Boardwalk Hotel & Casino (1966–2006) · a Las Vegas Strip memorial
Open 1966–2006 · closed at noon, January 9, 2006 · the tower came down May 9, 2006. This is a memorial - nothing here is for sale.
“Step right up to ‘The Coney Island of Las Vegas!’ ” their own homepage, 1996
The Boardwalk
Four hundred and thirty-six feet of make-believe midway on the most expensive sidewalk<br>on earth: a roller coaster that never rolled, a Ferris wheel ridden by mannequins,<br>a forty-five-foot clown named Jocko - and behind all of it, the cheapest honest<br>bed, steak and blackjack hand on the Strip.
Night on the Boardwalk: the make-believe Cyclone, 99¢ margaritas, $1.99 strawberry shortcake, Surf Buffet 24 hours and the clock tower holding 7:22. c. 1995–2002. Photo: Carol M. Highsmith - Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain (Carol M. Highsmith Archive - no known restrictions)
the lights move; Highsmith’s photograph remains unchanged<br>Photo: Carol M. Highsmith - Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · public domain, no known restrictions · modern light animation. Full provenance.
Stay till dark - the signs light up
The numbers, as posted.
A 2002 sign survey counted “a ridiculous amount of internally lit<br>signage advertising everything from hotel promotions to prices of drinks.”<br>People recite these numbers from memory twenty years later. They are the whole<br>sales pitch, and the whole eulogy:
the lights move; the photographs remain unchanged<br>Photo: tonybistro (Flickr)
Photo: Rick Harrison (Flickr: sovietuk)
Photo: J. Cannaday, UNLV Neon Survey 2002
$1.29 breakfast special, 24 hours a dayblinking, per their own 1996 homepage
49¢ shrimp cocktailthe marquee, 1992
$3 minimum tables - “HOME OF” said the coaster, in letters six feet tallthe facade, 2002–06
99¢ margaritas, piña coladas, daiquiris & chi chisthe buffet marquee, photographed Nov. 2000
99¢ a dozen cake doughnuts, made on site - six more for a pennyas remembered; priced per the Las Vegas Sun, 2006
$25 a room, a night - “frugal room rates” to the very endtheir own site, December 2005
Want Comps?<br>Get This.
With Some of the<br>Most Liberal<br>Comping Policies<br>On the Strip!<br>FREE sign up at the Players<br>Club booth
Want Comps? Get This.<br>The Players Club promised some of the Strip’s most liberal comps.<br>The Casino →
Purple Reign<br>The Prince Tribute Show
Tuesday – Saturday<br>11pm to 2am<br>Lighthouse Lounge
Purple Reign<br>Tuesday through Saturday, 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.<br>The Showroom →
Spectrum<br>A Tribute to Motown and R&B
Tuesday – Sunday<br>8:00pm to 10:45pm<br>Lighthouse Lounge
Spectrum<br>Motown and R&B, Tuesday through Sunday.<br>The Showroom →
$1.99<br>Shrimp<br>Cocktail<br>The<br>Deli<br>Open 24 hours
$1.99 Shrimp Cocktail<br>Open 24 hours, because somebody was always hungry.<br>Eats →
The Only<br>24 Hour<br>Buffet On<br>The Strip!<br>SurfBuffet
Surf Buffet<br>The only 24-hour buffet on the Strip.<br>Eats →
Home<br>of the<br>$3<br>Tables
Home of the $3 Tables<br>Six-foot letters made the minimum impossible to miss.<br>The Casino →
$1299<br>Prime Rib<br>Dinner
Includes bread, vegetables, potato<br>and a choice of soup or salad<br>Caffé Boardwalk
Dinner from 5 p.m.
$12.99 Prime Rib Dinner<br>Bread, vegetables, potato and soup or salad included.<br>Eats →
Seven surviving fascia bills, rebuilt in photographed order from the<br>Boardwalk’s night views. Full provenance.
00:50
October 2001 · fifty seconds inside
The room still makes noise.
A guest’s camcorder kept the slot machines, the casino floor and the<br>house speaking over the public-address system.
Put on headphonesHear the casino floor
Sound<br>stays off until you press play.
Recorded inside the Boardwalk on a guest’s camcorder,<br>October 2001 · © vidmem7856. The picture is a disclosed AI restoration of<br>the casino’s own 2003 360° panorama of this floor; the small sign lettering<br>in it is rebuilt, not legible in the original.<br>Full provenance.
Now playing · October 2001<br>Casino floor
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Their own brochure, c. 1996–98 - teal, hot pink, Jocko on the map,<br>and “Boardwalk Casino, Inc. is traded on NASDAQ under the symbol BWLK”<br>in the fine print. Scan: RetroLand U.S.A. (Flickr) · CC BY-NC 2.0
All new<br>Coney Island comes to Las Vegas!
That was the 1995 pitch: a Holiday Inn from 1966 puts on a carnival<br>facade, registers a 45-foot clown with the SEC, and spends its last<br>decade as the cheapest honest bed, steak and blackjack hand on the Strip<br>- until CityCenter needed the dirt.
Holiday Inn to Viscount to Boardwalk to dust, in forty years. Every claim<br>cited, every conflict flagged, ending at 2:35 a.m., May 9, 2006. the whole timeline, 1966–2006
The Whole Story
Las Vegas Boulevard outside the Boardwalk · Julio López Saguar, 2004
Before the doors, the sidewalk was already performing
The supporting...