Two dissimilar events 120-years ago – separated by 11-months and 2,230 miles – were the origin and legacy of the Las Vegas we know today.
The first took place at a dusty wind-swept water stop for the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. On May 15, 1905, railroad owner William Andrews Clark decided to subdivide 110 acres around his train station into 1,200 lots and officially founded the city of Las Vegas.
The second took place in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. On February 28, 1906, Benjamin Siegel was the second of five children born at home to Jennie and Max Siegel, who had immigrated to New York from Austria-Hungary’s Galicia region.
While Las Vegas began its storied evolution, as a mecca for gambling, dining and entertainment nestled in the Mohave Desert, a young Benjamin Siegel struggled to establish a foothold in the crime-ridden Williamsburg neighborhood and mean streets of Brooklyn’s northside.
Ben, Moe and Protection
In the early decades of the 1900s, in the rough neighborhoods of New York, it was all about who you knew and the friendships you formed that charted the course and life one would live and destiny they would ultimately find.
For Benjamin Siegel, it began with leaving school at a very young age and joining a gang on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. With new friends and a sense of comradery, he learned the basics of survival and the benefits of petty thefts… and it was good enough… until he met Moe Sedway, another Jewish gangster-in-training.
Morris Sidwirtz (now called Moe Sedway) was a slightly-older local – recently from Poland – that too was avidly forging a presence in the neighborhood life of crime.
Siegel and Sedway became instant friends, and together they schemed bigger and better ways to get ahead. As new partners in crime, they developed a protection racket that threatened street vendor pushcart owners with theft and fires unless they paid them a dollar. Ben and Moe were now independent and they were in business.
Gangster vs. Mobster
While most feel these terms are interchangeable, there is a subtle – yet distinct – difference between the two.
Siegel’s transition from “gangster” in his early days – as a member of less organized neighborhood crime groups – to a full-fledged “mobster” participating in more structured criminal organizations in the 1920s, began when he befriended Meyer Lansky.
Lansky was a semi-established local criminal who saw a need for the Jewish boys of his Brooklyn neighborhood to organize in the same manner as the Italians and Irish. He used street-smarts and intellect to form a small mob whose activities would expand to gambling and car theft… and the first person he recruited for his new gang was Siegel.
Together, Lansky and Siegel began exploring other horizons and quickly established themselves as a force to be reckoned with… earning lengthy criminal records that included armed robbery, assault and murder along the way.
Name of the Game
Siegel’s criminal repertoire continually expanded to also include Prohibition bootlegging and brazen murders-for-hire when Lansky loaned him to other East Coast crime families as a hitman. As mob protocol would have it, Siegel also earned a colorful (yet accurate) nickname along the way that would follow him throughout his career and forever into the history of crime in America.
The term “bugs” was a slang expression in the 1920s meaning someone was “crazy” or “unstable.” As Siegel’s reputation for increasing numbers of brazen and blatant hits continued to mount, fellow gang members nicknamed him “Bugsy” because of his notoriously quick and violent temperament that was not to be messed with.
While Siegel did not welcome the name, he did not renounce it either… nor was it exclusive. Another mobster, George Clarence “Bugs” Moran, carried the same nickname and for the same reason. He was head of the Chicago gang that lost seven members in the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of February 14, 1929.
The nickname even found its way into popular culture when an animator for Warner Brothers Studios, named Ben “Bugs” Hardaway (known for his crazy lifestyle) was asked to reimagine a wacky cartoon rabbit. When his sketches made their way up to the front office, he was noted as the creator… with “Bugs” scribbled on the corner of each one… and it is how the beloved Bugs Bunny got his name.
Rap Sheet Trajectory
Over time, Lansky and Siegel formed the feared “Bugs and Meyer Mob,” which carried out hits for other bootleg gangs operating in New York and New Jersey. They were known to be responsible for the killing of several rival gangland figures and, in off times, kept themselves busy by hijacking the liquor cargoes of rival outfits.
Siegel’s boyhood friends also included Al Capone and many other crime notables that got their start in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. It was also where Siegel discovered the lure and proceeds of the drug trade… and by age 21, he was making big money from this and other illicit nefarious sources… and he flaunted it.
