The Mob Museum

In the headlines or on the big screen, you've heard of their stories: The made men, the goodfellas and the godfathers. Although Hollywood has been spinning yarns about gangsters for almost 100 years, Las Vegas' Mob Museum is the place to get the real story of organized crime's past and present.

Located in the historic Las Vegas Post Office and Courthouse building in downtown, the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, as it's officially called, tells the tale of both sides of the conflict, without overly romanticizing or cutting back on the sometimes grisly details of organized crime.  

The designers behind the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. have worked their magic with the mob concept. The 41,000-square-foot Mob Museum houses three floors of in-depth, often interactive exhibits. Guests can feel the recoil of a tommy gun or experience what it's like to be in a police lineup. This museum isn't a gimmick, though, as visitors get have unparalleled access to artifacts, photos, and recreations of significant moments in mob and law enforcement history.

The museum showcases a restored courtroom used in the Kefauver Committee hearings., the first televised event related to mob activity. Visitors are treated to documents, recordings and artifacts from the media event, which may have finally swayed public opinion fully against the mobsters.

A Las Vegas exhibit shows the "mob years" of Las Vegas history and the connections of many of Vegas' most famous casinos to mob figures and ownership. There is even an interactive display where you can catch actual cheaters in a few casino games (the mob didn't want to get cheated out of their money, after all), but don't blink or you will miss the crafty maneuvers.

The museum also acquired much of the blood-stained wall against which the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre occurred in Chicago in 1929.  The infamous event involved the death of Seven Moran Gang members at the hands of men hired by South Side boss Al Capone. The display includes a 38-caliber Colt Detective Special snubnosed revolver, the only gun known for certain to have been linked to the shooting.

Law enforcement is represented with exhibits on wiretapping, which let you listen in on actual conversations that led to mob convictions, testimonies from FBI agents or take on the duty of an officer on patrol, testing one's wits, trigger discipline and accuracy in a simulator. Of special interest is an audio-visual panel that walks you through the intense process of starting a new life in the Witness Protection Program.

The gift shop, of course, is a delight and offers souvenirs ranging from tuxedo onesies and pun-filled T-shirts to mob-themed board games and DVDs.

-- By Jorge Labrador