 feet (17 m) , Sands is the seventh resort opened on the Strip. During its heyday, Sands was the center of entertainment and "cool" on the Strip, and hosted many famous entertainers that day, the most famous being the Rat Pack.
The hotel was founded in 1952 by Texas oil tycoon Jake Freedman, who bought the LaRue Restaurant, which had opened two years earlier. The hotel opened on December 15, 1952 as a casino with 200 rooms, and was established less than three months after the opening of another famous landmark, the Sahara Hotel and Casino. The hotel rooms are divided into four two-story motel wings, each with fifty rooms, and are named after a famous race track. The opening was widely publicized, and each guest was given a Chamois bag with silver dollars. Crime bosses like Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello acquired stake in the hotel and appealed to Frank Sinatra, who made his debut at Sands in October 1953. Sinatra then bought the shares in the hotel itself. Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. played an important role throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s in bringing about changes in racial policies in the Sands, and after the incident in 1961, he began to employ blacks. In 1960 the classic captain of Ocean's 11 was shot at the hotel, and then achieved an iconic status, with regular performances by Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Red Skelton and others, who performed regularly. in the world-famous Copa Chamber. Most of the success of the Copa Room music is credited to the band's leader of the room and the music conductor Antonio Morelli, whose home orchestra performed in hundreds of recording albums over the years.
In the mid-1960s, Sands and adjacent properties were purchased by closed entrepreneur Howard Hughes, who built the 500-room tower and modernized the hotel. After the 1970s it fell into decline until its last owner, Sheldon Adelson, made the decision to close it down and build a new resort. The final dice in the casino was rolled out by Bob Stupak just after 6 pm on June 30, 1996. On November 26 that year, it finally exploded and destroyed, many of which worried employees and long-serving sentimentalists. Today, The Venetian stands where Sands once stood.
Video Sands Hotel and Casino
History
Initial history
LaRue Restaurant was founded in December 1950 by Billy Wilkerson. The following year, oil tycoon Jake Freedman from Houston, Texas bought LaRue for $ 15,000. Freedman's idea is to build the best Las Vegas hotels and casinos to specifically serve Hollywood movie stars and glamorous executives on a $ 600,000 project. Many sources state that organized crime figures Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello and Joseph "Doc" Stracher and illegal bookmakers like Mike Shapiro, Ed Levinson, and Sid Wyman are involved in Sands financing and have shares in it. Lansky and his gang assumed ownership of the Flamingo Hotel after the assassination of Bugsy Siegel in 1947, and Lansky and Costello also had business interests at the Thunderbird Hotel and El Cortez Club in Downtown Las Vegas.
Construction began at the Sands Hotel in early 1952, built for design by Wayne McAllister. Freedman originally intended to name a "Holiday Inn" hotel after a movie of the same name as that starring Bing Crosby, but after realizing that his socks became so full of sand decided to name it Sands. The tag line is "A Place in the Sun", named after the recently released movie starring Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, and is perfect for Las Vegas hotspot locations. The hotel opened on December 15, 1952 as a casino with 200 rooms, and was established less than three months after the opening of another famous landmark, the Sahara Hotel and Casino. The opening was widely publicized, and the hotel was visited by about 12,000 people in a few hours. At the time of the inauguration there were 146 journalists and special guests like Arlene Dahl, Fernando Lamas, Esther Williams and Terry Moore. Each guest was given a Chamois bag with silver dollars, and Sands eventually lost $ 200,000 in the first eight hours. Danny Thomas, Jimmy McHugh and the Copa Girls, labeled "the most beautiful girl in the world", appeared in the Copa Chamber on the opening night, and Ray Sinatra and his Orchestra were the early bands. Thomas was hired to perform for the first two weeks, but tensed his voice on the second night and developed laryngitis, and was replaced with players like Jimmy Durante, Frankie Laine, Jane Powell, Ritz Brothers, and Ray Anthony.
Jack Entratter, who was in charge of New York nightclub, Copacabana, became hotel manager. Entratter made many business show friends during his time at nightclub; he can use this connection to sign players for the Copa Sands Room. Entratter can also offer additional incentive entertainers to perform at the Sands. Headlining stars receive "points", or percentage of ownership in hotels and casinos. The privately chosen "Copa Girls" by Entratter wore costumes worth $ 12,000 on the opening night of the hotel; this surpasses the salary of the Copa Room star, Danny Thomas.
