"America's Playground" Set to Close

If one wishes to visit the seaside gambling mecca and primary seashore resort community of the Great State of New Jersey, . . . one should hurry one's plans, because the City is running out of money.

Atlantic City, America's Playground intends to shut down the local Government on 8 April 2016 at 4:30PM EDT.

"With Atlantic City set to run out of money, local officials said Monday they will close city hall and stop paying city employees in less than three weeks as they continue to argue with state leaders about how to save the Jersey Shore gambling resort town from going bankrupt.
[Mayor] Guardian said 'essential services' like police, fire, revenue collections, and some divisions in public works will continue to work during that time.
Guardian noted that both 'essential and non-essential service employees' will not be paid during the closure."
Ref: NJ.com

Since the City started deteriorating DonDiego has never felt safe more than ½-block inland from, . . . no, wait! . . . DonDiego has never felt safe more than 10 paces inland from the shoreside resorts in Atlantic City anyway. If the "essential serves" of policemen is continuing, but they are not being paid, . . . poor old DonDiego wouldn't feel safe anywhere east of Egg Harbor Township.

It is a shame. Times used to be better at The World Famous Boardwalk. Things really started going downhill when the horses stopped diving at The Steel Pier, . . . pr'bly in the late 70's.



Ah, well. Things change. Life goes on.

Well of course the town's running out of cash. They lost all of their profit margin at the buffets for some reason.....

Now there's trouble busin' in from outta state
And the D.A. can't get no relief
Gonna be a rumble out on the promenade and
The gamblin' commission's hangin' on by the skin of its teeth


Everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on fix your hair up pretty and
Meet me tonight in Atlantic City

Well I got a job and tried to put my money away
But I got debts that no honest man can pay
So I drew what I had from the Central Trust
And I bought us two tickets on that Coast City bus

I worked in AC, at the Old All Star Cafe in the Taj, back from late 98 until early 2000 when it became the Casbah. I would drive or bus down from NY late Sunday night, and managed the club for Monday Nite Latin Night. I wouldn't have to be back in NY until 10 PM Weds nite so little by little I started spending more and more time there. Like most tourists, I was afraid to leave the Boardwalk area but eventually friends that live there showed me the other side of AC. Gardners Basin, Ocks , The Polo Club, a fascinating combination of an old book and toy store on Arctic Avenue, AC Subs, The Chelsea Hotel.,Danny's Pizza -home of the 27 inch pie and the 18 inch footlong sub, Brannigans, Sherlocks, Cafe El Rio, and many other gems that few tourists ever ventured to. Many, if not most of these places closed in the middle of the last decade. Its a shame.

In addition to everything that is obviously wrong with A.C.,
there are other variables that I believe caused the undoing.
A.C. has no attractions besides the beach, which is only seasonal.
There are no free attractions like the Bellagio Fountains and Conservatory,
the Mirage Volcano, the Fremont Street Light Show, the Flamingo Garden,
and the many Casino Hotels, which like in Vegas are attractions in themselves
such as the Venetian, Palazzo, etc.
Add in thrill rides at N.Y.,N.Y., the Strat, Downtown and the Link,
along with several HUGE shopping malls in casinos and standing alone,
and that's just another reason why A.C. is crumbling.
There is little to do in A.C. besides gamble and walk the boardwalk,
and even many of the shops there are identical, with the same items
placed in the same spots within each store.
..... and just one more thing,
the Salt Water Taffy pulls out your fillings.

Rick

Rick you forgot how bad the folks from jersey treat their customer with their jersey attitude. I never liked that they thought they were doing me a big favor by waiting on me or taking my bets.

re: Rock'n Risks post, above.

In Atlantic City's heyday visitors didn't expect as much.

Poor little DonDiego and his family would visit the Jersey Shore for a week when he was a little boy at Seaside Heights.
His parents and his Aunt and Uncle would rent a rickety old house a block from the beach; they'd spend the first few hours the first day sweeping and cleaning so's it'd be tolerable.

But what DonDiego remembers most was The Boardwalk, . . . back then a real wooden boardwalk, elevated above the part of the beach furthest from the water, and under which who knows what "young people" were up to in the dark. And the businesses included little honky-tonk theaters offering entertainments the details of which DonDiego never did learn, and auctions, and all sorts of stores offering food and cheapo-souvenirs and salt water toffee.
And DonDiego still remembers the ever-present odor of the tar and whatever else was on the wood, presumedly to protect the structure from deterioration.

But best of all was The Arcade, where games and mechanical entertainments of all sorts were offered for a penny, . . . flip-card movies (some quite risqué, especially for little DonDiego), and games of skill - like driving a teeny toy car along a highway-map wrapped around a rotating cylinder, and The Crane where one could actually still win some little trinket 'cause the "fingers "of the crane stayed rigid, and Skee-Ball, and all sorts of similar marvels. Maybe electronics hadn't been discovered yet.

And the food was delicious and generally not healthy, . . . just like it should be on vacation.

And The Beach. Beautiful white sand, beautiful blue water, wonderful sunshine, and waves one could play in for hours.

As Burt Lancaster remarked in Atlantic City (1980): "It used to be good. Yes, it used to be beautiful - what with the rackets, whoring, guns. The Atlantic Ocean was something then. You should have seen the Atlantic Ocean in those days."

ABSOLUTELY !!!!

I remember I was there once gambling at the Tropicana when there were only coin-in machines.
A lady patron opened a roll of quarters and without thinking discarded the wrapper on the floor.

A floor person/cleaning lady YELLED at her for doing that,
stating "Who do you think I am?, .... You think all that I have to do is pick up after you?
YOU PICK THAT UP RIGHT NOW !!!"

....... and the lady patron VERY quickly picked the wrapper up off the floor,
because she probably thought that if she didn't that she would get her butt kicked.

True Story


Rick