Pan-Pacific Auditorium
The Pan-Pacific Auditorium, was a landmark structure in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, once stood at 7600 West Beverly Boulevard near the site of Gilmore Field, an early Los Angeles baseball venue predating Dodger Stadium. It was located within sight of both CBS Television City on the southeast corner of Beverly and Fairfax Avenue and the Farmers Market on the northeast corner of Third Street and Fairfax. For over 35 years it was the premier location for indoor public events in Los Angeles; the facility was closed beginning 17 years of steady neglect and decay. In 1978 the Pan-Pacific Auditorium was included in the National Register of Historic Places, but 11 years the sprawling wooden structure was destroyed in a fire. Built by event promoters Phillip and Cliff Henderson and designed by Los Angeles architects Wurdeman & Becket, the Pan-Pacific Auditorium opened to a fanfare of Boy Scout bugles on May 18, 1935 for a 16-day model home exhibition. Noted as one of the finest examples of Streamline Moderne architecture in the United States, the green and white facade faced west, was 228 feet long and had four stylized towers and flagpoles meant to evoke upswept aircraft fins.
The known and much photographed facade belied a modest rectilinear wooden structure resembling an overgrown gymnasium inside and out. The auditorium sprawled across 100,000 square feet and had seating for up to 6,000. Throughout the following 30 years the Pan-Pacific would host the Ice Capades and the Harlem Globetrotters, serve as home to the Los Angeles Monarchs of the Pacific Coast Hockey League along with UCLA ice hockey, UCLA men's basketball, USC men's basketball, professional tennis, car shows, political rallies and circuses. During the 1940s it was used for audience-attended national radio broadcasts and in the 1950s for televised professional wrestling shows. At its height, most major indoor events in Los Angeles were held at the Pan-Pacific. Leopold Stokowski conducted there in 1936, 1950s actress Jeanne Crain was crowned "Miss Pan Pacific" there in the early 1940s, General Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke to a beyond-capacity crowd of 10,000 in 1952 a month before being elected President of the United States, Elvis Presley performed there in 1957 shortly before he was drafted into the Army and Vice President Richard Nixon addressed a national audience from the Pan-Pacific in November 1960.
The building carried on as Los Angeles' primary indoor venue until the 1972 opening of the much larger Los Angeles Convention Center, after which the Pan-Pacific Auditorium was closed. There were hopes throughout the surrounding Fairfax District towards refurbishing the Pan-Pacific as an ice rink or cultural center and the parking lot soon became a park. However, the building was damaged by small fires started by transients. In 1975, the Pan-Pacific made a brief appearance as the entrance to the NBC Studios in Hollywood for the movie Funny Lady. Interest in the building was rekindled somewhat with its 1978 inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places; the 1980 release of the movie musical Xanadu brought renewed hopes the building might be saved when the auditorium's facade was used to portray a dilapidated building which became a sparkling, brightly lit roller disco nightclub, but the movie was critically panned and not an economic success. It appears at the beginning of the 1980 music video for the Barnes & Barnes song "Fish Heads".
Black-and-white film footage of a man with a jet pack flying from left to right in front of the facade was used in the video for the 1981 Devo single, "Beautiful World". The dilapidated façade was used in the video for "Dancing in the Sheets" by Shalamar, its final appearance was in the 1988 movie Miracle Mile. The auditorium continued to deteriorate throughout the 1980s owing to neglect. A large loading door on the southeast corner was forced open, allowing free access to anyone. A fire in May 1983 damaged the northern end. On the evening of May 24, 1989, the Pan-Pacific Auditorium was destroyed by a fire, the smoke from, visible throughout the Los Angeles basin; the site is now Pan-Pacific Park and has a recreation center, with a scaled-down replica of one of the famous towers, which opened in 2002. The facade of the building was used in the motion picture Xanadu, in which a muse convinces two men to convert the classic but decaying building into a music and entertainment venue. Through special effects, the building is transformed to outshine the building in its heyday.
