The third Symphony Park lecture on April 7 at the Fifth Street School Auditorium was attended by nearly 200 local residents eager to learn more about our city’s newest museums: The Neon and Mob Museums.  

The panel featured Mob Museum Creative Director Dennis Barrie who is co-creator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland and the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.; 24-year FBI veteran Ellen Knowlton, president of the 300 Stewart Avenue Corporation, the non-profit board that is overseeing the Mob Museum’s development and operations; and Nancy Deaner, the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs manager who has been instrumental in the development of both The Mob and Neon Museums.

Dr. Barrie, whose museum experience and contacts are vast, called The Mob Museum “the most anticipated museum in the country.  “Of all the world-class projects I have worked on, The Mob Museum elicits both strong responses and interest from coast-to-coast.  Just about everyone has a mob story or connection to share.”

The exhibits, including a restored courtroom that housed the Kefauver hearings in 1950, will give museum-goers a real sense of place and time, and tell the whole story of organized crime and how law enforcement successfully battled it.  

Knowlton said The Mob Museum will not glorify a life of organized crime. “The human factor will add a sense of graveness to the subject, and people will see that it’s not the same mob that is portrayed on TV.”

The Neon Museum has more than 150 signs in its collection, most of which are exhibited in “The Boneyard,” a three-acre display of some of the most treasured and world-famous signs of Las Vegas, including the Silver Slipper, Binion’s Horseshoe and the Stardust. The historic La Concha Motel lobby, known for its unique swooping architecture, was transported to the site of The Neon Museum in 2006 and will open as the new visitor center next year.

The panel also shared anecdotes about the revitalizing effect of world-class museums on downtown areas around the country.  Panelists expressed high expectations for the hundreds of thousands that the two centers will draw to Las Vegas’ urban core each year. Deaner said it is already difficult to keep up with the requests to use The Neon Museum for photo and video shoots, though neither museum is technically due to open until 2011. For more information, visit The Mob Museum  and Neon Museum.

Photo: Dennis Barrie, Creative Director of The Mob Museum