Pat Hanahoe-Dosch

1,956 words

����������� �The headlines in The Atlantic City Press recently have been all about the casinos that are closing down in Atlantic City (A.C.). So far, four casinos - The Atlantic Club, Showboat, Revel, and Trump Plaza - have shut down, and there is talk that the Trump Taj Mahal will be next. Even without the Taj Mahal closing, according to a Reuters article, that leaves over 8000 employees without jobs now.� According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, A.C. had a 10% unemployment rate in July, 2014, before all these casinos closed. And so the city that was called "America's Playground" in its heydays before World War II, is once again the sandbox where only the kids who have nowhere else to play, go.

����������� From the 1950's to the late 1970's, A.C. began a downward spiral into a run-down, has-been city. Then in 1976 a referendum was approved to allow gambling within the city limits, and in May of 1978, the first casino, Resorts International, opened there. According to the Atlantic City Public Library's "History of Casino Gambling in Atlantic City," in 2012, the casino industry employed more than 34,000 people, not counting the people employed by other businesses like restaurants and stores that profited from the tourists the casinos brought to the city. According to the University of Las Vegas' Center for Gaming Research's �Report on Atlantic City Gaming Revenue,� "From 2007 to 2013, the industry has seen average decline rates of 8.19% (total), 8.72% (slot) and7.78 (table) per year." And despite all the promises gambling�s promoters promised, the casinos never really re-vitalized A.C. the way most people had hoped it would. The city�s latest motto, "DO/AC" should be "AC/DONE" now.�

����������� I grew up in Margate, one of the smaller towns 'down beach' from Atlantic City, which in my childhood was a place where we went to shop or to go to the amusement park rides on Steel Pier. Adults would sometimes go there for the night clubs and restaurants. In those days, most of the stores were still in fairly good shape, though business was seasonal, and many were not cheap. The boardwalk also had some expensive stores as well as the tourist shtick. Fralingers candy store and Planters Peanut store were two major landmarks. Some of the old hotels were still in business, adding a kind of charm and class the boardwalk hasn't seen since the last one was demolished in the early '80's. (To be fair, the Claridge was renovated instead of demolished and is still a beautiful hotel.) Steel Pier was still a great place to take kids because of the rides. It was an amusement park. Though it burned down, later, it was rebuilt and today is once again an amusement park with children's rides though it�s not as popular as it used to be. There were still successful nightclubs, especially around Kentucky and Arctic Avenues, and theaters, through the 1960's. Most had closed down by the late '70's, though, and the rest went out of business when the casinos came in with their own theaters and entertainment. Even the Club Harlem succumbed to the urban decay of its neighborhood, never really recovering from the gang war on Easter Monday in 1972 that left five people dead there. It closed its doors for good in 1986. What is left in A.C. now, outside of the casinos and a few blocks around the casinos, are mostly small, local bars. A few places managed to hold on through close proximity to the casinos, like the Atlantic City Bar and Grill, or by becoming part of the fairly new, outlet stores section of the city, or by being near the new Convention Center, or specializing in something unique, like the Tun Tavern Brewery, which makes its own microbrews. A few classics continue to hang on, like The Knife and Fork Inn and Dock's Oyster House. There are still small stores, particularly on Atlantic Avenue, that cater to locals, but most businesses couldn't compete with the casinos.

����������� When my mother was young, her parents would drive down from Philadelphia to take them all to the Easter Parade on the boardwalk. People loved to promenade there and show off their Easter outfits. That was no longer true when I was growing up on the island, but we still liked to walk on the boardwalk sometimes, do some shopping, and had fun on Steel Pier, especially when we had company visiting. Today, we take company to Ocean City's boardwalk and rides. When I was young, A.C. was also a place where the Miss America Parade happened, and where we could go to what was then called Convention Hall (now called Boardwalk Hall) to see things like the Ice Capades, rock concerts, and the Lipizzaner Stallions. In 1964 the Democratic Convention was held there, and a few days later the Beatles played there. I was only three at the time, and my parents, die-hard Republicans and conservatives, certainly didn't attend those events, but it is good to remember that important things other than the Miss America Pageant did happen in the city even when it was in its decline. Atlantic City High School and Holy Spirit High School held their graduation ceremonies at the old Convention Hall. I remember walking through the hallways and escalators to the main hall and stage, feeling special because it was there. It was a special night in a special place, and afterwards, we took photos outside the hall on the boardwalk. Decades later, my niece walked across that same stage for the same reason. By then, the hall was no longer used for conventions - there was a much newer, fancier convention center on the other side of the city, by the train station, just off the entrance to the expressway. By then, we locals saw Atlantic City as a place of casinos, old, run-down businesses and houses, housing projects, drug deals on the boardwalk, corrupt politicians, and seedy bars. The casinos took up most of the boardwalk. Steel Pier and Central Pier remained, but most of the stores and restaurants were connected to the casinos and the expensive hotels along there.

