ATLANTIC CITY, NJ – It wasn’t the biggest or the best implosion ever.
An auction for the right to detonate dynamite to start the implosion of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, NJ, has failed.
The front row seats to watch the Wednesday morning show were sold at low prices. Spectators in cars hoping to witness the symbolic end of the former president’s casino empire in the seaside resort town paid $ 10 and were driven to a plot recently used as a food distribution site in the pandemic era.
The implosion of what was once the main gaming destination in Atlantic City came less than a month after its best-known former owner, Donald J. Trump, left the White House after losing re-election and became the first president in history to impeachment twice. He was acquitted on Saturday of inciting the January 6 deadly riot on Capitol Hill.
The tower fell shortly after 9 am amid a huge cloud of dust and an outburst of applause.
“It’s the end of a not-so-good era,” said Jennifer Owen, 50, who bid $ 575 to win a front row seat for a VIP breakfast in a beachfront pavilion with a direct view of the implosion.
Owen, who lived in Atlantic City for decades before moving to Rochester, NY two years ago, said he was not a Trump fan and was eager to say goodbye to the skyscraper that once carried his name.
“It’s certainly symbolic,” she said. “Him. It’s all over.”
Roy M. Foster, chairman of the Central Labor Council for Atlantic counties and Cape May, said the event was bittersweet.
“It’s a good day. It’s a bad day,” he said. “Many of us work in that building.”
Trump Plaza was the first of three Trump-owned casinos before its Atlantic City gambling business broke down and went bankrupt forever, leaving a trail of unpaid contractors and suppliers – and a bad taste for the Trump brand in this city of 38,000 inhabitants.
For detractors, including Democratic mayor of Atlantic City, Marty Small, Wednesday’s demolition was the vivid embodiment of a long-awaited end.
While campaigning for the Republican nomination for president, Trump often boasted of how he cheated Wall Street creditors and raised his name to wealth in Atlantic City.
“The money I took out of there was incredible,” he once said to an interviewer.
In fact, he used little of his own money, discovered an investigation by the New York Times, and he transferred personal debts to the casinos, leaving the burden of his failures on investors and others who bet on his success.
“His term here ended horribly,” Small said in an interview last month.
First opened in 1984, Trump Plaza became the tenth casino in Atlantic City and, in its early days, offered the promise of big players and the fascination of landmark events, including heavyweight prize fights in which seats next to the ring they earned $ 1,500 and attracted celebrities.
Mr. Trump employed thousands of people and his casinos generated tens of millions of dollars in taxes.
But after a series of bankruptcy filings, Trump severed ties with the casino in 2009, although his name briefly continued to adorn the building. The Trump Plaza closed for good in 2014 and billionaire investor Carl C. Icahn acquired it from bankruptcy in 2016.
The ostentatious Trump Taj Mahal closed in 2016 and is now the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. The Trump Marina Hotel Casino closed a decade ago and is now the Golden Nugget.
The Trump Plaza was for years one of the city’s most visible dark circles, occupying prime grounds on the boardwalk. Falling pieces of wreckage and metal contributed to its designation as an “imminent danger”, setting the stage for Wednesday’s demolition.
Small said he expects Icahn to develop the property as a destination center for families to complement a new indoor water park planned for the boardwalk.
“Everyone is looking forward to the implosion and, ultimately, we are looking forward to cleaning and rebuilding,” said Mr. Small.
The city now has nine casinos, all closed for months due to the state’s coronavirus-related blockade, taking 27,000 employees out of work overnight. Most casinos reopened on the 4th of July weekend, but occupancy limits on the gaming floors, as well as in restaurants and bars, remain limited to 35%, damaging nightlife in a city that thrives on it.
“We can no longer depend on casino games,” said Small. “We need to bring a new industry here.”
The building had been completely destroyed, with much of the concrete removed. Demolition crews were at the site most of last week, placing about 3,000 pieces of dynamite that used the weight of the reinforced concrete structure to bring its 34 floors of waterfall down to the ground.
It only lasted a few seconds. As the building had no basement and no cavity to absorb the debris, the remaining pile of rubble could be 21 to 24 meters high.
The demolition was carried out by a Maryland company, Controlled Demolition Inc., which imploded 28 buildings in Las Vegas and several other structures in Atlantic City.
For some, the show was an opportunity to generate business in a city that is still struggling to recover amid the pandemic.
The mayor, in an attempt to raise $ 175,000 for the Boys & Girls Club of Atlantic City, tried to auction off the right to push a button to implode the building, but Icahn, who supported Trump as president, denied that plan, citing issues of safety.
An alternative auction for 10 hotel packages, including VIP access for viewing, generated about $ 6,000 in bids and the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino donated $ 10,000 to the club, which extended its hours to provide a safe place for children attend school virtually.
Caesars, a casino near the Trump Plaza tower, was offering a $ 299 room and night view package Tuesday night, complete with champagne and late check-out.
The boardwalk, windy and cold, was mostly empty on Tuesday night, and there were few obvious signs that one of the city’s tallest towers would be knocked down in the morning.
A 37-year-old woman from New Jersey, who identified herself only as Sascha L., was on vacation for a few days in Atlantic City with her mother.
They were staying at Caesars, but they had no idea of the implosion before they arrived. Even so, they planned to try to watch.
“For some people, it’s like a good trip,” she said. “It’s like clearing all memories, erasing everything with his name.”