{"id":13897,"date":"2014-06-23T15:23:29","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T23:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=13897"},"modified":"2014-06-23T15:23:29","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T23:23:29","slug":"goodbye-harmon-we-never-knew-ye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/goodbye-harmon-we-never-knew-ye\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye, Harmon, we never knew ye"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Harmon<\/a>It’s that long-awaited time: The demolition of the Harmon Hotel<\/strong>, which holds the ignominious distinction of the first Strip hotel demolished without ever hosting a single guest. This $11.5 million sidewalk show<\/a> will leave an awkward void next to Crystals<\/strong>. However, contractor — and alleged corner-cutter — Perini Tutor<\/strong> didn’t oppose the demolition, saying that MGM Resorts International<\/strong>‘s evidence-gathering had hopelessly compromised the structure. At least architect Sir Norman Foster<\/strong> will soon be able to pretend the whole thing never happened. (Whoever thought it would outlast Fontainebleau<\/strong>?)<\/p>\n

So unnerving where the structural lapses attributed to Perini (severed rebar, for one) that it didn’t matter if $21 million would make everything right. The fear of staying in an earthquake-vulnerable building — an issue that MGM was at pains to publicize — was enough to keep one away. Its legacy was to be the biggest billboard on the Strip, although imitators are now going the big, bigger, biggest route — even MGM itself; if its Aria<\/strong> marquee fell over it would crush half the people on the Strip. At one stage, Harmon was wrapped with a Viva Elvis<\/em> promotion (above the jump<\/em>): Wow, two of MGM’s biggest flops ‘wrapped’ into one.<\/p>\n

* \u00a0“How does a McDonalds<\/strong> go out of business?” Well, maybe if you put it next to a clown-themed motel<\/a> and a miner’s graveyard in Tonopah<\/strong>, that will do the trick. Look only if you truly dare<\/a>. I’d be surprised if anybody gets a good night’s sleep there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s that long-awaited time: The demolition of the Harmon Hotel, which holds the ignominious distinction of the first Strip hotel demolished without ever hosting a single guest. This $11.5 million sidewalk show will leave an awkward void next to Crystals. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[65,80,56,11,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13897"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13898,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13897\/revisions\/13898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}