The Boardwalk.
What, you want more? Oh, okay.
The Boardwalk Hotel and Casino originally opened in 1968 (or '69 -- sources differ) as the 200-room Holiday Queen, an independent property that subsequently became part of the Holiday Inn hotel chain. It's unclear what happened to the property in the interim, but in 1972 Norbert "Norm" Jansen, then owner of the Pioneer Club downtown, opened a gift shop on the site of the hotel, which we believe was still operational.
In 1977, Jansen added 15 slot machines and in 1994 he purchased what was then called the Holiday Inn, and went public. The company invested $80 million on a Coney Island-style carnival facade, featuring a giant clown's head above the entrance way, a faux roller coaster and Ferris wheel, and an original 1906 parachute jump ride. A 451-room hotel tower and 33,000-square-foot casino were also added as part of the upgrade.
Best known for its 29-cent breakfasts, 59-cent dinners*, and one of (if not the) worst buffets in town, the Boardwalk's principal attraction was its center-Strip location. It was also the long-time home of Purple Reign, the popular Prince tribute band that currently performs at Hooters.
An anomaly among the megaresorts that mushroomed around it, in 1998 Steve Wynn purchased the property, which he then sold to MGM Mirage in 2000. The original gift shop remained under the ownership of Jansen's wife, however, and was run by his daughter until it closed, along with the rest of the property, on January 9, 2006. At 2:34 a.m. on May 9, 2006, the main hotel tower was imploded to make way for CityCenter.
As an interesting aside, from the outset, the new LEED-certified metaresort demonstrated a commitment to "green" practices and more than 85 percent of the materials from the old Boardwalk were reused or recycled, keeping tons of materials from going into local landfills. The CityCenter team explored every opportunity to reuse the debris: Doors, hardware, scrap steel, other metals, and carpet were sold to resellers; broken tiles, concrete, and asphalt were taken offsite, crushed, and used as structural filler; salvaged toilets and countertops were used in projects in Mexico.
In fact, so big was this project that a new recycling firm, Evergreen, was founded on the strength of managing that aspect of CityCenter's construction; however, the economic downturn left a big void once CityCenter was completed and the company has since been bought out by Republic Services, the established Vegas Valley recycler.
Click here for a photo gallery showing various aspects of the exterior and interior of the Boardwalk.
*For the month of December '93, they dropped the price of the chicken dinner to 29 cents; you could feed a family of six for less than $2!
