Tropicana site + MGM Grand

The “Tiffany of the Strip,” imploded for a ballpark — and the emerald hotel with a lion's-mouth door nobody would walk through.

Key facts

The Tropicana opened in 1957, was nicknamed the “Tiffany of the Strip,” and hosted the Folies Bergère revue for nearly 50 years; it was imploded on October 9, 2024, to make way for a Major League Baseball ballpark for the Athletics.
The current MGM Grand opened in 1993 as one of the largest hotels in the world, with about 5,000 rooms, and is finished in emerald green tied to The Wizard of Oz.
The MGM Grand's original entrance was a giant lion's-mouth doorway; it was rebuilt in 1998 after many guests — reportedly especially visitors from China, for whom walking into a lion's jaws was bad luck — avoided using it.
Kirk Kerkorian built the largest hotel in the world three separate times: the International (1969), the first MGM Grand (1973), and the current MGM Grand (1993).

Narration transcript

Look to your right now, at the near corner. For sixty-seven years, that was the Tropicana — the “Tiffany of the Strip,” opened in 1957, home to the feathers-and-sequins Folies Bergère show for nearly half a century. And then, on the ninth of October, 2024, it came down in a cloud of dust, cleared to build a baseball stadium for the Athletics. That's your first “site of” stop, and the tour's whole idea in one lot: in this town, even a landmark is just the thing standing there until the next thing.

Now look past the corner to that wall of emerald-green glass. That's the MGM Grand, opened in 1993 with about five thousand rooms — Wizard-of-Oz green, right down to the colour. When it opened, the entrance was an enormous golden lion's mouth; you walked in through the jaws. The trouble was, a lot of guests wouldn't do it — for many visitors, especially from China, strolling into a lion's mouth is terrible luck. So in 1998 they tore the whole thing out and built a normal door.

The man behind that hotel was Kirk Kerkorian, and he has a record that may never be broken: he built the biggest hotel in the world three separate times — the International in 1969, the first MGM Grand in 1973, and this one in 1993. Remember him; he'll come up again.

Keep heading north on the Boulevard. Coming up on your right is another “site of” — a resort that got married, then imploded, then came back under a new name. Watch for the tall towers of Planet Hollywood.