Construction has begun on the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, otherwise referred to as the "mob museum," at the former federal courthouse and post office building in downtown Las Vegas. Mayor Oscar Goodman, City Councilman Ricki Barlow and Richard Bryan, former governor and Democratic senator of Nevada, were on hand to announce the beginning of work on the museum, which is scheduled to open in 2011.
"There is a lot of mystique to organized crime, especially in Las Vegas and when this place opens people will flock to it," Goodman said at a press conference on the museum.
The mayor also revealed one of the first exhibits that will be on display at the museum, the brick wall from the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The exhibit recognizes the mysterious shooting of seven men in 1929by Chicago mobsters Al Capone and George "Bugs" Moran— the case was never solved.
Press conference leaders also noted the event as the begining of internal construction at the federal building, which opened in 1931 and was the location of the 1950 Kefauver hearings that centered on organized crime.