The El Morocco is gone! Peppermill Threatened!

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The wonderful little El Morocco on the Las Vegas Strip was torn down this afternoon.  Located next to the La Concha and the Peppermill Restaurant, the El Morocco opened in 1964.  It was originally a Motel.  The Bank of Las Vegas had a branch in the main building and the lobby was located there as well.  The architecture with its scalloped windows fit right in with the nearby La Concha.  It was briefly called Ash Resnick's El Morocco.  Jack Dennison opened his very popular eatery, Jack Dennison's Copper Cart restaurantt that was known for its steaks and prime rib dinners.  The Copper Cart later became the Carving Cart after Dennison had moved on.

A casino replaced the Bank of Las Vegas in the 1970s.   In addition to the casino there was a coffee shop, cocktail lounge and a full service beauty salon   

The motel stayed in operation through the 1990s.  The casino portion of the main building became a gift shop in 1983. The motel lobby  became the popular Gingseng Korean B-B-Que Restaurant in the 1990s.

By 2000, that restaurant had closed and the entire building became a souvenir store and internet cafe. Part of the motel wing was demolished in October, 2006.

The rest of the motel wing and the main building were slated for demolition and that process began on Friday.

The loss of the El Morocco is sad.  The Strip continues to be overtaken by large faux Tuscan and Mediterranean architecture that is devoid of character.  The El Morocco was a hold-over from the days when the Las Vegas Strip celebrated roadside architecture and signage.   It would have been a wonderful addition to the Neon Museum and joined the La Concha there.  But, sadly, it was not to be.

The Peppermill which also was near the El Morocco is threatened as well.  Though it is a popular eatery, the truth is that the land that Peppermill sits on is very valuable and that could doom the famed eatery and Fireside Lounge to the wrecking ball.

We will keep you posted! 

 

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The El Morocco at night.

 

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Pieces of history

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Jack Dennison's Copper Cart and the El Morroco 

 

Special Thanks to RoadsidePictures for letting us use these images. 

The La Concha and the Las Vegas Neon Museum

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As we noted a few weeks back in our Historic Site of the Week, the La Concha is being pieced back together so that it can serve as the lobby and gift shop for the Neon Museum.

Kristen Peterson, in today's Las Vegas Sun brings us up to date on the progress.:

"But after all these years of bulldozing our history, neglecting the unique architecture, something had to give. That something was this conch-inspired structure that served as the entrance to La Concha Motel, built when 5,000-room hotels weren’t even part of the discussion.

Neon was our visual commodity then. We were the first midcentury modern city. A city with no past. No 19th-century concert halls or skyscrapers to define us. No vast inventory of historic sites.

But now La Concha is our past."

Click here to read the rest of the article.


This is an important preservation project on many different levels.  Thanks to the efforts of the Neon Museum and its donors, the La Concha did not go quietly into the night and the pages of history.  It was saved from the wrecking ball and moved across town to find new life as the gateway to the Neon Museum.

In a town that will (hopefully) discover cultural tourism one of these days and have enough historic buildings left to make it viable, the La Concha stands as the outpost for what cultural tourism can do for Fremont Street and Downtown Las Vegas.

This is an important step in the right direction for a city that too often only thinks of the next big thing.  The Friends of Classic Las Vegas encourages everyone to support the Neon Museum in this important endeavor. 

 

Thanks to LasVegasTodayandTomorrow for letting us this photo.