In the early years, Freedman and his wife Carolyn were one of her attractions, wearing "white clothing, matching leather, full of cowboy boots and identical hats". Freedman offered Carolyn's father, Nathan, a 5% stake in Sands, but he declined the offer.
Package Rat and racial policy
Lansky and Costello brought Sands' attention to Frank Sinatra, and he started staying at the hotel and gambled there on a break from Hollywood, although some sources claimed he was not a hardcore gambler. Sinatra got a bad reputation for "saving its victory and ignoring gambling losses", but the mafia who run the hotel are not too worried because Sinatra is great for business. He made his debut appearing at the hotel on October 4, 1953, after an invitation by manager Jack Entratter. Sinatra usually plays in Sands three times a year, sometimes two weeks of duty, which "brings in big rollers, lots of oil money from Texas". The big rollers leave Vegas when Sinatra does, and the other players are reluctant to perform after him, feeling intimidated.
Entratter replaced Freedman as president of Sands Hotel after his death from cardiac surgery on January 20, 1958. Freedman's last wife, Sadie, later stayed in a suite in the Belmont Park wing until the mid-1960s until his death. Sinatra, who had been trying to buy shares in the hotel shortly after the first visit in 1953, but rejected by the Nevada Tax Commission, is now given permission to buy parts at the hotel, due to its phenomenal impact on business in Las Vegas. His share, in various ways illustrated from 2 to 9%, helped Freedman's wife in paying off her husband's gambling debts.
In 1955, limited integration came to Las Vegas that was very separate when Sands first allowed Nat King Cole to stay at the hotel and perform. Sinatra noticed that he never saw Cole in the dining room, always eating his food in solitude in the locker room. When he asked his maid George to find out why, he learned that "Colors are not allowed in the dining room at Sands". Sinatra then ensured that if blacks were not allowed to eat their meals in the dining room with others he would make sure that all the waiters and waitresses were fired, and invited Cole to dinner with him the following night. Cole was allowed permission to the casino, like another black player, Harry Belafonte, who took a more aggressive approach by walking to the casino by himself and sitting at a blackjack table, which was not challenged by the boss. Belafonte became "the first black man to play cards on the Las Vegas Strip".
Sammy Davis, Jr. play a role in bringing about general changes in policy. When Will Mastin Trio began performing at Sands in 1958, Davis informed the Entratter that his father and uncle should be allowed permission to stay at Sands when he performed there. Entratter gave them permission but continued his objection to receive other black guests. In 1961, an African-American couple entered the hotel lobby and was blocked by a security guard, witnessed by Sinatra and Davis. Sinatra tells the guard that they are her guests and let them enter the hotel. Sinatra then vowed to telephone Sands's executive Carl Cohen about how ridiculous the situation was, and the next day, Davis approached the Entratter and demanded that Sands start hiring blacks. Soon the hotel changed its policy and started hiring black maids and busboys, and started allowing blacks into the casino.
In the late 1950s, Senator John F. Kennedy was occasionally a guest of Sinatra in the Sands. Arguably the hotel's biggest claim to fame was the three-week period in 1960 during the filming of Ocean 11 , after which it reached icon status. During that time, Sinatra movie stars, Dean Martin, Davis, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford appeared on stage together in the Copa Room. The show was called "Summit at the Sands" and is considered the birthplace of the Rat Pack.
Next history
When Howard Hughes bought this hotel in the mid-1960s for $ 14.6 million, architect Martin Stern, Jr. added a 500-room circular tower, which opened in 1967, and the hotel is a Las Vegas landmark. Hughes grew very annoyed every time the Rat Pack was in his hotel, because of Frank Sinatra's hatred stemming from the fact that he had fallen in love with Ava Gardner in his 50s and he ran to marry him. The feeling of pain was repaid by Sinatra. Hughes planned to expel Sinatra from Sands for good, and asked Robert Maheu to plan shortly after the new hotel opened in 1967. The hotel imposes restrictions on what Sinatra can play in the casino, up to only $ 3,000 a night. Under previous management, Sinatra does not limit the amount of credit granted to it by the Sands casino. The IOU, chits or "markers" were destroyed at the end of Sinatra's involvement because he was considered good for business-bringing the hotel more monetary value than gambling losses. Hughes stopped the system, told Jack Entratter to tell Sinatra about the new policy; Entratter did not do it because he was afraid.
