New York-New York Hotel and Casino

New York-New York Hotel & Casino is a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States, designed to evoke New York City in its architecture and other aspects. It is owned and operated by MGM Resorts International.

Description

New York-New York Hotel & Casino is located at 3790 Las Vegas Boulevard South, in Paradise, Nevada.

It uses the New York City influence of its name in several ways. Its architecture is meant to evoke the New York City skyline of the 1940s era; the hotel includes several towers configured to resemble New York City towers such as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. In front of the property is a replica of the Statue of Liberty, and replicas of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Main Immigration Building on Ellis Island, and Grand Central Terminal.

Within the resort, particular gambling areas, lounges, restaurants, and meeting rooms are named after New York City neighborhoods or landmarks. The main casino area, for example, is named after Times Square, while the eateries are modeled after Greenwich Village. At the casino, special decks of playing cards are used where the “heart” suit is replaced by apples.

The resort is located on the northwest corner of the Tropicana – Las Vegas Boulevard intersection. At street level, pedestrians are blocked from crossing by concrete barriers. Instead, it is linked by overhead pedestrian bridges to its neighboring casinos to the south (the Excalibur, across Tropicana Avenue) and to the east (the MGM Grand).

History

The 18-acre site at the northwest corner of the Tropicana – Las Vegas Boulevard intersection had been considered a prime spot for development due to its proximity to the MGM Grand, Excalibur, and Tropicana. Japanese firm Universal Distributing owned the property, and had discussed a joint venture with the Promus Companies to build a hotel-casino, but could not reach an agreement. In 1992, Kirk Kerkorian’s Tracinda Corporation bought the site for $31.5 million and offered MGM Grand Inc., of which Kerkorian owned 76%, a free two-year option to buy it.

The idea of a casino modeled after the New York skyline was conceived by Sig Rogich (a former White House staffer and United States Ambassador to Iceland) and Mark Advent. Rogich brought the idea to his friend, Gary Primm, head of Primadonna Resorts. Primm approached MGM president Bob Maxey in 1994 with the idea for MGM’s prime Strip location, and a joint venture was formed between the two companies. Construction began in March 1995.

Completed at a cost of $460 million, New York-New York opened on January 3, 1997.

Since the initiation of New York-New York, analysts had speculated that MGM Grand or Primadonna would buy out the other’s interest in the project. Instead of making such a cash-intensive purchase, however, MGM agreed to buy Primadonna outright for $276 million in stock plus $336 million in assumed debt. The merger closed in March 1999, giving MGM full control of New York-New York.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, people spontaneously sent various tributes to New York-New York, especially T-shirts from police, fire and rescue departments around the country. These were displayed along the fence in front of the “Lady Liberty” replica. Eventually, they added a memorial from 2003 to 2013. The twin towers of the World Trade Center have never been included in the skyscrapers depicted in the resort’s facade; it is claimed the facade is meant to represent New York City as it was in the 1940s. The 9/11 Memorial was removed in 2013 for a casino expansion.

The US Post Office Statue of Liberty Forever stamp, which was intended to show the actual Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, actually shows the replica at New York-New York. This is due to an error by the stamp designers, who incorrectly chose a stock photo of the replica instead of the original and did not recognize the difference. Even after the error was recognized the Postal Service continued producing the stamp. A Postal Service spokesman said the Service “would have selected this photograph anyway”, citing its popularity and the Postal Service’s desire to produce a stamp that appeared different from previous stamps depicting the Statue of Liberty. In 2013 the sculptor of the statue in Las Vegas sued the Postal Service for copyright infringement. His lawyers pointed out that the replica is a distinct piece of art, with intentional variations from the original Statue of Liberty. In July 2018, a judge ordered the U.S. Postal Service to pay Davidson $3.5 million.

Attractions

The Roller Coaster

Main article: The Roller Coaster

The Roller Coaster, formerly “Manhattan Express”, travels through the property’s interior and exterior. The coaster is 203 ft (62 m) high, has a maximum drop of 144 ft (44 m), and reaches speeds up to 67 mph (108 km/h). The ride has undergone a variety of enhancements including the introduction of a magnetic braking system and new trains. The roller coaster has trains that resemble a traditional Checker Cab.

Zumanity

Main article: Zumanity

New York-New York is also home to Zumanity, the third show from Cirque du Soleil to take up permanent residence in the Las Vegas area and the first to be directed primarily toward adult audiences. It is the only permanent Cirque show to allow admission only to those over 18 years of age. The theatre is arranged as a cabaret, with sofas and bar stools complementing the standard theatre seats.

Restaurants, bars and nightclubs

Until June 2010, an ESPN Zone was located in the hotel, accessible from street level and from within the casino. It was a sports-themed restaurant operated by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts’ Disney Regional Entertainment division, with an upstairs arcade room full of sports-themed interactive games such as bowling, basketball, football, boxing, golf, horse racing, and auto racing. On October 10, 2010, the hotel re-opened the facility after an extensive remodeling and dubbed it “Sporting House”, catering to the same sporting crowd. The new facility was staffed and maintained by ARK, the food-and-beverage firm which runs other in-house facilities, including the employee dining room (EDR). The Sporting House permanently closed on June 3, 2014, and was successfully subdivided to accommodate Shake Shack and Tom’s Urban which opened in late December 2014.

The hotel also features nearly a dozen bars and nightclubs, catering to a largely youthful demographic, including Nine Fine Irishmen, the Bar at Times Square (a piano bar), and the Center Bar, the latter of which is located in the center of the main casino floor. On weekend evenings, the casino also features a live DJ and go-go dancers performing on an elevated stage within one of the table game pits, known as the “Party Pit”.

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