He was young, handsome and gaining notoriety. With it came a lavish apartment at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan and a luxurious Tudor home in Scarsdale, New York. He wore expensive clothes and participated in New York City night life. Things were going good for the young and dangerous “Bugsy.”
Approaching the decade of the 1930s, Bugs and Meyer took things to another level. Employing Lansky’s brilliant intellect for organizing criminal enterprises – and teaming up with other East Coast Crime Families – they formed what became known as the legendary “Murder Inc.” said to be responsible for as many 1,000 contract killings.
Bugs and Meyer were also instrumental in bringing together the first multi-national alliance between the East Coast Italian, Irish and Jewish gangs… and along with Charles “Lucky” Luciano (another Williamsburg neighborhood graduate) together they formed a “National Crime Syndicate” and Five-Family Commission to govern organized crime nationwide… then and to this day.
Go West Young Man
When Prohibition ended in 1933, Siegel turned to gambling and, in 1936, he left New York and moved to California. His first foray was a stint in Hollywood, where his good looks, charisma and notoriety made him an instant celebrity with the movie stars and posh elite of tinsel town…. and one of the very first front-page celebrity mobsters.
During this period, Siegel mainly operated as a hitman and muscle. He extorted money from movie studios by taking over trade unions, staging strikes and forcing them to pay him. He also borrowed money from movie stars who wanted to be his friends… and didn’t pay them back… using it instead to throw lavish parties in the home he bought in Beverly Hills. He also started dating a beautiful young actress named Virginia Hill.
Bugsy the hitman gave new meaning to the term “hit” – as a pop culture icon du jour at cocktail parties and in the news – for his prowess with guns and penchant for violence.
In 1941, Siegel was even unsuccessfully tried for the murder of his friend and fellow mobster, Harry Greenberg, who had turned informant. He was acquitted in 1942.
The Desert and the Legacy
While Bugsy Siegel was transitioning from New York to California, a new opportunity was forming and emerging a few hundred miles away in the hot and dry Mohave Desert.
The 1930s saw Las Vegas and the surrounding area take hold, first with the start of the Government’s huge Depression-era Boulder Dam project that led to a number of new laws being created to better serve and entertain its 5,000 workers… one of which was legalized gambling… ultimately a dam good idea.
On March 31, 1931 Assembly Bill 98 legalized gambling in Nevada and the 26-year-old city of Las Vegas (with the massive dam project nearby) was perfectly positioned. Early gambling halls, however, were only small-scale modest establishments.
By 1936, Las Vegas had a number of successful casinos operating both downtown and on Boulder Highway… such as the Northern Club, Las Vegas Club and Hotel Apache.
Around this time, Bugsy Siegel began to lose interest in Hollywood (and vice versa) and he was avidly looking for new horizons and alternative criminal enterprises. Meyer Lansky also advised him to leave California due to police vigilance.
Vegas Baby
Siegel heard about – and relocated to – a new opportunity called Las Vegas… and, using his back-East mob connections, influences and gambling know-how, he initially dabbled in some of the unsophisticated and languishing gambling carry-over operations of the 1930’s.
In the early 1940s, more sophisticated Hotel/Casinos began appearing both downtown and on Highway 91 (which became Las Vegas Boulevard and the Strip). First was El Rancho Vegas, that opened April 3, 1941 (at the corner of today’s Sahara and the Strip). Seven months later, The El Cortez, the first major Resort/Casino downtown, opened November 7, 1941 at Fremont and 6th Street… and on October 30, 1942, the second pioneering Hotel/Casino – the Last Frontier – opened on the Strip.
In the mid-1940s, Seigel and associates took notice of this new emerging Las Vegas, and in March 1945, along with pals Meyer Lansky, Moe Sedway and Gus Greenbaum, the group purchased the El Cortez for $600,000 (about $9.5 million in today’s currency).
While Bugs, Meyer and company settled in downtown, another even bigger and better major Hotel/Casino project was being planned just 2.6 miles South on the Strip. In early 1946, Billy Wilkerson – an inveterate gambler and nightclub owner from Los Angeles and founder of The Hollywood Reporter – planned to open the biggest and best Resort/Casino Vegas had ever seen.