The video for "She's My Girl" by The Babys featured the band playing in front of, as well as on top of the building and its iconic flagpole facades. The Producers' 1982 music video "She Sheila" was filmed in front of the facade; the 1984 motion picture Ghost Warrior, in which a deep-frozen 400-year-old samurai is shipped to Los Angeles, where he comes back to life, includes scenes of both the decayed facade and the dimly lit interior. In the interior shots, the columns with angled knee bracing and the distinctive arched bowstring trusses are visible. A nearly full-scale, stylized replica of the facade opened as the main entrance to Disney-MGM Studios theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida on May 1, 1989, just three weeks before the original was destroyed by fire. Disney California Adventure Park, at the Disneyland Resort, opened new entrance gates in the style of the Pan-Pacific's facade on July 15, 2011. LAistory: The Pan Pacific Auditorium - Historical pictures and article Pan Pacific Auditorium, short history and photo gallery Pan-Pacific Auditorium Playground Reference to the front gate of Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World, Florida Colorized postcard of Gilmore
Hotel Tryp Habana Libre
Hotel Tryp Habana Libre is one of the larger hotels in Cuba, situated in Vedado, Havana. The hotel has 572 rooms in a 25-floor tower at Calle 23 and Calle L; the hotel was built as the Habana Hilton, at a cost of $24 million, under the personal auspices of President Fulgencio Batista. It was constructed as an investment by the Caja de Retiro y Asistencia Social de los Trabajadores Gastronomicos, the pension plan of the Cuban catering workers' union, with additional financing from the Banco de Fomento Agricola e Industrial de Cuba, it was operated by the American Hilton Hotels International group and was designed by the well-known Los Angeles architect Welton Becket, who had designed the Beverly Hilton for the chain. Becket designed the 27-story Habana Hilton in collaboration with the Havana-based architects Lin Arroyo and Gabriela Menéndez. Arroyo was the Minister of Public Works under Batista; the hotel was constructed by the Frederick Snare Corporation. The Habana Hilton was largest hotel, it boasted 630 guest rooms, including 42 suites.
The hotel featured artwork commissioned from some of the most important Cuban modern artists of the day, including an enormous mosaic mural by Amelia Peláez over the main entrance and a tiled wall mural by René Portocarrero in the second-floor Antilles Bar overlooking the pool terrace. The Habana Hilton opened with five days of festivities, from March 19-23, 1958, with Conrad Hilton himself in attendance, accompanied by his companion, actress Ann Miller. Hilton was joined by 300 invited guests, including socialite Virginia Warren, daughter of Chief Justice Earl Warren. A formal blessing ceremony was held in the hotel's lobby on March 22, 1958, attended by Cuba's First Lady, Marta Fernandez de Batista; the ceremony was followed by a luncheon, with speeches by Hilton and Aguirre, a huge gala dinner and ball in the hotel's grand ballroom. The casino in the hotel was leased for $1 million a year to a group consisting of Roberto "Chiri" Mendoza, his brother Mario Mendoza, Clifford "Big Juice" Jones, Kenneth F. Johnson, Sidney Orseck.
Roberto Mendoza was a wealthy Cuban contractor and sugar planter, a business associate of President Batista. Hilton officials said that 13 groups tried to lease the casino and 12 were "turned down because they either had underworld connections or had refused to subject themselves to rigid investigation." Speculation surfaced that the murder of Gambino crime family boss Albert Anastasia in October 1957 was tied to his interest in securing an ownership stake in the Hilton's casino. Roberto Mendoza and Santo Trafficante Jr. who had substantial gambling interests in Cuba, were both in New York at the time of Ananstasia's murder. The police investigation of the murder focused on this theory for a while but looked at other theories; the murder was never solved. Following Fidel Castro's entry into Havana on January 8, 1959, the hotel became his headquarters, with Castro residing for three months in the hotel's Continental Suite, room 2324; the casinos throughout the city were closed, but protests by Havana casino workers led to their reopening in February.
