From the Preservation magazine web site:
Once a site that helped expose the underground world of the Mafia, the historic federal courthouse and United States Post Office building in downtown Las Vegas is in the final stages of a large-scale restoration that is taking the building back to the 1950s and turning it into the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement.
In 1950, the Neoclassical federal courthouse, built in 1933, was one of the sites of the Kefauver Hearings, a 15-month, 14-city series of investigative hearings on organized crime led by the U.S. Senate. The televised trials drew rapt national attention, as both suspected and known organized crime leaders were interrogated by the senators, revealing to the public for the first time the nature and scope of their underground crime operations—and the corrupt public officials who allowed it to continue.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, all federal courts and offices vacated the building in 1965, and all postal operations vacated in 2005. The federal government turned over the building to the city of Las Vegas for use as a museum in 2002, and renovations began on the interior of the building in 2007. Core and shell construction began in August 2009.
"The Old Post Office was not at any real risk of being demolished," says Corinne Escobar, president of the Preservation Association of Clark County. She says the city staff, particularly Mayor Oscar B. Goodman, saw the building as an opportunity to showcase a piece of Las Vegas' history.
The Mob Museum, as it has come to be known, will explore organized crime's history and influence in Las Vegas with interactive exhibits, films, artifacts, and a recreation of the courtroom where mobsters and crime bosses once stood on trial.
"People will be able to sit in the room where it all happened," says Robert Chattel of Chattel Architecture, the Southern California-based historic preservation consulting firm that is overseeing the restoration. "It will be a very immersive experience."
Using historic photographs and documentation to guide them, the team of architects, designers, and contractors is restoring, and in some parts recreating, the imitation limestone and travertine, marble trim, and plaster molding in the building's interior. The courtroom's white interior will be detailed with the reds and blues that originally decorated the space, according to original drawings of the building, and the post office lobby is being restored back to its 1950s state. The frosted globe light fixtures in the building have also been restored or reproduced, and most of the windows have been rehabilitated.
Workers are also modernizing the building, which has been unused since the 1960s. Most of the seismic retrofitting has been completed, and the contractors are working to restore all the masonry on the building's exterior.
The architects received approval from the city to spare the courtroom's decorative ceiling and place fire sprinklers strategically around the design. They also are working to add a second elevator to the building, using the building's original elevator doors. To maintain the building's historic authenticity, all air handling equipment has been placed at attic level, hidden from view.
"It's challenging to shoehorn all these updates into a building never designed to have them," says Chattel, the consulting preservation architect who coauthored the 2004 feasibility and adaptive use study for the museum.
The museum is the latest addition to the city's downtown redevelopment efforts. Joining the Smith Center for Performing Arts and other cultural projects slated for development, the Mob Museum is expected to draw more locals and visitors to the city's downtown area and help create new jobs and boost the city's economy.
But the museum has been the target of vocal public criticism. Many Las Vegas residents object to a museum that glorifies criminal activity. Others criticize the city for funneling money to a new museum in the wake of the economic downturn.
The $42 million project, set to open in late 2011, is being funded partially by the city and also by a number of local, state, and federal grants, including a grant from Save America's Treasures, a public-private partnership between the National Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation