City of Broken Dreams

The 1980 film "Atlantic City" painted a grim picture of a gritty place in decline.  It was ironic, given investors in real life around that time began to gamble on the potential of the city as the Las Vegas on the Atlantic.   New casinos went up, and the public came. Then, by 2000, with surrounding States adopting gaming as a revenue-generator, Atlantic City's gaming industry unraveled, and with it the local economy that depended on it.

One of the vultures that invested in the gaming and tourism business in Atlantic City was none other than loudmouthed vulgarian Donald "Rump" Trump, who by then had gone through bankruptcies in other real estate deals.  His Taj Mahal and Trump Plaza were monuments to his own greed, megalomania and vulgarity.  Now, the Trump Plaza is closed and the Taj Mahal will close later this week. Trump maintains in an interview (repeatedly and aggressively) that he got his money out long ago, and "did well" in Atlantic City.  It may be fellow braggart New Jersey Gov. Chris "Krispykreme" Christie  that's left holding the empty bag:  he siphoned $260 million from New Jersey taxpayers in a failed (and boneheaded) effort to get the Revel Casino built in Atlantic City while other casinos were folding.  The Revel Casino filed for bankruptcy less than a year after it opened, and shut its doors last September.  That's bad judgement on a scale far greater than closing lanes on the George Washington Bridge to spite a local official.