Castro gave his first press conference in the hotel's ballroom on January 19, 1959 and soon took to giving regular interviews to international journalists in the hotel, famously declaring in the lobby that "If the Americans don’t like what is happening in Cuba, they can land the Marines, there will be 200,000 gringos dead."In October 1959, the Habana Hilton hosted the week-long American Society of Travel Agents annual international convention, scheduled before the Revolution. Castro and other officials attempted to present an image of Cuba as a continued tropical paradise for American tourists, as the country needed the revenue, but growing anti-American political rhetoric was having an impact on bookings at the empty hotel. On New Year's Eve 1959/1960, Castro hosted an elaborate party in the Pavilion ballroom atop the hotel, designed to promote Cuba to Americans; the party was attended by numerous American journalists and celebrities, including boxer Joe Louis, hired by a PR firm to encourage black Americans to visit the island.
The efforts proved unsuccessful, the Hilton's American operators struggled to keep the hotel open. Hilton International was forbidden under Cuban labor laws from firing any of the hotel's 670 employees, though the Hilton had more than 100 guests; the Revolutionary government was compelled to pay 2 million pesos to cover the hotel's operating expenses, keep its employees working. The hotel remained in operation as a Hilton while relations between the US and Cuba worsened, until June 11, 1960, when the Cuban government nationalized the property. On June 15, 1960, Castro announced in a speech to the Restaurant and Hotel Workers Federation that he was renaming the hotel the Hotel Ha
Seattle
Seattle is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of Washington. With an estimated 730,000 residents as of 2018, Seattle is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. According to U. S. Census data released in 2018, the Seattle metropolitan area’s population stands at 3.87 million, ranks as the 15th largest in the United States. In July 2013, it was the fastest-growing major city in the United States and remained in the Top 5 in May 2015 with an annual growth rate of 2.1%. In July 2016, Seattle was again the fastest-growing major U. S. city, with a 3.1% annual growth rate. Seattle is the northernmost large city in the United States; the city is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about 100 miles south of the Canada–United States border. A major gateway for trade with Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2015; the Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers.
Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, Oregon, on the schooner Exact at Alki Point on November 13, 1851; the settlement was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay and named "Seattle" in 1852, in honor of Chief Si'ahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Today, Seattle has high populations of Native, Scandinavian and Asian Americans, as well as a thriving LGBT community that ranks 6th in the United States for population. Logging was Seattle's first major industry, but by the late 19th century, the city had become a commercial and shipbuilding center as a gateway to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush. Growth after World War II was due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for aircraft manufacturing; the Seattle area developed into a technology center from the 1980s onwards with companies like Microsoft becoming established in the region. Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle in 1994, major airline Alaska Airlines is based in SeaTac, serving Seattle's international airport, Seattle–Tacoma International Airport.
The stream of new software and Internet companies led to an economic revival, which increased the city's population by 50,000 between 1990 and 2000. Owing to its increasing population in the 21st century and the state of Washington have some of the highest minimum wages in the country, at $15 per hour for smaller businesses and $16 for the city's largest employers. Seattle has a noteworthy musical history. From 1918 to 1951, nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District to the Central District; the jazz scene nurtured the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, others. Seattle is the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix, as well as the origin of the bands Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Foo Fighters and the alternative rock movement grunge. Archaeological excavations suggest that Native Americans have inhabited the Seattle area for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived, the people occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay.
The first European to visit the Seattle area was George Vancouver, in May 1792 during his 1791–95 expedition to chart the Pacific Northwest. In 1851, a large party led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River. Thirteen days members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party. Members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28, 1851; the rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland and landed on Alki point during a rainstorm on November 13, 1851. After a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and claimed land a second time at the site of present-day Pioneer Square, naming this new settlement Duwamps. Charles Terry and John Low remained at the original landing location and reestablished their old land claim and called it "New York", but renamed "New York Alki" in April 1853, from a Chinook word meaning "by and by" or "someday". For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, but in time Alki was abandoned and its residents moved across the bay to join the rest of the settlers.