So furious, Sinatra started what the Los Angeles Times called a "long weekend tirade" against "hotel management, employees, and security forces". The FBI report says the incident started when Mia Farrow lost US $ 20,000 at the Sands casino. Sinatra bought US $ 50,000 in chips and made an effort to win the money back. He lost this amount in no time. Sinatra then asked for credit, which was rejected. This culminated when Sinatra reportedly drove a golf cart through a coffee shop window where casino manager Carl Cohen sat down and started "screaming dirty and anti-Semitic words" in Cohen. Sinatra reportedly hit Cohen, a burly man, who responded with his mouth, bleeding Sinatra's nose and dropping his two teeth. As a result, Sinatra never appeared in the Sands again when Hughes owned him, and began performing at the Caesars Palace. A number of staff were not disappointed to see Sinatra leave Sands. Many employees have been humiliated or intimidated for years, including a busboy Sinatra stumbling when he is carrying a tray with a plate. After Sinatra left, the mobs were pulled out of Sands and gradually left Vegas in the 1970s. In the 1970s, it became associated with the likes of Wayne Newton and Liberace. At the moment, about 30% of the players in Sands are Italian Americans. Frank Gagliardi became drummer for the home orchestra in 1964, starting his twelve-year period.
In 1968, Hughes declared that he intended to expand Sands into a resort with 4,000 rooms, but his plans did not materialize. In 1983, the Hughes company, Summa Corporation, sold Sands to Pratt Corporation, but later bought it back because they could not make a profit. MGM Grand, Inc. bought the hotel together with the nearby Desert Inn in 1988 for a total of $ 167 million, and the property was known as MGM Sands. The following year, MGM sold it for $ 110 million to Las Vegas Sands, a new company formed by owners of The Interface Group, including Sheldon Adelson, Richard Katzeff, Ted Cutler, Irwin Chafetz and Jordan Shapiro. That same year, it was licensed by the Gaming Commission of Nevada, and Adelson became the king of the casino. In the early 1990s, Adelson built the Sands Expo, a 1,000,000 square foot (93,000 m 2 ) convention center.
In his final years, Sands has become a shadow of his former - decline in the past - and ultimately unable to compete with the more recent and more exciting megaresorts being built on the Strip. However, the travel guides of the 1990s state that the hotel gardens and pool area still retain the atmosphere of classic Sands days. The decision was finally made by its last owner, Sheldon Adelson, to close it down and build a new resort. The final dice in the casino was rolled out by Bob Stupak just after 6 pm on June 30, 1996. On 26 November 1996, it exploded and destroyed, much to the worry of longtime employee and sentimentalists. Recordings from the demolition also appear in the closing credits of The Cooler . The climax plane crash in 1997 Con Air ended with the plane crashing into the Sands lobby that was about to be destroyed.
On May 3, 1999, the new $ 1.5 billion megaresort The Venetian opened where Sands was previously located, a 35-story hotel with 3,036 rooms, covering 17,000,000 square feet (1,600,000m 2 ). It became the largest AAA Five-Diamond landmark in North America.
Maps Sands Hotel and Casino
Architecture
Wayne McAllister designed the original Sands Hotel for $ 5.5 million, a modern hotel painted in an exotic, exotic painted style up front, surrounded by zigzag walls adorned with tiled planters. The hotel is arguably most associated with a 56 foot (17 m) high mark, made an icon with photos of Rat Pack standing underneath. The name "Sands", written in an elegant slash, features a 36-foot (S) "S" letter, and the name lies on the crate, the cantilever from the pillar. The sign receives the light and the shadow of the desert, and at night it lights up, glowing red. It was the highest mark on the strip for several years. Under "Sands" is the tagline "A Place in the Sun", written in smaller capital letters. Below are bill names of players who appear in the Sands, very often photographed by displaying names such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Red Skelton in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Author Alan Hess writes that "The slim Modernism of the Sands leaps over Flamingos to set a higher standard of sophistication for Las Vegas, for the first time, the mark is an integral part of architectural design."
The porte-cochÃÆ'¨re of the hotel features three sharp pillars protruding in front of the building facing the glass, leading to the ground, which resembles a fins. The two-story glass entry was bounded by an imported Italian marble wall, and above the entrance area there was a horizontal plane with a copper lamp suspended from the beam. Rather than polished, the marble is unusual for being rough and grained. Natural and stained plugs are used throughout the building. A.J. Leibling of The New Yorker described the hotel in 1953: "The main building on the Sands is a large rectangular hall, with a reception desk in one corner, a slot machine along one long wall and a bar and cocktail lounge, complete with a Latin trio, at along the opposite wall In the center is a pile of roulette tables and dice and 21 layouts. "The casino, large, accessed by three sets of terrazzo staircases, and illuminated by low-hanging lamps. This bar features reliefs with Western themes, including cowboys, racing cars and Joshua trees, designed by Allan Stewart of Claremont College, California. The Garden Room restaurant overlooks the hotel's pool and landscaped grounds.
