Las Vegas Has a New Year’s Blast--Literally

LAS VEGAS — This town of excess--never one to shrink from a good party--celebrated New Year’s Eve twice this time, congratulating itself as the wildest place west of Times Square to ring in a new year, but still deferring to the East Coast on the timing of its year-end blast.

Never mind that there was no ball to drop. They found an old hotel on the south end of the Strip to blow up instead. At least that’s what they tried to do, and for the most part they succeeded--beneath a shower of fireworks and with a mighty boom--right at the stroke of 9 p.m.

It was a case of premature anticipation of 1997, in order to accommodate a live East Coast television audience. Viewers might well have marveled at how Las Vegas, a place of disposable architecture, celebrated the future with a rite of destruction.

The 40-year-old Hacienda Hotel was mostly reduced to smoky rubble in a final curtain call that was part pyrotechnic wizardry, part functional implosion.

The celebration began at 8:53 p.m., local time, with an outrageous, six-minute fireworks display that featured more than 3,000 aerial shells. After that, the entire 600-foot facade of the Hacienda, wired with 750 more fireworks, erupted in a blazing white waterfall that cascaded from the rooftop penthouses to the ground below.

And finally, in the moment that everyone had been waiting for, a series of computer-synchronized explosions calculated to level the hotel were set off.

The building started to collapse on itself in a mushrooming cloud of dust and smoke. But when the cloud cleared, the southern wing of the hotel was still standing. No one seemed very concerned, and residents said the wing would probably be brought down by wrecking crews.

Officials say the old hotel was leveled to make way for--what else?--a bigger and flashier one.

The boisterous reaction of more than 300,000 celebrants--police said it was the largest crowd ever to watch anything in the history of this city--suggested that it was a helluva lot more fun than watching a ball struggle downward.

And that’s why the residents say Las Vegas, never known for its subtlety, has become the preeminent party place to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Kenny Rogers, Mickey Rooney and Liza Minnelli were the headliner acts in the showrooms, but the real show was outside, where all those jubilant people milled about on the blocked-off Strip.

“I love the excitement and exuberance of this place,” said Tony Bruno, who had driven over from Lancaster to spend his 12th New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas. “This is a city that really enjoys itself, that really knows how to party.”

Daniel Juechter and his girlfriend, Susan Kaye, flew in from New York City, where they had already done that Times Square thing.

“We’ve seen the ball drop,” Juechter said. “You only need to see it drop once in your life.”

Las Vegas’ 94,000 hotel rooms were all but sold out for the night, despite the top-drawer room rates. At the Luxor, rooms that normally go for about $59 midweek were being snagged at $259; at the new Monte Carlo, $59 rooms were going for $189.

But Dave and Linda Peak, a couple from Louisville, Ky., who spent much of the night gambling at the Golden Nugget--he in a tuxedo, she in a white leather evening dress--didn’t let the prices dim their enthusiasm.

“Where else can you pay for your holiday with a single roll of the dice?” Dave Peak asked rhetorically.

The crowd that turned out on the Strip on Tuesday night left local officials crowing with delight. Adding to their giddiness was the fact that a major television network--Fox--decided to broadcast its entire New Year’s Eve show from Las Vegas, eschewing Times Square and its ball.

The live TV broadcast forced a time warp on a town with no sense of time anyway: Many of the Strip’s events were synchronized to coincide with the East Coast’s midnight hour.

Thus, the crowd’s countdown in front of the Mirage and Caesars Palace--where the Doobie Brothers, Hootie and the Blowfish and Salt ‘n’ Pepa performed--as well as the implosion of the Hacienda Hotel further south, were timed to culminate at 9 p.m.

Television duty completed, the revelers returned to their own time frame and started the countdown cycle all over again. The Strip remained jammed into the new year, and another crowd, estimated at 25,000 people, paid $10 each to celebrate on Fremont Street downtown.

For years, Fremont Street was the favored venue to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas, attracting crowds of nearly 100,000. But a little more than a year ago, four blocks of the street were covered with a canopy of computer-synchronized lights and lasers, and the street was turned into a private pedestrian mall shared by 10 hotel casinos. At $10 a pop, these New Year’s Eve party-goers were a tamer bunch.

And so the Strip has emerged as the place to bring in the new year and to demolish the old--as in, hotels.

Will they find another old place to destroy next year? “Those discussions are ongoing,” said Alan Feldman, a vice president of Mirage Resorts.