Atlantic City Baby!

A friend of mine works on a cable television poker show, and he invited me to spend the weekend with him while he was at the Borgata in Atlantic City. I visited him there in February, so it was strange to revisit him there at the beginning of the fall, with the knowledge that a whole summer had past since I'd seen him last.

Atlantic City makes for a good weekend trip away from New York, since you can take a Greyhound there for only thirty. Usually you can trade in your ticket at the casino that they drop you off at for $20, so the trip last time only cost me $10. I went to Bally's last time, but this time I took the bus to the Sands, and I couldn't cash in my ticket; they only gave me slot credits. The secret to this, which I discovered too late, is to cash out as soon as you win any money. I kept waiting to win a couple dollars before I cashed out, so I ended up losing most of it. Still, a $25 ticket isn't too shabby.

There really is no other place on earth like Atlantic City. In the 1800s, everyone was eager to get away from the coal fired squalor of north eastern cities, and the Jersey Shore seemed like the perfect getaway. America isn't alone in having 1800s resort towns that later fell into disarray, but Coney Island, Atlantic City, and Asbury Park were the kings of the boardwalk, where men in bathing suits could promenade and drink NeHi. But them someone invented cheap airfare, and everyone realized how much Jersey sucks, so they all went down to the Caribbean instead. Even though the mobsters and Rat Packs kept filling their hotels, the great American boardwalks slowly rotted, until by the 1970s it seemed the only solution was to completely raze them.

Asbury Park, with no investment forthcoming, stills stands in this state of rot, the roofs of her grand ballrooms having long since collapsed, with trees literally growing up out of the ruins. Atlantic City came up with the idea that legalized gambling could be their salvation. So in 1972 or so, they started a grand project that totally destroyed the old 1800s brick core of the city and replaced it with a bizarre fantasy land, tackier then Myrtle Beach. Millions of dollars poured into the city, only the economics of it didn't work for the city's residents. Casinos are designed to bring in tourists on buses and never allow them to leave. The Borgata is deliberately set away from the traditional strip, so that a guest there doesn't even have the option of stepping out to the liquor store or getting a bite to eat. So surrounding the casinos is a broken town of rotten brick buildings and shattered inhabitants.

I didn't really capture much with my photos because this was my second time in the city, and I was focused on having fun with my friend. I remembered the Borgata's isolation, so I packed a bottle in my bag. My friend and I shared it in his hotel, I lost ten bucks on the slots, and after I long night of set up, I decided that I couldn't part with the $25 cover required of the casino's swankiest night club. We got something to eat in the employee kitchen late that night, and I passed out in his room. The next day we watched the Giants come back in overtime to beat the Eagles, much to the chagrin of the many drunk Eagles fans crowded in the bar. The water is dirty, the sand is black, and it makes you wonder about the moral implications of legalized gambling, but Atlantic City makes for a nice weekend getaway for the itchy New Yorker.