Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Work put into Mob Museum’s building honored for protecting history

Mob Museum Celebrates Anniversary

Steve Marcus

A view of the Mob Museum, the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, in downtown Las Vegas Wednesday, Feb.13, 2013.

Mob Museum Toasts Anniversary

Jonathan Ullman, executive director and CEO of the Mob Museum, the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, poses in front of a bullet-pocked wall at the museum in downtown Las Vegas Wednesday, Feb.13, 2013. The wall is a portion of the warehouse wall where the St. Valentine's Day massacre occurred on Feb. 14, 1929. The museum celebrates it's first anniversary on Valentine's Day. Launch slideshow »

For the second time this week, a downtown Las Vegas building, this time the Mob Museum, has been recognized as one of the top public works projects of the year by a national organization, the city announced Thursday.

The Mob Museum joined Las Vegas City Hall in receiving honors from the American Public Works Association. Both buildings opened in February of last year.

About $42 million was spent renovating the historic U.S. Post Office and federal courthouse, originally built in 1933, into an interactive museum chronicling the birth, rise and fall of organized crime in America.

The 41,000 square-foot museum, officially known as National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, includes 17,000 square feet of exhibit space across three floors at 300 E. Stewart Ave.

“This was a unique project in that it involved extensive work to bring the building back to its original historical features,” Las Vegas director of public works Jorge Cervantes said in a statement. “The work was done with an eye toward ensuring the building’s history and architecture is preserved for generations to come.”

The building has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1983 and is an important example of Depression-era neoclassical architecture used by the federal government in the 1920s and 1930s, according to the APWA.

The association recognizes projects in five categories, with the Mob Museum winning among historical preservation and restoration projects costing $25 million to $75 million

The organization praised the museum for blending the history of the building — it was home to the famed Kefauver Committee hearings on organized crime in the 1950s — with the topical content of various exhibits.

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