Atlantic City: 'Trump Made This Place a Ghost Town'

When Donald Trump opened his towering Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City in March 1990, he declared it "the eighth wonder of the world" and celebrated with a launch ceremony in which lanky actors dressed as genies brandished tacky golden lamps. Even though it was purchased with about $700 million worth of junk bonds, meaning the Taj had to generate $94 million a year just to pay off the debt and $1 million a day to make a profit, Trump said the casino would make Atlantic City great again, and the area back to its Prohibition-era glory.

When photographer Brian Rose arrived in Atlantic City in 2016, the bankrupt Taj was nearly empty. The exterior of the building he photographed was eerily quiet, as if all the employees had suddenly left in a hurry. The once thriving casino was now unkempt and surrounded by damaged sand dunes. He photographed a family of feral cats nesting where gamblers would once have fallen down drunk.Welcome to the surreal Home Page of what once was a gambler's paradise.

Former employees of the Trump Entertainment Resort look down on the dead pigeons.

A big smile: ...... Former employees of Trump Entertainment Resorts looking down on the dead pigeons. Photo Brian Rose.

Rose found an equally bleak photo in an abandoned personnel office at Trump Entertainment Resorts. A dead pigeon lay on the ground outside under a large photo of Trump employees smiling grimly.

'I was actually there two weeks ago, and they hadn't closed that HR entrance yet,' Rose said. 'The smiling employees are still there, but Trump's name has been erased. He is trying to erase his name from all the abandoned places here, but if you look hard enough, they are still there."

One such place is the Taj compound, where Trump's name is engraved under the elephant's feet. The gaudy monument was created by sculptor Michael McLeod, who never received compensation for his work. Rose believes the elephant, which was left in place when he visited the site in 2016 because it was too heavy to move, is a great metaphor for Trump's own legacy in Atlantic City: "It makes a lot of noise and tramples its weight around, but in the end it only leaves a trail of destruction ".

(Immovable ......) Sculptor Michael McLeod says he did not get paid for this Trump elephant.

Immovable ...... Sculptor Michael McLeod says he did not get paid for this Trump elephant.

At one time, Trump had three casinos in Atlantic City, employing 8,000 people and accounting for nearly one-third of the area's gambling revenue. However, a combination of huge debt, rival establishments, weak local demand, and negative press that Trump's operations were facilitating money laundering--and the Taj was later fined $10 million for failing to report suspicious transactions--eventually made them unsustainable. Both Trump Castle and the Taj now have new owners, but the famed Trump Plaza, which once hosted Lesslmania and Mike Tyson fights, has fallen into disrepair and is slated for demolition.

The failure of the current president's five Atlantic City businesses has resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs, and dozens of local vendors have been forced out of business because they were unpaid, as was the elephant sculptor. However, during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump boasted that he took "incredible" amounts of money out of Atlantic City and borrowed cash from third parties to ensure that his wealth would not be affected if his various businesses went under. According to Rose, his legacy is best illustrated by Atlantic City's 7.4% unemployment rate (almost double the national average). When Trump failed with his casinos, Atlantic City became a ghost town." When Trump failed with his casinos, Atlantic City became a ghost town.

Rose's photographs have always focused on societies that are rebuilding with bold buildings at their core. In previous work, he has photographed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Lower East Side of Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks. In these photographs, the buildings almost feel like characters in their own right. Unable to lie or hide behind masks, they seem to be more credible witnesses.

Eerily quiet: ..... The Trump Taj Mahal in .2016. Photo by Brian Rose Brian Rose.

'Never take anything for granted,' Rose says. 'Everything changes. The Berlin Wall was thought to be permanent. People couldn't believe that the Twin Towers would fall. It means that as photographers, we have to pay attention to what is there now. Even if it doesn't look worth photographing, it could be gone tomorrow."

When Trump was elected in 2016, Rose instantly knew she had to go to Atlantic City: "Trump is the ultimate manifestation of this successful American billionaire. Trump is the ultimate form of this successful American billionaire." People are taken in, but the failure of Atlantic City shows the reality behind the boasting.

The resulting book, "Atlantic City," has a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger. He says, " 'bleakness' is the constant theme of these images, forming a sense of emptiness and a complete lack of urbanity." The book is full of dystopian imagery; Trump's bankrupt casino looks as if it were part of the movie Blade Runner. But Rose insists that the work goes beyond "the aesthetics of an abandoned amusement park" and believes it says a lot about onlinecasinoguide.co.nz. He believes that Atlantic City is all over the country.

The fact that Atlantic City is freezing cold at least two-thirds of the year does not help.

Tourists visit Atlantic City, go straight to the hotels and casinos, and never leave. This is something we see in other American cities like Baltimore and Cleveland, where the commercial center dwarfs the rest of society," Rose recalled a very surprising sight in Atlantic City: "I was taking pictures of the casino when I saw two women wearing maga hats. I was taking pictures of the casino. I was taking pictures of the casino when I saw two women wearing maga hats. These women live in a place that Trump ruined, yet they still believe in Trump. I thought that was extraordinary."

But it would be unfair to place the blame solely on the 45th president. One reason Atlantic City's gambling industry began to fail is that the New Jersey town is no longer the only major tourist destination on the East Coast, with Pennsylvania and Connecticut offering attractive alternatives. The fact that the coast is freezing cold at least two-thirds of the year also makes the town a gray, isolated place.

Someday it will all wash away."... Ocean Resort (old level) as seen from the ocean.

'Someday it will all be washed away'... Ocean Resort (old level) as seen from the ocean. Photo by Brian Rose Brian Rose.

Trump was not the only casino to close. The massive Level, now known as the Ocean Resort Casino, was another big-budget failure. One of the best photos in the book shows two wooden houses dwarfed by the side of the Revel, with the American flag fluttering. The buildings are huge and seem to be symbols of the empty conscience of capitalism, oblivious and unaware of their tiny neighbors. 'It looks like the end of the world to me,' Rose said. 'It looks like the death of the American dream. The Liebel is a surrealistic modernist glass world. When you walk into it, it's like being in a utopia, but a utopia with nothing at all but a few old people at a slot machine. It reminds me of the Talking Heads lyric, "Heaven is a place where nothing happens."

During the crazy '20s, Atlantic City was the best place to be. Prohibition was barely enforced, and the city's famous boardwalk was the place where weekend hedonists, ordinary citizens, politicians, and mafiosos joined together to hit the casinos and brothels. There is much talk of revitalizing the area and helping it regain its nickname of "the playground of the world." Officials even hope that the Hard Rock Café's $500 million renovation of Trump's Taj Casino will bring in more tourists. But Rose finds it hard to imagine a time when the area is not in decline and forever chasing shadows of the past.

'They're trying to revitalize the area by building more casinos. There is only so much money to be made in Atlantic City. He sighs. Atlantic City is just a sandbar jutting out into the ocean that happens to have a huge commercial infrastructure built on it. Someday it will all be washed away. Perhaps only then will Atlantic City be cleaned up.

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