����������� After World War II and before casinos, the two major industries in the entire area, both on the island and on the mainland, were tourism and the Federal Aviation Administration William J. Hughes Technical Center (FAA Tech Center), which was called The National Aviation Facilities Experimental Center (NAFEC), then. My father worked there, and later my two brothers, as well. In those early days of casinos, NAFEC employees were often given discounts at local businesses, and sometimes free or discounted tickets to events at the casinos, especially in their theaters. But gradually that changed. The casinos stopped giving out or discounting tickets to local businesses or organizations, and the prices of tickets to events climbed higher. My family and people I knew stopped going to them unless for a special occasion.

����������� I was a freshman in high school when gambling was voted into Atlantic City, a junior when Resorts first opened its doors. I can remember some of my classmates talking about how they wanted to be dealers at a casino, and how easy it would be to make money that way. Some locals were sure that the casinos would bring more jobs and more money to the area, more opportunities for everyone. It gave people hope in a place that hadn't had much hope in some time. And some of my classmates did become casino employees, either as dealers or cocktail waitresses, or other staff. But in those early years, the casinos brought in people from Las Vegas or Tahoe for the management positions. Years later I ran into a former classmate while I was adjunct teaching at the local community college. He was taking classes. He told me that dealing cards at the casinos was not what he had imagined. It was a hard life, spent standing for hours in a smoke-filled room, dealing cards to people who were often rude, drunk, desperate, or on vacation and thoughtless about the people who live and work in their vacation land (a problem we often encounter even just living on an island fueled by a tourist economy). So he was going back to school for a college degree. I left after a year for a job far away, but I hope he finished college and was one of the lucky ones who got out of the casino industry before so many lost their jobs. �

����������� Many of my parents' friends grew up in the Inlet section of Atlantic City, which was a basic, middle class (and mostly white) neighborhood in those days. Today much of the Inlet, where the casinos that have closed down are located, is either boarded up homes, damaged by time, gang warfare, or Hurricane Sandy. There are a few new condominium or apartment buildings, or even a few small housing developments, built as part of renovation projects, but they sit in the middle of poor, low-income neighborhoods rife with gangs and all the attendant problems poverty and racism bring to neighborhoods afflicted with those problems. Middle and upper class families moved out of those areas to the smaller, more expensive towns further down the island, or to the better areas of Atlantic City closer to Ventnor. Those towns, Ventnor, Margate, and Longport, grew more and more expensive in terms of taxes and the cost of the houses. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, much of Margate and Longport had become summer residences of the wealthy, whose primary residences were often in Philadelphia, New York, North Jersey, or even further away. The more high end areas of Ventnor and Atlantic City have also become summer residences for the wealthy, or places to entertain CEO's or VIP's from the casinos and related industries. Young people with families can rarely afford to buy a house in any of those areas, today. As John Oakes, a resident of Margate, said, "Prior to the legalization of gambling, the area was basically dependent on the summer tourist season. Once Labor Day came, the locals would 'roll up the sidewalks' until next summer. The biggest difference between those days and the present is that back then families remained in town. Today the year round residency is below 50% in many shore towns. The schools had multiple classes per grade. Today we have seen school closings and consolidating within school districts. My personal take is that the casinos came in to do one thing, make a buck. Once they couldn't make a profit, they pulled the plug and closed, leaving many people to fend for themselves. Yes, the area has seen development, but what happens when the people can no longer afford to stay? Hopefully the area can reinvent itself and avoid foreclosures, abandoned homes, urban decay, and increase in crime."

����������� As the demographics of the local population change to a larger percentage of part-time, summer residents and short-term summer rentals, the casino industries are more dependent on tourism for their business, both in gambling and entertainment, rather than a steady pool of local customers, and they are even more at the mercy of all the competition springing up in nearby states, such as Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Atlantic City is no longer the only place to gamble in the northeast. As the effects of this past recession linger, casinos are closing, thousands are unemployed, and the economic effects of these are going to ripple out to the other businesses in the area. Change needs to come to A.C. in terms of urban renewal, Sandy relief, and different business models, or it�s going to spiral downward again, further.