Transcript of interview with Morris "Moe" Dalitz by Brenda Baxter, November 4, 1977-March 30, 1978

An Interview with Moe Dalitz An Oral History Conducted by Brenda Baxter November 4, 1977 - March 30, 1978 The Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries ?Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans ii The recorded Interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first- person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University Nevada Las Vegas ii i Preface Moe Dalitz was born into a conservative Jewish family on Christmas Eve, 1899, in Boston, Massachusetts, where his father owned a barbershop. A few years later, his family moved to Detroit, Michigan and started a linen supply company; the company grew quickly and expanded to manufacture industry supplies in its own plants. In 1930, during Prohibition, Moe moved to Cleveland, Ohio and he become involved with the then-illegal liquor business. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, at the age of 41, Moe enlisted in the Army and was stationed at Governors Island. Moe was put in charge of laundries and dry cleaning because of his experience in the laundry business. He played an important role in creating mobile laundry units that were used in the front lines in North Africa. His ingenuity won him a non-combatant award for his "unusual interest, ingenuity and talents" applied during his service. At the end of war, Moe went on inactive status and returned to Cleveland, where his partners were successfully carrying on their business. It was then that they decided to go into the casino- nightclub business, opening nightclubs in Ohio and Kentucky. A couple years later, Moe and his partners met Wilbur Clark and agreed to finance his inactive project in Las Vegas. Thus, in 1950, the Desert Inn Hotel and Casino opened, and Moe Dalitz ushered in a new era for the city. Moe and partners continued to elevate the sophistication of the Strip when they acquired the operating lease to, and later part ownership of, the Stardust Hotel and Casino. Moe was instrumental in bringing the French Lido de Paris show to the Stardust, which was considered the most spectacular nightclub show produced in Las Vegas at its time. In addition to his gaming industry ventures, Moe engaged in significant real estate development, along with partners Allard Roen, Merv Adelson and Irwin Molasky. Their projects included Sunrise Hospital, The Boulevard Mall and Las Vegas Country Club as well as La Costa Resort and Spa in California. At the time of the interview, Moe was involved with the construction of a downtown hotel and casino. Moe Dalitz was the recipient of the Humanitarian Award from the American Cancer Research Center, and supported the Variety Club and the Home of the Good Shepard, amongst other charities. iv Table of Contents Interview with Moe Dalitz Preface..........................................................................................................iv Discusses parents' starting linen supply company in Detroit; working for family business; company's growth; father's semi-retirement in Ann Arbor running a Laundromat. Chats about sociopolitical conditions of Detroit during childhood; Ford's emergence; city's rehabilitation project. Moves to Cleveland; operates illegal liquor business. Talks about enlisting in military after bombing of Pearl Harbor; serving as Director of Laundry Service, based in New York....1-5 Returns to Cleveland after war; goes into casino business in Ohio and Kentucky. Partner meets Wilbur Clark during California trip; make deal to finance Clark's Desert Inn project; tweak decor and open fine dining restaurant with staff from Ohio. Compares Desert Inn Hotel and Casino customer experience to that at the Flamingo. Talks about relationship with Wilbur Clark and other partners; creating unique entertainment offerings for Desert Inn and Stardust................6-10 Talks about development of city's first golf course; attempts to coordinate with other hotels; hiring Howard Capps to manage of course; Tournament of Champions; acquiring license to move course to La Costa when Desert Inn sold. Comments on Kefauver Investigation; unionization and role of Gaming Commission. Mentions Desert Inn opening festivities. Chats about selling hotel to Howard Hughes; Hughes's eccentricies as a guest...............................11-16 Speaks about purchasing Stardust Hotel and Casino; tweaking original plans; commissioning development of Lido show; recruiting hotel's management from across the country. Mentions norms of interaction with law enforcement in hotel. Reflects upon Green Felt Jungle; Hank Greenspun's agenda regarding gaming industry; overcoming negative connotations of city. Discusses segregation and race in industry..............................................................................17-22 Discusses how hotel handles unruly patrons; views on gambling addiction. Considers Harrah's opening property in Australia. Comments on state tax structure of taxing industry; skimming allegations and investigation; IRS attempts to get properties' customer lists. Talks