Look up at the site where, in April 1955, the Riviera opened as the first high-rise building on the Las Vegas Strip. While every other resort was spreading horizontally across the desert, the Riviera's nine-story tower announced that Las Vegas was ready to build upward — a declaration of urban ambition in a town that barely qualified as a city.
Liberace opened the Riviera with a piano performance that set the tone for the property's history: flamboyant, theatrical, slightly excessive, and completely entertaining. The Riviera became a home for performers who valued spectacle over subtlety. Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Debbie Reynolds all performed here. Joan Rivers taped specials here. In the 1980s, the Muppets shot scenes here. The Riviera had a genius for being exactly where pop culture needed a Las Vegas backdrop.
The mob connections were thorough and well-documented. The Riviera was financed with Teamsters pension fund money and managed by figures with direct ties to multiple organized crime families. The FBI built a detailed case against the property over years of surveillance. By the time legitimate corporate ownership finally arrived in the 1980s, the casino had already begun its long decline.
The Riviera was imploded in 2016 to make way for expansion of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The implosion drew crowds who came to watch a piece of history disappear in a controlled cloud of dust.