David Swinson "Doc" Maynard, one of the founders of Duwamps, was the primary advocate to name the settlement after Chief Seattle of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The name "Seattle" appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23, 1853, when the first plats for the village were filed. In 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14, 1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of trustees managing the city; the Town of Seattle was disincorporated on January 18, 1867, remained a mere precinct of King County until late 1869, when a new petition was filed and the city was re-incorporated December 2, 1869, with a mayor–council government. The corporate seal of the City of Seattle carries the date "1869" and a likeness of Chief Sealth in left profile. Seattle has a history of boom-and-bust cycles, like many other cities near areas of extensive natural and mineral resources. Seattle has risen several times economically gone into precipitous decline, but it has used those periods to rebuild solid infrastructure
Cairo
Cairo is the capital of Egypt. The city's metropolitan area is one of the largest in Africa, the largest in the Middle East, the 15th-largest in the world, is associated with ancient Egypt, as the famous Giza pyramid complex and the ancient city of Memphis are located in its geographical area. Located near the Nile Delta, modern Cairo was founded in 969 CE by the Fatimid dynasty, but the land composing the present-day city was the site of ancient national capitals whose remnants remain visible in parts of Old Cairo. Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life, is titled "the city of a thousand minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture. Cairo is considered a World City with a "Beta +" classification according to GaWC. Cairo has the oldest and largest film and music industries in the Middle East, as well as the world's second-oldest institution of higher learning, Al-Azhar University. Many international media and organizations have regional headquarters in the city.
With a population of over 9 million spread over 3,085 square kilometers, Cairo is by far the largest city in Egypt. An additional 9.5 million inhabitants live in close proximity to the city. Cairo, like many other megacities, suffers from high levels of traffic. Cairo's metro, one of two in Africa, ranks among the fifteen busiest in the world, with over 1 billion annual passenger rides; the economy of Cairo was ranked first in the Middle East in 2005, 43rd globally on Foreign Policy's 2010 Global Cities Index. Egyptians refer to Cairo as Maṣr, the Egyptian Arabic name for Egypt itself, emphasizing the city's importance for the country, its official name al-Qāhirah means "the Vanquisher" or "the Conqueror" due to the fact that the planet Mars, an-Najm al-Qāhir, was rising at the time when the city was founded also in reference to the much awaited arrival of the Fatimid Caliph Al-Mu'izz who reached Cairo in 973 from Mahdia, the old Fatimid capital. The location of the ancient city of Heliopolis is the suburb of Ain Shams.
The Coptic name of the city is Kashromi which means "man breaker", akin to Arabic al-Qāhirah . Sometimes the city is informally referred to as Kayro by people from Alexandria; the area around present-day Cairo Memphis, the old capital of Egypt, had long been a focal point of Ancient Egypt due to its strategic location just upstream from the Nile Delta. However, the origins of the modern city are traced back to a series of settlements in the first millennium. Around the turn of the 4th century, as Memphis was continuing to decline in importance, the Romans established a fortress town along the east bank of the Nile; this fortress, known as Babylon, was the nucleus of the Roman and the Byzantine city and is the oldest structure in the city today. It is situated at the nucleus of the Coptic Orthodox community, which separated from the Roman and Byzantine churches in the late 4th century. Many of Cairo's oldest Coptic churches, including the Hanging Church, are located along the fortress walls in a section of the city known as Coptic Cairo.
Following the Muslim conquest in 640 AD, the conqueror Amr ibn As settled to the north of the Babylon in an area that became known as al-Fustat. A tented camp Fustat became a permanent settlement and the first capital of Islamic Egypt. In 750, following the overthrow of the Umayyad caliphate by the Abbasids, the new rulers created their own settlement to the northeast of Fustat which became their capital; this was known as al-Askar. A rebellion in 869 by Ahmad ibn Tulun led to the abandonment of Al Askar and the building of another settlement, which became the seat of government; this was al-Qatta ` closer to the river. Al Qatta'i was centred around a ceremonial mosque, now known as the Mosque of ibn Tulun. In 905, the Abbasids re-asserted control of the country and their governor returned to Fustat, razing al-Qatta'i to the ground. Since 1860s, Cairo expanded west as far as what is called now In 968, the Fatimids were led by general Jawhar al-Siqilli to establish a new capital for the Fatimid dynasty.
