A Legendary Las Vegas Casino Will Get a Dynamite Send-Off

At noon Pacific Time, Las Vegas' iconic Riviera Hotel and Casino will close its doors. After more than six decades in business (including turns at hosting Liberace, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, and Barbara Streisand), the "Riv" will be making way for an expanded Las Vegas convention center. But not before receiving the ultimate Sin City salute: death by implosion.

It will be the third major structure in Las Vegas to come down the dynamite way this year, along with February's implosions of the Clarion and Gramercy hotels. In an excellent explainer on the history and mechanics of successful implosions, As the Las Vegas Sun notes that this season's string of tower-topplings marks the city's return to the implosion business, "picking up where it left off after a string of iconic resorts were brought down with explosives from 1993 to 2007."