about Resort Hotel Association. Muses about Las Vegas's future; impact of gambling in other states. Talks about failure of racetracks; Joe Brown buying land and developing convention hall.............23-28 Continues discussing development projects, including Sunrise Hospital, La Costa, Boulevard Shopping Mall, with partners Roen, Adelson and Molasky. Mentions selling Sunrise Hospital; Adelson and Molasky's production company. Comments on philanthropic work; Tony Frabielle golf tournament. Mentions hobbies, golf, lion-hunting. Remarks on Equal Rights Amendment supporters' boycott of Nevada; current state politics; current development project...............29-32 Index........................................................................................................................................33-34 v I was born on December 24, 1899, in Boston, Massachusetts, when I was about five or six years old my parents moved to Detroit, Michigan. During the time that my father and mother were first married in Boston, my father had a barbershop, and he conceived the idea of furnishing barber towels to barbers. This gave birth to the linen supply business, which has become one of the big industries of our country. He started with barber towels. When we moved to Detroit, he bought rolls of material and my mother cut and hemmed them into towels. My father had a horse and a wagon, and he went out and got barber shops to rent their towels from him, instead, of owning them; and as I said, that spread from towels to other items and it became what we know today as the linen supply business. The name of his laundry in Detroit, his plant, was the Massachusetts Laundry Company, and I guess he got that name because he came from Boston, Massachusetts. My father' s name was Barney Dalitz; my mother's name was Anna Cohen. (So, your father got set up in the laundry business in Detroit.) In about 1907. And, it grew to be a very successful laundry and linen supply company. I was raised in that business and I worked during school vacation. During that time I worked for my father and uncle, Nathan Dalitz; they were partners. (What was Detroit like at that time; was it small, horse and carriages?) Detroit was considered "out West" by the people in Boston. (Detroit is where you spent most of your childhood...) Yes, X went to high school there. I went to Central High. It now has become the Wayne University. (About how many barber shops did your father supply?) Oh, they built up, quite a business. In those days barbershops were numerous because there were no safety razors, don't you see? Now when you go to a barbershop, you get a haircut. In the old 1 days, you see, barbershops patronized daily. (Did you actually deliver the towels daily?) Yes. (Was it a home-based operation?) No, we opened a little plant. The plant grew, expanded. Other people went into the business and finally they branched into the industrial field renting such items as shop aprons and shop towels and industrial gloves and this became a big business. Coveralls to gas stations, uniforms, waitresses' dresses. (Did your father actually oversee the whole business?) Oh, they worked, (father and uncle) both worked. And, in about 1921 or 1922, they sold the business to retire and move to a little city called Ann Arbor, Michigan. It had a population of five thousand. And found that he had too much time on his hands, so he bought a laundry in Ann Arbor, Michigan which he called the Varsity Laundry. They operated that in sort of semi- retirement manner. I had charge of their linen supply department, and worked there for nine or ten years. (How old were you then?) About twenty years, from about 1920 to 1928 or 1930, then X moved to Detroit where I stayed for a short while and then moved to Cleveland, Ohio around 1930. (What was Cleveland like then?) Oh well, Cleveland was a manufacturing city, and it was a typical mid-western city with a population of about 500,000. (Were people economically depressed at that point in time, most people?) Well, then there came the bank failures, and during that time I was in Cleveland. I missed the First 2 World War by a year; I was too young. I had an older brother who did make the first one. His name was Louis Dalitz. X also have a sister Helen who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. My mother passed away twenty-five years ago, and my father passed away about ten years ago. (Did they ever move out here?) No, they lived in Ann Arbor. They had a nice home. (Was your family an orthodox Jewish family?) They were not orthodox. They were--uh--I think you might refer to them as?conservative a little milder than orthodox, right? I would say they were conservative. (But not reformed?not all the way to the other extreme.) No, no, they were middle road. (Was there a ghetto community in Detroit when you lived there?) Yes there was. There were good neighborhoods, and bad neighborhoods. We lived on a boulevard that was--oh-- I would say in caliber upper middle class. Our family always had a car. One of the first cars we had was an Oldsmobile with two steps to get into it, Detroit about then, became