Egypt was conquered from their base in Ifriqiya and a new fortified city northeast of Fustat was established. It took four years to build the city known as al-Manṣūriyyah, to serve as the new capital of the caliphate. During that time, Jawhar commissioned the construction of the al-Azhar Mosque by order of the Caliph, which developed into the third-oldest university in the world. Cairo would become a centre of learning, with the library of Cairo containing hundreds of thousands of books; when Caliph al-Mu'izz li Din Allah arrived from the old Fatimid capital of Mahdia in Tunisia in 973, he gave the city its present name, al-Qāhiratu. For nearly 200 years after Cairo was established, the administrative centre of Egypt remained in Fustat. However, in 1168 the Fatimids under the leadership of vizier Shawar set fire to Fustat to prevent Cairo's capture by the Crusaders. Egypt's capital was permanently moved to Cairo, expanded to include the ruins of Fustat and the previous capitals of
Los Angeles
Los Angeles the City of Los Angeles and known by its initials L. A. is the most populous city in California, the second most populous city in the United States, after New York City, the third most populous city in North America. With an estimated population of four million, Los Angeles is the cultural and commercial center of Southern California; the city is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity and the entertainment industry, its sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles is the largest city on the West Coast of North America. Los Angeles is in a large basin bounded by the Pacific Ocean on one side and by mountains as high as 10,000 feet on the other; the city proper, which covers about 469 square miles, is the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the country. Los Angeles is the principal city of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second largest in the United States after that of New York City, with a population of 13.1 million. It is part of the Los Angeles-Long Beach combined statistical area the nation's second most populous area with a 2015 estimated population of 18.7 million.
Los Angeles is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States, with a diverse economy in a broad range of professional and cultural fields. Los Angeles is famous as the home of Hollywood, a major center of the world entertainment industry. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index and 9th in the Global Economic Power Index; the Los Angeles metropolitan area has a gross metropolitan product of $1.044 trillion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. Los Angeles hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics and will host the event for a third time in 2028; the city hosted the Miss Universe pageant twice, in 1990 and 2006, was one of 9 American cities to host the 1994 FIFA men's soccer World Cup and one of 8 to host the 1999 FIFA women's soccer World Cup, hosting the final match for both tournaments. Home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California.
The city was founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood; the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California assured the city's continued rapid growth; the Los Angeles coastal area was settled by the Chumash tribes. A Gabrieleño settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning "poison oak place". Maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542 while on an official military exploring expedition moving north along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America.
Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. On September 4, 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as "Los Pobladores" founded the pueblo they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles,'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels'; the present-day city has the largest Roman Catholic Archdiocese in the United States. Two-thirds of the Mexican or settlers were mestizo or mulatto, a mixture of African and European ancestry; the settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, the pueblo continued as a part of Mexico.
During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta California's regional capital. Mexican rule ended during the Mexican–American War: Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Petroleum was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output. By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000; the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland, assured the continued growth of the city. Due to clauses in the city's charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent city and communities became compelled to annex themselves into Los Angeles.
Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones; the new ordinance established three residential zones of a single type, where industrial uses were
Riviera (hotel and casino)
Riviera was a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, which operated from April 1955 to May 2015. It was last owned by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which decided to demolish it to make way for the Las Vegas Global Business District; the hotel had more than 2,100 rooms. The casino had 110,000 sq ft of gaming space; the casino was first proposed by Detroit mobster William Bischoff as the Casa Blanca, received a gaming license in 1952. Bischoff withdrew from the project, taken over by Miami businessman Samuel Cohen. By March 1955, identified as a member of Miami's S & G gambling syndicate, was no longer part of the investment group, though rumors persisted that he secretly maintained an involvement. Marx Brothers Harpo and Gummo held minority interests at the opening; the Riviera opened on April 20, 1955 as the first high-rise at 9 stories, the ninth resort on the Las Vegas Strip. Liberace cut the opening ribbon, became the first resident performer; the Riviera became one of the most famous casino resorts in Las Vegas Valley.
