By the time you discover whether you’ve been tapped for the path to unquestioned respect and cash handouts, or for a bullet through the brain, it will be too late.
But unlike the real gangsters, visitors to the Las Vegas Mob Experience will get a second chance to discover what led them down the path to being "made" as a full member of the mafia, or getting "whacked".
The exhibition, opening in the gambling mecca later this year, is the dream of the daughter of an infamous Chicago mobster with a reputation as a vicious killer, who was himself murdered.
Like all good mob dramas, the theme park-style experience will not be without a serious rival for its turf. The city-backed Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement plans to open its doors just a few months later with displays such as the wall that was the backdrop to the 1929 St Valentine’s Day massacre, reassembled brick by brick, and a covert FBI recording of a mafia induction ceremony. It promises to "set the record straight" and "take the romance out of mob stories".
The Mob Experience, to be displayed at the Tropicana casino on the Strip, has no intention of taking the romance out of organised crime. The exhibition, backed by Antoinette McConnell, the 74-year-old daughter of Sam "Momo" Giancana, is described by the organisers as a mafia equivalent of the popular Bodies exhibition of dissected corpses and Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition.
It will display more than 1,000 artefacts related to the mob that have never been made public, including personal mementos. Among the displays will be a recreation of Giancana’s living room. It will also include the Final Fate, in which the visitor gets made or murdered.
April 27, 2010
