Las Vegas hopes to turn its mobster-filled history into a tourism jackpot.
Two museums dedicated to "made" men, their stories and artifacts are due to open this year.
First up is the Las Vegas Mob Experience, an interactive exhibit using technology from former Disney "Imagineers" to draw visitors into gangland. It's due March 1 in the revamped Tropicana Las Vegas resort and casino, which used to be a hangout for organized crime figures.
The exhibit will house "the largest collection of artifacts related to the mob in the world," says Jay Bloom, Mob Experience managing partner. Among the more than 1,000: Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel's '30s Packard, Meyer Lansky's diary, Tony Spilotro's gun (Spilotro was played by Joe Pesci in Casino), Giancana family photos, home movies and more. 
Families sold or leased them to the museum, in part because they are tired of portrayals of mobsters in books and films and to show the world there was another side. They often were devoted family men, Bloom says, and insulated family members from what they did for a living.
Many Mob Experience visitors may not know that Meyer Lansky was awarded the Medal of Freedom by Harry Truman for helping protect ships in port in New York City and working with "Lucky" Luciano to solicit intelligence in Italy that helped topple Mussolini. The medal is part of the exhibit. "But we're not painting them as heroes," Bloom says. It's just that many don't have a full picture of mobsters, he says.
He tells a story gleaned from Sam Giancana's family. Giancana used to say, "If I'm looking out the back window, I'm daydreaming. If I'm looking out the front, I'm looking for the FBI,' " Bloom says.
The Mob Experience will use theme-park technologies such as life-size holograms of gangsters who talk to visitors and radio-frequency transmitters containing visitors' names and the languages they speak. Visitors will be addressed by name and can masquerade as mobsters, making decisions about whether to kill or cooperate with police. Depending on a visitor's nationality, Mob Experience signage will change to the appropriate language. Bloom says there will be more than a half-dozen languages, from French to Mandarin Chinese. In addition, actors including James Caan (Sonny in The Godfather) and Mickey Rourke have taped commentary.
Visitors " could order someone whacked or let them off the hook, decide to talk or not to talk to the police, steal or not steal from the mob," says Experience spokesman Spence Johnston. "At the end, their final fate is determined. Guests can be whacked, made, arrested, go into witness protection, etc."
The Experience is what it would be like "if Disney took over the Smithsonian," Bloom sums up.
Meanwhile, away from The Strip, the downtown Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement -- also called "The Mob Museum" -- is under construction in a former post office and courthouse where 1950 hearings about mob activity were held. It is a pet project of flamboyant Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman, a lawyer who used to defend mobsters including Giancana and who hopes the museum will draw more visitors downtown. It was expected to open earlier, but now is aiming for a December opening date, says museum chief administrative officer Jonathan Ullman. "It's a complicated project" because it involves historical restoration of a landmark building and building interactive exhibits, he says.
It is larger than the Mob Experience and also has some interactive tricks up its sleeve. Its creative director is Dennis Barrie, who has worked with Washington, D.C.'s popular Spy Museum and with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. It has the wall from Chicago's St. Valentine's Day massacre, the only gun found at the scene of that bloodbath and the barber chair that hitman Albert Anastasia was murdered in at a hotel in New York. "We have these artifacts that are significant, but this is very much a museum in which visitors will be engaged in experiences," he says, such as trying their hand at law-enforcement techniques, a tommy gun simulator and a police lineup.
Do the two museums have a beef with each other?
"I'd be lying if I weren't concerned about any brand confusion," Ullman says. "That's certainly a challenge."
"My sense is we're going to be good for each other," says Bloom, turning Vegas into a mecca for those interested in knowing more about mob history.
Readers, what do you think? Are you likely to visit one or both of these attractions?
Posted Feb 22 2011 2:30PM
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