The Riviera broke new ground in its design: Strip resorts resembled roadside motor courts. The opening of the Riviera, along with The Dunes and the Royal Nevada casino resorts within a month were the subject of a famous issue of Life magazine, on June 20, 1955 with a Moulin Rouge showgirl on its cover; the headline was "Las Vegas—Is Boom Overextended?" and a story about how Las Vegas had built too many hotel rooms to be profitable. The Riviera casino went bankrupt just three months after opening. A group of former Flamingo Hotel managers led by Gus Greenbaum took over operation of the property, leasing it from the ownership group. Greenbaum had retired, it was suspected that he was coerced to return to work by threats from Chicago mob boss Tony Accardo. Among Greenbaum's staff was entertainment director William Nelson, soon discovered to be mob informer Willie Bioff, leading to his murder in November 1955. Greenbaum's drug and gambling addictions led to his embezzling from the casino. In December 1958, Greenbaum and his wife were murdered in their Phoenix, Arizona home on the orders of either Meyer Lansky or Tony Accardo.
An 8 story expansion was made off the south side of the original 9 story tower in the early 1960s. A 12 story tower was added off the south west side of the 8 story tower in 1966. Mob fixer Sidney Korshak played a major role in the property's management. Law enforcement agencies suspected that he represented the Chicago Outfit's interest in the Riviera, was responsible for skimming the casino's revenue and delivering the proceeds to Chicago; the Riviera was purchased in June 1968 by a group including bankers E. Parry Thomas and Jerome Mack, investors tied to the Parvin-Dohrmann Corp. owner of the Aladdin and Fremont casinos. In 1969, a deal was made to sell the Riviera to the Parvin-Dohrmann Corp. but the sale was blocked by the Nevada Gaming Control Board due to the company's previous failure to report a change of ownership. Dean Martin was hired in 1969 to perform in the casino's showroom, was given a 10% interest in the Riviera. Martin left in 1972, after management refused his request to cut his performance schedule from two nightly shows to one.
In 1973, the Riviera was purchased for $60 million by AITS Inc. a Boston-based travel company controlled by Meshulam Riklis and Isidore Becker. The Riviera is the setting for the movie Fake-Out, financed by Riklis and starring his wife, Pia Zadora; the 17 story Monte Carlo Tower was constructed circa 1974. The tower was designed by Martin Stern Jr. & Associates. The 6 story San Remo Tower was constructed in 1977 by the Del E. Webb Corporation; the Riviera filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1983. Riklis pledged money to keep the business in operation, appointed Jeffrey Silver as CEO to turn the Riviera around. Silver began shifting the Riviera's marketing focus away from high rollers, towards middle- and working-class gamblers, he opened a Burger King franchise in the first fast food chain outlet in a casino. The Riviera underwent an expansion from 1988 to 1990 this included the 24 story Monaco Tower designed by Martin Stern Jr. and two parking garages. The project went over budget, leading the parent company to file again for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1991.
The business emerged from bankruptcy in 1993 as Riviera Holdings Corp. owned by the previous secured creditors. On July 12, 2010, Riviera Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, its bankruptcy included a reorganization plan under which secured lenders, led by Starwood Capital Group, would receive new debt and stock. The plan was negotiated with holders of 2/3 of the secured debt worth over $275 million, which included a $225 million term loan, unpaid interest and amounts owing on a swap agreement. Riviera Holdings listed liabilities of $100 to $500 million each. Under the terms of the agreement negotiated by Starwood, secured lenders would receive a new $50 million loan plus 80% of the new stock. Lenders who provide $20 million in a so-called new money loan would receive 8% of the new stock plus warrants for another 10%. Creditors who provide a $10 million working capital loan would receive 7% of the new stock; the last 5% of the new stock goes to the lenders in return for providing a backstop insuring availability for the $30 million in loans.