Legacy of the Flamingo
The Problem was Wilkerson lacked all the needed funds to finance the project on his own… and for a $1 million investment, he sold a two-thirds interest to Siegel’s group. A few months into construction, Siegel declared himself on-site-boss while mastermind Meyer Lansky controlled the books.
It didn’t take long for Wilkerson to realize his mistake and within a short time he found himself on the outside looking in and a footnote in Vegas history.
The project, now officially named the “Flamingo” (and long-since debated as to whether Billy or Bugsy so named it) was now 100% mob-controlled and Bugsy’s baby to bring to fruition.
In true mob fashion, Siegel – with his Hollywood trophy girlfriend by his side – saw the original $1 million budget mysteriously (and predictably) zoom to $6 million with a steady flow of additional back-East funding propping up the project… and there were questions.
Ta-Da… and the Grand Opening
There are many inaccurate myths surrounding the Grand Opening of the Flamingo on the evening of December 26, 1946 (mostly created by the 1991 Hollywood movie “Bugsy”). In reality, there was no big storm in the desert that night and… in spite of the hotel portion not yet being completed and with draped painter’s tarps closing off some unfinished areas of the casino… opening night was considered a tremendous success.
With an impressive list of A-list stars, celebrities and other notable VIPs, the casino’s three-day debut was a lavish affair, with large crowds causing round-the-clock traffic jams. But in spite of all the excitement, the Flamingo still lost $300,000 in the first week of operation and closed temporarily on February 6, 1947.
The Flamingo reopened with great fanfare on March 1, 1947, with a lavish three-story 105 room hotel and a private fourth-story Penthouse sanctuary for Siegel… featuring bullet-proof walls and various escape tunnels.
Death of a Vegas Visionary
Just three months after the much-heralded reopening of the fabulous Flamingo, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was shot to death… when an unnamed assassin fired nine shots through the window of girlfriend Virginia Hill’s house in Beverly Hills as he sat on the couch reading a newspaper.
Was it the mob investors… one of his many enemies… or Virginia Hill’s brother? The crime remains unsolved to this day. But despite the initial setbacks and Siegel’s gruesome gangland-style demise, the Flamingo went on to become an iconic Las Vegas landmark and is now the oldest continuously operating resort on the Strip… and Bugsy Siegel’s influence remains a turning point and, in many respects, the foundation for the Vegas we know today.
Gone but not forgotten
Many of Siegel’s lasting innovations included: replacing the prevalent Wild West theme-of-the-day with a sleek “all-in-one” concept… combining modern design and unprecedented luxurious accommodations with 24/7 gambling, elegant dining, big name entertainment along with a golf course and tennis courts.
His casino design intentionally eliminated clocks and windows, ensuring guests would lose track of time and would have to pass through gaming areas to reach other parts of the hotel… and this strategy remains a standard feature in today’s casino designs.
By introducing a new level of luxury, design and amenities, Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingo Hotel became the template for the modern Las Vegas casino resort.
His namesake influence continues on in many other respects, as well. At the Flamingo, you will find the Bugs & Meyer’s Steakhouse, Bugsy’s Cabaret and a Bugsy Siegel Memorial Plaque near the Wedding Chapel noting his role in Las Vegas development… and downtown, on East Fremont Street, there is Siegel’s 1941 Steakhouse in the El Cortez.
Another location that chronicles the role that organized crime played in the development of vintage Las Vegas is the nearby Mob Museum, that features an extensive curated Bugsy Siegel exhibit.
Fatal Attraction
“Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel had a large influence on the way the Flamingo… the third hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip… developed,” notes Claire White, the Mob Museum’s Director of Education. “His desire to create an upscale, European-style resort with top-quality casino action paved a path for later casino resorts.”
Two dissimilar events 120-years ago… Siegel’s birth and the creation of Las Vegas… separated by 11-months and 2,230 miles… seemingly put a predestined life course into motion. The two would inevitably come together… and coalesce… as both the origin and legacy of the Las Vegas we know today.
Don Logay is an award-winning journalist and former Editor-in-Chief of three national magazines. Today he writes luxury lifestyle articles for numerous publications. He can be reached at (949) 240-4444 or [email protected].
The post Bugsy Siegel: High-Profile Mobster and Vegas Visionary appeared first on Vegas Legal Magazine.