the big automotive center. Ford blossomed out about that time, and they established an all time high in pay raises--five dollars a day. And all the business people and industrialists thought he was mad-- five dollars a day. (So you watched--you were there to see the growth of the Ford industry. Did that change the city itself?) Oh yes. Detroit's eighty percent Black. Downtown Detroit became a disaster. They boarded up the big stores, and the entire downtown. Now there's a project on where Ford is rehabilitating, tearing down all the old--uh-skid row areas, and building new buildings, and decorating the river front-- the Detroit River, and massive program on trying to get the people to come back into the city 3 instead of on all the outskirts--the suburbs having the shopping centers and nothing in the heart of the city--nothing. Can't go there at night. (The) Statler Hotel that was one of a big chain, was boarded up. The "Book Cadillac" hotel which was beautiful was built by the Fisher brothers, also was boarded up. You can't believe this. It?it is worse than London looked after its bombing experience. It was just awful. During my living in Cleveland I was involved in the liquor business which at that time was illegal. We operated out of Canada, and brought liquor into Ohio from which point it was bought by smaller operators and distributed. We were more or less wholesalers. It was brought in by boat across Lake Erie, across Detroit River; it was transported by trucks over land; it was bought by our most respectable people, and they were glad to get it. Then the Second World War came around, and right after Pearl Harbor, I enlisted. I was, if X remember, I was forty-one--beyond draft age. (Why did you enlist?) I was single at the time--I was divorced, and with all the excitement of Pearl Harbor, I, like many other people, walked into a recruiting office. A week later I was on KP. I was in for over three years, and I was stationed at Camp Lee, Virginia in the quartermaster corps. X was a corporal and then I was a sergeant and I became an OCS cadet... (Was that unusual for a man your age?) Everybody in OCS was young, I was commissioned and applied for overseas duty. I received my orders telling me to report for duty at the New York Port of Embarkation. I had applied for overseas duty, so I figured that was it--the New York Port of Embarkation-- so X went to New York and reported in. Expecting to go overseas when I was informed that I was being kept at Governors Island. X was placed in charge of laundries and dry cleaning for the armed services under 2nd service command. We serviced overseas troop ships and overseas army personnel. 4 During that time, because of my knowledge and experience in the laundry business, I played a part in developing mobile laundry units that were used in our front lines of Northern Africa. These mobile units moved right into the combat zones and serviced front line combat units right then and there. (What did they do before that?) Well, trench warfare, it was always a big problem, what with sickness and disease. These mobile units finally became a very important part of our war department?and still is. Then, in about 1944, I was mustered out and put on inactive status. I came out as a first lieutenant in grade for about ten months, eligible for captaincy. However, I was separated from the service before captaincy. (By choice?) Well, the war was over. (Did you consider staying in the service?) No, not at all. (This may sound a bit personal, but did you have an emotional commitment in terms of the atrocities that were taking place in Germany; was that what prompted you to enlist?) Yes, I felt, being single and all, that I wanted to give it a go, so to speak, so X did. I didn't get overseas like I wanted to, but I did the next best thing, and I received a nice award for the work I did. It is considered to be a very coveted non-combatant award from the Second Service Command. (What was the award?) Well, it was the--I can't remember the name. X have a miniature of it (reaches into pocket for wallet) here. (Hands miniature of award to interviewer.) (The award reads, "Meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as Director of 5 Laundry Service from 28 January 1943 to 28 March 1945. Lt. Dalitz's unusual interest, ingenuity and talents applied to the direction and supervision of laundry services of the Service Command- Quartermaster's Office did materially assist in placing that laundry service on much higher standard than might have been anticipated under the circumstances. This accomplishment not only added to the contentment and hence the efficiency of the troops within the Second Service Command, but added greatly to the morale of troops bound through staging areas for overseas." [Signed by] James N. VanFleet, Major General.] That general took General Terry's place. X served under Major General Terry. [That is a very personal award? I bet they wanted to keep you.] Well, they put me on inactive status, they didn't discharge me. [chuckles] [Were you anxious to get back to your business, in Cleveland? Did you maintain contact with your