About this app
How to play Panda Bao
The name didn’t sit well with Naked City’s property owners, including Bob Stupak, who, in 1979, opened the Vegas World casino resort on land he owned in the neighborhood.
In 1996, Stupak replaced Vegas World with the Stratosphere—whose 1,149-foot observation tower remains the largest structure west of the Mississippi—remodeling Vegas World’s towers for the new purpose.
Stupak’s friends in city government agreed to rebrand the neighborhood as Meadows Village in the late ’80s. They also told and retold the cover story of the sunbathing showgirls, insisting that the Naked City nickname had nothing to do with crime.
What is Panda Bao?
“I’ve sadly watched some members of the Chicago news media stigmatize Italian Americans as Outfit members or mafia operatives whenever it serves to embellish a story,” Grasso wrote.
“The Outfit still sells, pathetically. It’s time that it stops. Or as I like to say: Basta. Enough.”
Rovito remains free on a $1 million bond. His release conditions were eased earlier this month, with his overnight home detention requirement changed to midnight through the early hours of the morning, according to Patch. The federal case remains ongoing.
About Panda Bao
While it’s tempting to use AI to help you write a submit, we please ask that you avoid doing so, as once again, the more personal an entry is, the better we can judge it across our key criteria.
The submission form will close on 1 October, at which time nominations will be put to our esteemed panel of judges for final review.
More information on judges, submissions and deadlines can be found here. You can also access interviews with last year’s winners and the final list for 2025, as well as for every year prior.