Freewriting

A.C. has become a place that locals avoid going into unless we have to, for example, to pick someone up at the train station. There is a good New Jersey Transit system of trains that go in and out of Atlantic City from 30^th Street station in Philly. So we often take it back and forth, especially from the airport. You can catch a SEPTA train from the airport to 30^th st. Station, and then a NJ Transit train to A.C. I�ve taken the train from Lancaster to Philly, and then from Philly to A.C. a few times, and the reverse. There are also busses that go from A.C. to a lot of different places.� My uncle and cousins have taken those from Connecticut or New York to A.C. to visit us. The train and bus stations are actually quite nice. I took a bus up to Port Authority in New York, once, then caught the bus from there to Kennedy airport. The bus from NY to Kennedy was the worst part of that whole trip to Sri Lanka! Anyway, Atlantic City is dying again. I remember when the first vote was taken on gambling in NJ. It was voted down. But the gambling industry wouldn�t take no for an answer and re-did the ballot to limit gambling to just Atlantic City. Of course, the rest of the state didn�t care then. A �it�s a good idea as long as it is not in my back yard� attitude prevailed. So gambling became legal in AC. That was in 1976. I was a freshman in high school. The first casino opened in 1978, the year before I graduated. Resorts International was able to open so quickly because they renovated an old hotel instead of trying to demolish it and build from scratch. Frankly, at the time, I was more interested in Star Wars, which first came out in 1977. Many of my classmates were excited about the casinos because they saw it as an employment opportunity. Those who didn�t want to go on to college, or who couldn�t afford to go on to college, thought they would be able to get a steady, well-paying job but dealing cards or some other kind of casino job. Some of them did, but it didn�t work out as well as many thought it would. Those early management jobs were filled by people brought in from Las Vegas or Nevada or other established gambling site. It did give 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. 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.� I asked on my high school alumni Facebook page if anyone had any stories to tell about the casinos closing. One woman said she lost her job when the Atlantic Club closed � the first of them to go. She had worked there for 14 years. But she got hired by the Claridge hotel after four months of unemployment. I don�t think many of the other 8000 or more unemployed people are going to be so lucky. And now I see that the city government of Atlantic City is also laying off people to save money in its budget. Is that really a good idea? Making even more unemployed people in an already overstressed city economy? I guess now that they are making less taxes because there are less casinos is stretching the budget? The city government of that town has always had a reputation for being stupid, greedy and corrupt. How many mayors were fired and jailed because of corruption?! Much of Boardwalk Empire is made up shit, but a lot of it is also spot on. My brother claims that our old house, on the corner of Atlantic Ave. and Mansfield, was built in 1913. The original owner, the city�s utility commissioner at that time, had the house raised at the beginning of Prohibition so he could run a speakeasy out of the basement. That�s why we had those two very large back rooms with a shelf for pool sticks and balls built into it. Dad�s workshop in the back of that back room was supposedly the bar, and it�s the reason why we had an industrial sump pump and sinks in it. There was a storage space for liquor under the back porch. I don�t know if that�s true, but it does make sense. There are two side doors that go into the basement, one by the garage, and one in the back, where no one can see anything from Atlantic Ave. I wish I knew more about that guy. Dad also likes to tell the story about when the Rolling Stones� limo stopped in front of our house because a tire blew. Dad went out and helped the chauffer change the tire. Apparently at least some of the Stones were in the car, asleep. Dad claims Mick Jagger was in it. The manager got out of the car and talked to him for a bit, thanked him, and offered to give him free tickets to the show they were giving up in A.C on Steel Pier. Dad turned him down, telling him it wasn�t his kind of music. Supposedly the manager told him it wasn�t really his kind, either. This story is part of our family lore, but I don�t know if it is true or not. I certainly have no memory of it, though I would have been really young. Supposedly celebrities used to rent out the house next door on Atlantic and Nassau Avenues, including Cher and her daughter, once. Again, I don�t know if that�s true. I�ve never see them. The Royal Family of Monaco still have a house in Ocean City. Locals know where, but protect their anonymity. You rarely hear anything about them, though occasionally someone I know will claim to have seen one of the royals in Ocean City or somewhere on the mainland. Most of A.C.�s royalty were mafia. We all went to school with kids from mafia family though no one ever really talked about it. You knew there were certain places in A.C. that you could go safely if you wore a Holy Spirit High School uniform, or if you lived on one of the blocks that one of those mafia families lived on. You were protected. In those days, lots of places in A.C. were violent and run-down, but then there would be a good neighborhood for a few blocks, and then more of the bad. Racial tensions were high, and there were often riots in Atlantic City High School. Police patrolled the hallways � they probably still do, though probably not as much. ACHS was by the boardwalk, across from the circle/monument at the end of the AC bridge in those days. It had a bad reputation, so many of our parents worked hard to get the tuition for Holy Spirit. Lots of non-Catholic kids went there because all the public schools, especially Pleasantville and ACHS, had bad reputations. When the casinos came in, there were some high profile murders related to the mafia, which was connected to the Philadelphia mafia. Theoretically the mafia became inactive in A.C. after Scarfo�s arrest and conviction in the late 80�s,when a truce was called between the Philly, AC and other area mafia families, �but it is doubtful they ever really left. It�s more likely they are just less high profile. A lot of drugs go through A.C. to Philly and New York, among other places, as well as other businesses connected to the casinos. A.C. is just as seedy and corrupt as it ever was. It�s doubtful that�s ever going to change.

 

Why did AC have to invest so much in casinos and little else? The AC boardwalk is boring now. That�s why we take visitors to the Ocean City boardwalk which hasn�t changed all that much in decades, and the town is still a vibrant tourist attraction. That island still doesn�t allow alcohol, and yet it manages to continue with thriving businesses during the tourist season. It does shut down a lot the rest of the year, but that�s how beach resorts work. AC is rundown in places like the Inlet where there has been very little rebuilding since Hurricane Sandy destroyed it, and so who would want to go up to that end of the island even for the casinos? It�s no accident that the casinos that shut down are the ones that are up at the northernmost end, by the inlet. The beaches there though are particularly nice because the dunes are still there, undamaged from the storm, oddly enough. It�s beautiful if you don�t look at the city streets and buildings. The lighthouse is there, fully restored. How many people actually go to that? It�s just all very sad. I wish they would rebuild the piers and bring in the kinds of headliners that they used to have with those same great prices. Everything in the casinos is overpriced. No one can afford to go them. I suppose today the singers and entertainers ask for too much money so they have to charge a lot, but I don�t know.