The Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas is closing next Monday and Tuesday. At some yet-to-be-determined date, the whole mega-resort will be imploded and by some (apparently) still-being-negotiated deal, a baseball stadium will be erected on the land. If it sounds like someone is gambling a bit with the property…well, that's what they do in Vegas. They gamble.
And it isn't much of one because if they didn't tear down the casino, it would probably fall down on its own before long. Once the management of a hotel-casino starts talking about replacing it with something else, they start neglecting its upkeep and it just gets shabbier and less appealing to patrons. They've been talking about dropping the Trop for years.
I haven't set foot in the place for about twenty years but I have a few nice memories of one big Blackjack win there and of hanging out backstage at the Folies Bergere show, which was more interesting back there than it was out front. It's only a loss in the sense that it's another symbol of Old Vegas that's slipping away from us. Everything's getting so corporate and upscale and (most of all) expensive.
If you wanna take a look at how the Tropicana used to be, there's a nice history of it at this link. I'm not going to miss it but I'm already missing what Vegas used to be.