What you need to know
- A spot on Atlantic City’s boardwalk where movie stars, athletes and rock stars used to party, and a future president perfecting his instinct for bravery and hype, was reduced Wednesday morning to a pile of smoking debris.
- The former Trump Plaza casino was blown up after falling into disrepair as pieces of the building began to come off and crash to the ground.
- And the demolition of the unique gem of former President Donald Trump’s casino empire paves the way for a privileged development opportunity in the middle of the boardwalk, where the plaza used to be marketed as “the centerpiece of Atlantic City “.
A spot on Atlantic City’s boardwalk where movie stars, athletes and rock stars used to party, and a future president perfected his instinct for bravery and hype, was reduced to a pile of smoking debris on Wednesday.
The former Trump Plaza casino was blown up after falling into disrepair as pieces of the building began to come off and crash to the ground.
A series of loud explosions shook the building around nine in the morning and began to collapse almost like a back-to-back wave until it descended directly into a giant cloud of dust surrounding the beach. and the promenade. In general, the structure took less than 20 seconds to collapse.
The removal of the unique gem of former President Donald Trump’s casino empire paves the way for a privileged development opportunity in the middle of the boardwalk, where the plaza used to be marketed as “the centerpiece of Atlantic City “.
“The way we put Trump Plaza and the city of Atlantic City on the map for everyone was really amazing,” said Bernie Dillon, casino event manager from 1984 to 1991. “Everyone, from Hulk Hogan to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it was the whole range of personalities.One night before a Tyson fight, I got stuck and looked at four rows as the place filled up, and there were two guys leaning close and holding a private conversation: Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty “.
“It was like this: you had Madonna and Sean Penn walking, Barbra Streisand and Don Johnson, there would be Muhammad Ali, Oprah sitting with Donald’s ring,” he recalled. “It was a special moment. I’m sorry to see him go. “
To complete the implosion. Demolition crews placed explosives at strategic points along the building’s support structures designed to drop the legs below, knocking the building on itself, with debris falling in a slightly northerly direction. northeast, said fire chief Scott Evans.
Although the former president built it, the building is now owned by a different billionaire, Carl Icahn, who acquired the remaining two Trump casinos in 2016 from the last of his numerous bankruptcies.
Mayor Marty Small proposed using the demolition as a fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club of Atlantic City and started an auction for the right to press the button that would drop the structure.
But Icahn, a donor and former special economic adviser to Trump, opposed security and liability issues and got the auction house to stop bidding. Icahn said he would replace the $ 175,000 that had already been offered with his own money.
Opened in 1984, when Trump was a real estate developer in his pre-political days, Trump Plaza was for a time the most successful casino in Atlantic City. It was the venue where mega-events such as a Mike Tyson boxing match or a Rolling Stones concert were held alongside Boardwalk Hall.
The former Trump Plaza casino, located next to the Atlantic City Boardwalk, will go down Wednesday morning. Randy Gyllenhaal, of NBC10, reviews the history of the complex of those who worked and played there.
Ron Gatewood, a food and beverage worker at Trump Plaza from 1986 until its closure in 2014, brought food and drinks to stars like Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross and Barry White in his hotel rooms.
“They were very earthly people,” Gatewood recalled. “They never made you feel less. They tipped very well. Well, some did, anyway.
The casino even had a cameo in the movie “Ocean’s Eleven”. When George Clooney and Brad Pitt recruited actor Bernie Mac’s character to help him rob a casino in Las Vegas, they ripped him from Trump Plaza, where he was a dealer.
Bob McDevitt, president of the casino’s top workers union, said the site breathed glamor and bustle when it first opened.
“When there was a Tyson fight, it was like New Year’s Eve all over town, the massive traffic jams,” he said.
But things started to get worse at Trump Plaza when Donald Trump opened the upcoming Trump Taj Mahal in 1990, with an increasing debt load that led the company to dump most of its resources (and cash). ) in the bright new hotel and casino.
“By the time the Taj Mahal opened, a decline for the square began,” McDevitt said. “In order to make sure the Taj Mahal was successful, they sent all the higher levels of Trump Plaza and Trump Castle to the Taj, and they didn’t really invest much in the plaza.”
The Trump Taj Mahal, one of the casinos acquired by Icahn, has since reopened with a new property like Hard Rock.
Trump Plaza was the last of four Atlantic City casinos to close in 2014, the victims of an oversaturated casino market in both New Jersey City and the largest northeast. There were 12 casinos in early 2014; now there are nine.
When it closed, Trump Plaza was the lowest-performing casino in Atlantic City, as it received as much money from players in 8 and a half months as Borgata, the market leader, did every two weeks.