business partners during the war?] Yes, my partners carried on, and I came back. [Who were your partners at the time?] Morris Kleinman and Sam Tucker and Louis Rothcob. And when X came back from the service, we decided to go into the casino business?nightclub business in those days?and we operated nightclubs in Ohio and Kentucky, and some of these nightclubs had casinos which were leased out to experienced casino people. And that was my introduction to the casino business. (Did your partners have experience in the casino business or was this all new?) It was all new, but being in the liquor business, we sold to these various nightclubs. We learned their business by being close to the operators. Prohibition was repealed so we stayed in the gambling business. After several years, while one of my partners was on a visit to California, he met a man by the name of Wilbur Clark. They became friendly, and it developed that Wilbur Clark 6 started to build a hotel--a casino-type hotel--in Las Vegas, Nevada. He informed my partner?Mr. Rothcob--that he was looking for financing. His anticipated finances had dried up and left him with property and footings for what was to be the Desert Inn, Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn. This stayed in a state of "no activity" for a year and a half or two, gathering sand and dust. We then met with Wilbur Clark, and asked him to fly East. We made a deal with, him to finance his enterprise, and we became associated together, (in) 1948 or 1949. (Going back to the early clubs in Kentucky and Ohio, what was the first club, the first experience you had in the business?) In Cleveland, we were interested in two or three different clubs. Is it necessary to have the names of the clubs? (It would be interesting to future researchers to have the names.) I don't think so, no I don't think I want to give the names. Now the club in Kentucky was the Beverly Hills Club, and that became a very famous casino-type club. (How long were you interested in that club?) Oh about ten years probably. (And, did you sell that before you came out here?) Yes, when we decided to come out here we sold. There were a couple of local partners in Kentucky, and we sold to them. Then we applied for a gaming license here. And we--of course we were naturally considered a potential competitor to the casinos that were in existence in Las Vegas. (Which were?) Which were the-El Rancho, the Frontier, the Flamingo was up-- they were open a couple years before we came out. Well, it was at this time that we formed a partnership with Wilbur Clark. He had already laid the 7 footings and came out of the ground with the hotel section; and its motif might, termed as "modern ranch," with the big, long front porch and the redwood chairs. We slightly changed his thinking, and he agreed that we might become a little more modern than his original plan. And the Desert Inn took on a-- a look that was in keeping with the West and the open spaces and the desert, but slightly departing from wagon wheel, old West architecture. It became popular, and we served great food. We moved our food people from Ohio to Nevada and opened the first gourmet restaurant of any that existed in any of the hotels. The name of it was the Monte Carlo Room, and it was of French decor with crystal glassware and deluxe service plates and so forth. It became very popular; and the Desert Inn from the day it opened, attracted the tourists that demanded a luxury hotel. (It became the luxury hotel, then, in Las Vegas.) I would say that the Flamingo, before us, could be termed a luxury type hotel also, but they failed to establish a warm atmosphere. They failed in the quality of the food and service. (That was due to their management or their decor or what?) No, it was due to management. The decor was beautiful. Oh, they went to the extremes?very good, but they just didn't seem to know how to make a customer comfortable. (How do you do that?) Well, your personnel have to be trained. They must remember names and faces. They must make themselves popular. A customer that comes to a place like Las Vegas?a resort like Las Vegas? is very flattered when he's recognized; and because of being recognized, he feels that it's his home away from home. (So the Desert Inn was successful from its very beginning.) Very beginning. 8 (And it was my understanding--! think Mr. Cahill mentioned it to me--that each of you in the Desert Inn, each person that was interested in the Desert Inn, had a specialty, and one of you was there all the time--never left it to?to other people to manage and so forth.) All the time--never (left it). There was always one of us on the premises. (Day and night?) Day and night. We had experienced croupiers who had worked with us back East, who were loyal and trustworthy. It was just a very harmonious organization. Wilbur Clark was the greatest publicity person that I have ever met. He was respected and well thought of by everybody in Nevada. In all the years of our association, there was never a dispute of any kind. Our relationship with Wilbur Clark was one of the most pleasant business and personal