On a Saturday afternoon last month, visitors to The Mirage stood on the bridge above a water feature inside the resort’s glass-domed atrium to take a selfie surrounded by the tropical foliage.

It was an activity repeated countless times in the past 35 years.

The atrium was one of the more perplexing decisions in 1989 by Mirage developer Steve Wynn. At the time, Las Vegas casinos never gave up that much space to anything that didn’t have a slot machine or a blackjack table.

The Mirage was the first Strip resort constructed in 15 years. Wynn knew he needed to make a statement, given the 3,000-room resort was built at a then-unheard-of cost of $620 million.

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