The Las Vegas City Council has approved plans to turn a landmark Downtown Las Vegas building into a cultural center featuring a museum space, a visitors' center, and a branch of the marriage bureau designed especially for use on Valentine's Day.

The building, located at 301 E. Stewart Street, located two blocks from the Fremont Street Experience, was most recently the city's main post office facility but it is perhaps most famous as the federal courthouse that hosted the Las Vegas Kefauver hearings on organized crime in the 1950s. Those hearings increased the public's awareness about the mafia and led to stricter laws and restrictions on gambling in Nevada and other states.

Part of that legacy will be on display in the new museum with more than 17,000 square feet of space devoted to the 1940s through 1960s, an era when organized crime effectively ruled Las Vegas.

This is not quite the "Mob Museum" Mayor Oscar Goodman had been pushing for when the city was trying to decide what to do with the building, but it will still devote a significant chunk of the exhibit space to the undeniable influence the mafia had on shaping the city.

Goodman, by the way, represented many reputed mafia members during his years as a trial lawyer.

Also on tap for the new facility will be an art gallery, a gift shop, space for cultural and community programming, exhibits on the design and architecture of Las Vegas buildings, and a rooftop display of restored neon signs in conjunction with the Neon Museum.

The city takes official ownership of the building later this year and unofficially hopes to have the new cultural center up and running in time for the May 2005 Las Vegas Centennial celebration.

This Week's Trivia

Q: The new Wynn Las Vegas will be the most expensive hotel ever built. At over $2 billion it works to around $625,000 for every room in the hotel. Prior to this, which Vegas hotel had the highest room to cost ratio? ANSWER

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The Full Story

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