relationships I have ever had in all my experience. And our business thrived, we grew, and we decided to try and make Las Vegas a resort, to be considered by tourists as a resort. We bought up the acreage behind the Desert Inn, and we created a championship eighteen-hole golf course. The same percentages of ownership that existed on the opening day existed to the very end. Ratios of investment changed, but we never permitted it to affect percentage of holdings. (Was Wilbur Clark considered?was he consulted as the head of the Desert Inn or was it an equal sort of partnership where all of you had an equal say?) We all had an equal say, and we all respected each other is ability. It was a great, pleasant experience.?What else? (I started to ask about the specialties. I assume Wilbur Clark was mainly involved in the publicity and so forth.) He was very knowledgeable in gambling too, but our (chronicler, and his Eastern partners) expertise was in the gambling and the nightclub business and the entertainment field. We created a 9 stage that was equal in versatility, possibly not as big. The stage at the Desert Inn enabled us to put on extravaganzas that not one competitor was able to duplicate until years later. (Whose creation was that? Whose brainchild was that?). Well, Frank Sennis was our entertainment director back in Kentucky and Ohio. He had been with us for forty years. Don Arden was associated with us since he was a little boy in Kentucky and Ohio, and when we built the Desert Inn, Don Arden had already become famous in Paris through the creation of the Lido show on the Champs-Elysees: we made a deal with him for the Stardust Hotel French show. At first we thought about the Lido show for the Desert Inn, but we were doing so well with the show policy we had that we saved Don Arden's Lido show for the Stardust Hotel, which we were negotiating for. We built the stage to accommodate the first, big, French extravaganza. So this was the combined thinking of all of our organization since we felt that we must do something to improve a competitive position. We just couldn't follow the footsteps of the Frontier or the El Rancho who were very good. We know that we had to come, to life with something very startling, and the Lido--and our French shows and our versatile stages enabled us to take the lead in entertainment. (At the same time you were innovating in that area, you had conceived the idea of building a golf course.) At the same time. After two years or three years of operation at the Desert Inn, we conceived the idea of building a golf course in Las Vegas. We did not have the Desert Inn Golf Course location in mind at all. Our first attempt to establish a golf course was to call in to a meeting the six hotels that existed at that time--five or six--and we proposed to buy land in an area that was not advantageous to any of the hotels and that we would all share in this project and try to make a 10 resort out of Las Vegas. We had several meetings trying to establish this, and it was voted down each time- so finally I suggested that we buy the land behind the Desert Inn and go it alone. Our own organization became very much split up on this idea; and some of us wanted to do it,, and some of us didn't want it and felt that a golf course didn't lend itself to our casino operation. And finally the majority ruled, and we bought the land behind the Desert Inn for two thousand dollars an acre. It was a section--I think there was six hundred and forty acres--or was it a half section, I don't remember. Anyway, we built the golf course and hired a professional who was recognized as an executive golfing-professional, more so than a playing professional. Luckily the man we retained was Howard Capps. Howard Capps was the man who created the format for the Tournament of Champions. The Tournament of Champions became one of the great golf classics of our country, and we think brought to Las Vegas a caliber of clientele that were the country club type. This tournament--really made Las Vegas become a resort and nationally popular. The golf course was established for four or five years before we even got the tournament--before it was created. (How do you create a tournament?) Well, that's why we selected an executive type pro instead of the playing type. The Tournament of Champions, was a format, that embraced all the winners of a recognized PGA tournament for that year. They alone were eligible, therefore, every contestant in that tournament at one time or another during the current twelve months--had beat all his opponents. Therefore, all the people were champions?true champions. (So I presume all the greats played--) The greatest. All of 1 'em, all of 'em. And when we sold the Desert Inn to Mr. Hughes, we moved the tournament to La Costa. 