New York-New York Hotel and Casino

New York-New York
Location Las Vegas, Nevada 89109
Address 3790 Las Vegas Blvd South
Opening date January 3, 1997 (January 3, 1997)
Theme New York City
Number of rooms 2,024
Total gaming space 84,000 sq ft (7,800 m2)
Permanent shows Zumanity
Signature attractions Hershey's Chocolate World
The Roller Coaster
Notable restaurants Gallagher's Steak House
Nine Fine Irishmen
Il Fornaio
Casino type Land-Based
Owner MGM Resorts International
Architect Neal Gaskin
Renovated in 2006
Coordinates 36°06′07″N 115°10′29″W / 36.1020°N 115.1746°W / 36.1020; -115.1746Coordinates: 36°06′07″N 115°10′29″W / 36.1020°N 115.1746°W / 36.1020; -115.1746
Website www.newyorknewyork.com

New York-New York Hotel & Casino is a hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip at 3790 Las Vegas Boulevard South, in Paradise, Nevada. It is owned and operated by MGM Resorts International.

Description

New York-New York located on the Las Vegas Strip across from the MGM Grand
Rear view at night
View in midday

New York-New York 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 1940's 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 lake representing New York Harbor, with a 150-foot-tall (46 m) 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 Central Park, while the shops 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.[4] 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.[4] 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.[4]

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.[5] Rogich brought the idea to his friend, Gary Primm, head of Primadonna Resorts.[5] 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.[6] Construction began in March 1995.[7]

Completed at a cost of $460 million, New York-New York opened on January 3, 1997.[8]

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.[9] Instead of making such a cash-intensive purchase,[10] however, MGM agreed to buy Primadonna outright for $276 million in stock plus $336 million in assumed debt.[11] The merger closed in March 1999,[12] 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[13] 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.[14]

The US Post Office Forever Statue of Liberty 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.[15]

Attractions

The Roller Coaster, formerly Manhattan Express, at New York-New York travels through the property's interior and exterior, and replaced the trains to resemble a traditional Checker Cab; 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.

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.

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 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.[16]

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".

References

  1. ↑ New York-New York Hotel and Casino at Emporis
  2. ↑ "New York-New York Hotel and Casino". SkyscraperPage.
  3. ↑ New York-New York Hotel and Casino at Structurae
  4. 1 2 3 Burbank, Jeff (November 14, 1992). "Kerkorian to buy corner of Tropicana, Strip". Las Vegas Review-Journal.  – via Factiva (subscription required)
  5. 1 2 "New Las Vegas casino taste of the Big Apple". Bangor Daily News. Associated Press. December 3, 1996.
  6. ↑ Palermo, Dave (August 5, 1994). "New resort to join Strip lineup". Las Vegas Review-Journal.  – via Factiva (subscription required)
  7. ↑ Green, Marian (March 31, 1995). "Las Vegas gets taste of Big Apple". Las Vegas Review-Journal.  – via Factiva (subscription required)
  8. ↑ Berns, Dave (January 4, 1997). "Visitors rush to see little Big Apple". Las Vegas Review-Journal.  – via Factiva (subscription required)
  9. ↑ Smith, Hubble (November 10, 1998). "MGM makes $600 million offer to buy Primadonna". Las Vegas Review-Journal.  – via Factiva (subscription required)
  10. ↑ Berns, Dave (October 15, 1998). "Primadonna declines MGM buyout". Las Vegas Review-Journal.
  11. ↑ "MGM Grand agrees to buy Primadonna in $276.1 million deal". Wall Street Journal. November 10, 1998.
  12. ↑ "MGM Grand/Primadonna Resorts Buy -2: In Stock Swap". Dow Jones News Service. March 1, 1999.  – via Factiva (subscription required)
  13. ↑ Mead, Rebecca (9 July 2010). "Las Vegas Postcard: A Desert Tribute". The New Yorker. Retrieved 20 September 2011.
  14. ↑ Dreier, Hannah (July 26, 2013). "Casino expansion pushes out 9/11 memorial at New York-New York". Las Vegas Sun. Associated Press.
  15. ↑ Rein, Lisa (December 3, 2013). "Sculptor sues Postal Service over mistaken Lady Liberty stamp". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 2, 2016.
  16. ↑ "MGM to Bring Tom's Urban, Shake Shack to Vegas". Yahoo! News. April 14, 2014. Retrieved 2016-02-08.
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