Existing Riviera shareholders received nothing. The Riviera lost $4.5
Stainless steel
In metallurgy, stainless steel known as inox steel or inox from French inoxydable, is a steel alloy, with highest percentage contents of iron and nickel, with a minimum of 10.5% chromium content by mass and a maximum of 1.2% carbon by mass. Stainless steels are most notable for their corrosion resistance, which increases with increasing chromium content. Additions of molybdenum increase corrosion resistance in reducing acids and against pitting attack in chloride solutions. Thus, there are numerous grades of stainless steel with varying chromium and molybdenum contents to suit the environment the alloy must endure. Stainless steel's resistance to corrosion and staining, low maintenance, familiar luster make it an ideal material for many applications where both the strength of steel and corrosion resistance are required. Stainless steels are rolled into sheets, bars and tubing to be used in: cookware, surgical instruments, major appliances. Stainless steel's corrosion resistance, the ease with which it can be steam cleaned and sterilized, no need for surface coatings has influenced its use in commercial kitchens and food processing plants.
Stainless steels do not suffer uniform corrosion, like carbon steel, when exposed to wet environments. Unprotected carbon steel rusts when exposed to the combination of air and moisture; the resulting iron oxide surface layer is fragile. Since iron oxide occupies a larger volume than the original steel this layer expands and tends to flake and fall away exposing the underlying steel to further attack. In comparison, stainless steels contain sufficient chromium to undergo passivation, spontaneously forming a microscopically thin inert surface film of chromium oxide by reaction with the oxygen in air and the small amount of dissolved oxygen in water; this passive film prevents further corrosion by blocking oxygen diffusion to the steel surface and thus prevents corrosion from spreading into the bulk of the metal. This film is self-repairing if it is scratched or temporarily disturbed by an upset condition in the environment that exceeds the inherent corrosion resistance of that grade; the resistance of this film to corrosion depends upon the chemical composition of the stainless steel, chiefly the chromium content.
Corrosion of stainless steels can occur. It is customary to distinguish between 4 forms of corrosion: uniform, galvanic and SCC. Uniform corrosion takes place in aggressive environments chemical production or use and paper industries, etc; the whole surface of the steel is attacked and the corrosion is expressed as corrosion rate in mm/year Corrosion tables provide guidelines This is the case when stainless steels are exposed to acidic or basic solutions. Whether a stainless steel corrodes depends on the kind and concentration of acid or base, the solution temperature. Uniform corrosion is easy to avoid because of extensive published corrosion data or easy to perform laboratory corrosion testing. However, stainless steels are susceptible to localized corrosion under certain conditions, which need to be recognized and avoided; such localized corrosion is problematic for stainless steels because it is unexpected and difficult to predict. Acidic solutions can be categorized into two general categories, reducing acids such as hydrochloric acid and dilute sulfuric acid, oxidizing acids such as nitric acid and concentrated sulfuric acid.
Increasing chromium and molybdenum contents provide increasing resistance to reducing acids, while increasing chromium and silicon contents provide increasing resistance to oxidizing acids. Sulfuric acid is one of the largest tonnage industrial chemical manufactured. At room temperature Type 304 is only resistant to 3% acid while Type 316 is resistant to 3% acid up to 50 °C and 20% acid at room temperature, thus Type 304 is used in contact with sulfuric acid. Type 904L and Alloy 20 are resistant to sulfuric acid at higher concentrations above room temperature. Concentrated sulfuric acid possesses oxidizing characteristics like nitric acid and thus silicon bearing stainless steels find application. Hydrochloric acid will damage any kind of stainless steel, should be avoided. All types of stainless steel resist attack from phosphoric acid and nitric acid at room temperature. At high concentration and elevated temperature attack will occur and higher alloy stainless steels are required. In general, organic acids are less corrosive than mineral acids such as hydrochloric and sulfuric acid.
As the molecular weight of organic acids increase their corrosivity decreases. Formic acid is a strong acid. Type 304 can be used with formic acid. Acetic acid is the most commercially important of the organic acids and Type 316 is used for storing and handling acetic acid. Stainless steels Type 304 and 316 are unaffected by any of the weak bases such as ammonium hydroxide in high concentrations and at high temperatures; the same grades of stainless exposed to stronger bases such as sodium hydroxide at high concentrations and high temperatures will experience some etching and cracking. Increasing chromium and nickel contents provide increasing resistance. All grades resist damage from aldehydes and amines, though in the latter