11 (I was going to ask you about licensing.) Yes, we went though the licensing procedure. It was a hassle. Naturally a potential competitor doesn't win a popularity contest. We went through many meetings with the licensing authorities and finally, the license was granted. (Did they have any particular problems with-- I remember one story that I read that they had some problems--Hank Greenspun had a small interest?) Hank Greenspun was a minority shareholder in Wilbur Clark's percentage. He had been associated with Wilbur Clark in the creation and starting of the Desert Inn, and soon after it opened. He, Greenspun, sold out. He objected really to the purchase of the land behind the Desert Inn for the golf course. He was quite disturbed with the land purchase. (On what basis?) On the basis that, we would be using too much water and that the desert didn't have that much water. That the desert didn't lend itself to golf. Later on in years he changed his thinking and built his own golf course. He became very busy with his newspaper, and he, too, did extremely well. I suppose the right thing to say is all's we'll that ends well. (I would like to ask you what impact the Kefauver Investigation had for you and your operations.) Kefauver Investigation had no impact on anyone in Las Vegas, to my knowledge. I don't know of anything that the Kefauver Investigation concluded. I don't know of any convictions that resulted. I don't know of one thing, other than that he almost became president of the United States from the publicity generated by this committee. Therefore, I must call the committee a political campaign, for the presidency. I have seen no other result, other than it made him popular enough .to be nominated. 12 (It didn't rile people up here in Vegas that this was going on and you didn't have increased federal activity here, people bugging you?) No. I think it concentrated more in the East than it did on Nevada, after all our state had a small population. (I think they were primarily concerned with illegal gambling, and in Nevada it was legal, so-- ) That's right, that's right. They claimed they were concerned with organized crime which existed in the East probably, but not in the West to my knowledge. (You weren't aware then of any organized crime elements in Las Vegas?) No, unless they call a person in the gambling business a criminal If they want to call them a criminal, then all the criminals were here. Now they didn't teach the-gambling business at the universities back East. There was no way to learn a trade, so to speak, or go to a trade school like you can do now. Therefore, Las Vegas became the resting place or the haven for all those who've learned the gambling business in an illegal fashion. From this evolved a very fine, huge industry for the state of Nevada. (How about unions?were there attempts at union activity early in the Desert Inn experience? Were there people that came in and tried to unionize your people?) Oh yes. Well from the beginning there were culinary unions and bartender unions from the beginning. They were here when we came, but they weren't as belligerent or as powerful as they are now. And we accepted all the unions except the attempt to establish a croupier or dealers union. This we felt we had to combat, because your employees were handling cash in what seemed to be a very loose manner. The ability to pick trustworthy people was very important, more important in the early stages of the industry. It still is an important thing, an important factor. (Did anyone of you in particular do the hiring and firing, or did you all in different areas?) 13 We had five or six small stockholders who were knowledgeable casino people. Two were assigned to each shift. They did the hiring and firing. That was their business. (So in terms of unions, they were fine except where the dealers were concerned because you were actually transacting money--cash.) That's right. If you had to?if you had to go through the procedure of appearing before a committee to present charges of dishonesty, which sometimes, while they were evident, couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. A casino owner would be at a very, very big disadvantage. The Gaming Commission has progressed to the point where they became very cognizant of the factor, and they have been instrumental in saving untold amounts of money by their investigative operations. They've done a big job. (So it's no longer a burden--the biggest burden is no longer on the casino owners--) True. (--but on the Commission.) As it should be. (Do you think because off the recent Rosenthal case and so forth they're going to consider gambling a privilege?) Definitely, yes. It definitely has become a privileged industry. (Frank Rosenthal was a floorman at the Stardust?) Frank Rosenthal became associated with the Stardust after we sold it. (We can start now with the sale of the Desert Inn-- ) Uh hm. I think it was about nine or ten years ago. This is '77. It would be '67, yes? ('67, that's right. Did you meet Howard Hughes?) Not personally, but I knew him from when we first opened the Desert Inn, he was one of our patrons and came to the opening party And it was, you know, a kind of an international affair with people from many foreign countries. We opened up with Edgar Bergen as a headliner since he was 14 at the top of his career at that time. (The people from foreign countries, were they friends or were they people that just heard about the opening?)