Am Abend des 20. November 1994 gab Frank Sinatra sein allerletztes full-time-Konzert auf amerikanischem Boden (und zugleich sein letztes Club-Konzert) im "The Sands" Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City (http://www.sandsac.com), das seit 1980 die Tradition des Vegas-Sands aufgenommen und fortgeführt hat.

Vorher war er schon viele Male dort aufgetreten - beim ersten Sands-Konzert von FS im Herbst 1990 gabs in der Lobby auch eine große Sinatra-Ausstellung, mit vielen Objekten aus der Sammlung von Ric Ross.

Diesen September kaufte eine Investorengruppe das "Sands" auf, schon am 11.11.2006 wird es geschlossen und anschließend abgerissen. Auch langgediente unter den 2.200 Mitarbeitern werden entlassen.

Frank Sinatras Konzertengagements dort:

4.-7.10.1990
17.-21.7.1991
21.-24.11.1991
12.-15.3.1992
23.-26.7.1992
11.-15.11.1992
22.-25.4.1993
26.& 29.8.1993 (zwei Dates sagte FS ab)
10.-14.11.1993
12.-15.5.1994
4.-6.8.1994
18.-20.11.1994





Sands will close door for good Nov. 11
ATLANTICCITY.com
By DONALD WITTKOWSKI Staff Writer
(Published: October 6, 2006)

ATLANTIC CITY — At 6 o’clock in the morning, gamblers will be shooed off the casino floor. By noon, the last hotel guests will have packed up and checked out. That night, the building will be locked.

After 26 years in business, the Sands Casino Hotel will close its doors for good Nov. 11, costing nearly 2,200 workers their jobs.
“The employees are sad to see it go, but they understand this is inevitable. We’re all sticking together as a family to get through this,” Sands President George Toth said Thursday while publicly confirming the closing date for the first time.

To shut down the property, the Sands will follow the same procedures that were used in early July when Atlantic City’s casinos were forced to close for three days during New Jersey’s state budget crisis. Toth said all gambling will stop at 6 a.m. and hotel guests will have to check out no later than noon.

“We’ll secure the building,” he said. “Come that night, the building will be shut. There are plenty of things that have to happen after we close the casino floor.”

At that time, the casino’s 2,000 slot machines and 79 table games will fall silent. The Sands’ main 500-room hotel tower will also close, although it is not clear what will happen to the 120-suite Madison House, one of Atlantic City’s few remaining grand old hotels. The Madison House, opened in 1930 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is owned by a private group, but leased by the Sands for its hotel guests.
“That is certainly an issue to be addressed at a later date,” Toth said of the Madison House’s fate.

Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. has bought the Sands for $250 million and will demolish the casino to make room for a $1.5 billion megaresort. Construction on the new casino is scheduled to begin in mid-2008, with a grand opening likely in 2010 or 2011.

Pinnacle and the Sands announced the sale Sept. 5, but at that time gave only a general closing date of mid-November for the casino. Two weeks ago, the Sands stopped taking hotel reservations beyond Nov. 10, but declined to say then that the last day would be Nov. 11.
Toth officially told employees that it would be Nov. 11 during a meeting last Friday attended by about 500 workers. The New Jersey Department of Labor said on its Web site that the Sands will begin laying off its 2,167-member work force Nov. 10.

“We’re devastated,” said cocktail server Candy Romano, a 26-year employee. “I know we have to face reality, but so far we’ve been going to work every day like it’s a normal day. I think a lot of us won’t face it until the last day, when we finally realize that we have no place to go.”
Romano, of Vineland, said she and other veteran employees will lose their seniority and may find it difficult landing new jobs in a market that is increasingly emphasizing youth over experience.

“We started as young people. We’re not young anymore,” she said. “I’m a 54-year-old cocktail server. Do you think anyone will want to hire a 54-year-old cocktail server?”

The Sands is working with government agencies and casino labor union Local 54 of UNITE-HERE to find employees jobs at other casinos or retrain them for new careers outside the gaming industry.

It will be only the second time in Atlantic City’s 28-year history of gaming that a casino has gone out of business. The financially troubled Elsinore’s Atlantis Casino Hotel was shuttered May 22, 1989, after gaming regulators refused to renew its operating license.
Pinnacle Entertainment, based in Las Vegas, prefers to close the Sands immediately instead of going through the expense and trouble of acquiring a New Jersey casino license to keep the property open for another year.

The Sands, the city’s smallest gaming hall, is planning a farewell celebration this month highlighted by special parties, promotional giveaways and nostalgic entertainment evoking the casino’s glamorous Las Vegas roots.




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"Alte Wege, die wir wandern, werden neue Wege sein,
unser Denkmal ist den andern dann ein Kilometerstein"

FRANCIS ALBERT SINATRA
12.12.1915 - 14.5.1998
THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER YOU

http://www.deutsche-sinatra-society.de
My Kind Of People!
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... mir fehlen die Worte. Schade, daß es dort keinen Schutz von Baudenkmälern gibt.
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Do you love me, just like I love you?
Are you my life to be, that dream come true?
Or will this dream of mine, will it fade way out of sight
Just like that moon growing dim, way out on the rim of the hill
In the still of the night

Frank hat für das Sands in Atlantic City 1992 auch mal Werbung gemacht:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmyn5mJh35k

Traurig

cu