The 200 guest rooms of the original hotel are divided into four two-story motel wings, each with fifty rooms, and are named after a famous race track. They are arranged in a hacienda style, and are surrounded by a crescent-shaped pool. The suites are luxuriously designed. The plush blue carpet and ivory-colored chairs with white ceilings were the norm in the early days. The electric tram service, which is often attended by beautiful girls, takes guests to their rooms. A 14th floor tower started construction in late 1965, and opened in 1967. It was there until November 1996 when it was destroyed.
The steam room of the hotel is a place of relaxation and a good joke. It's a great place to socialize between the stars after 5 pm, including the Rat Pack, and Jerry Lewis, Steve Lawrence and Don Rickles. On one occasion they had problems with the TV in the massage room, which was opaque and unfocused. Sinatra shouted, "Back off, backwards," and the television was thrown into the pool. The Entratter Manager allows the activity, knowing that if he scolds Sinatra and asks him to pay compensation he will not be performing in Sands anymore.
Copa Space
The Copa Room is a showroom of Sands, named after the famous Copacabana Club in New York City. It contains 385 seats, designed in the style of Brazilian carnival. Some of the more famous singers like Sinatra, Martin and Davis, Jr. must sign a contract to ensure that they are titling for a certain number of weeks of the year. Players are highly paid for the period. It is common for some to be paid $ 25,000 per week, playing two shows a night, six days a week, and once on Sundays for two to three weeks.
The biggest names in the entertainment industry adorned the stage of the Copa Chamber. Notable players include Judy Garland, Lena Horne (one of the first black players at the hotel, billed as "The Satin Doll"), Jimmy Durante, Dean Martin, Pat Cooper, Shirley MacLaine, Marlene Dietrich, Bankhead Tallulah, Shecky Greene, Martin and Lewis, Danny Thomas, Bobby Darin, Ethel Merman, Rich Little, Louis Armstrong, Jerry Lee Lewis, Nat King Cole, Robert Merrill, Wayne Newton, Red Skelton, and "The Copa Girls". Hollywood celebrities such as Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor, Yul Brynner, Kirk Douglas, Lucille Ball and Rosalind Russell are often photographed while enjoying the headlines.
A number of famous albums were recorded in the Copa Chamber. Among them are Dean Martin's Live At The Sands - The Night of Music, Laughing and Loud Liquor, Sinatra in Pasir Sin Sinon, and Sammy Davis, Jr. The Sounds of '66 and That's All! . The Rat Pack: Live at the Sands , a CD released in 2001, featuring Martin, Sinatra and Davis in live performances at the hotel recorded in September 1963. Live at the Sands is an album featuring Mary Wilson, former The Supremes. The B-side Morrissey line, "At Amber" (1990), takes place at the Sands Hotel, and tells the aging and slightly seedy atmosphere. Much of the music success of the Copa Chamber is credited to the band's band leader and music conductor Antonio Morelli. Morelli not only acted as the band's leader and music conductor for the Copa Chamber during the triumphs of the Rat Pack at the Hotel in the 1950s and 1960s, but he also played that role on hundreds of recording albums by the same entertainer who graced the Copa stage. Often the celebrations will be carried away after hours to Morrelli's home in Las Vegas, nicknamed "The Morelli House", which was eventually relocated and sanctioned by Historic landmarks by the State of Nevada.
Silver Queen Lounge
The Silver Queen Lounge is another show on the Sands, with the evening action starting at 5:00 pm and running until 6 am. It was very popular with the rock 'n' roll crowd that appeared. The Sands is where Freddie Bell and Bell Boys performed rock 'n' roll "Hound Dog", which Elvis Presley sees. After Presley saw the show at The Sands, he decided to record the song himself, and it became a hit for him. Roberta Linn and Melodaires and Gene Vincent also performed regularly.
Footnote
References
Source
External links
Media related to Sands Hotel and Casino on Wikimedia Commons
- The History of Sands Hotel, Classiclasvegas.squarespace.com
- 1967 The architect of the tower Martin Stern, Jr. on gaming.unlv.edu
- Video about the 1996 tower blast
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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