Atlantic City Reprieve

It were better to be alive in a world of death

than to be dead in a world of life

—Gregory Corso

The Press of Atlantic City had hard news for its town all last week. High gas prices, unemployment, and a dour economy are not conditions that help populate slot machines, no matter how digitally stimulating of an experience they may offer. But Atlantic City is taking hits these days other than casino attendance, and these hits are starting to bruise. Most slots offer gambles for only pennies a pull, and while quarter and dollar slots are scattered across the dozen mega-hotel-casino complexes, there are fewer high rollers than ever before. On any given casino floor, slot fans have has his or her choice of ten similar machines, and half of the green felt tables go unused, even during peak evening hours. Twice as many people could fit into any bar, eatery, or gaming parlor I saw. Five card poker offer lower minimum bets than ever: Bally’s broadcasts to the Boardwalk foot traffic a recording that promotes its new dollar Blackjack games. In keeping with its American Old West marketing scheme, Bally's New Big Bar offers dollar drafts and two dollar shots, all happening at a 24-hour happy hour that features dancing girls in cowboy boots maneuvering around, clothed, on the bar.

Most of who’s walking the Boardwalk has heard that recording before; this includes the homeless, the cart pushers, and persistent tragic gamblers. Each casino pumps out its booming energetic rock and promotional messages, though most on foot appear to know where they’re going: those who stroll leisurely, on vacation, are less in number than those walking with mission, fast. Most travel in groups as the Jersey oceanside sun crosses over; some walk on the beach and stare at the waves. To gamble, to drink, to eat, to gamble with themselves and who they are: there was more interaction between strangers in Atlantic City last week than I’ve ever seen in my life (and I am old enough to remember when Tropicana was Trop World, and my grandmother rode the indoor ferris wheel). People seem ready, willing, and able to talk to each other, as if through our common and difficult conditions have come to find new ways to be human to each other—as we squander some time and some wealth on the risk of gaining more. There is a reason why Charlie Sheen mumbles still the word “winning,” perhaps the same drive that has Larry King hosting his own stand-up hour coming up on a glitzy stage in the Jersey heat of summer, perhaps what drove my grandmother to ride buses here on daytrips in the 1980s and 1990s.

Bad news began on Tuesday: the announcement of layoffs at the Borgota, the Trump Plaza, and the Trump Taj Mahal, “following deregulation of the gaming industry that includes the elimination of minimum staffing requirements” (Wittkowski, D., 5/10/11, The Press of Atlantic City) reinforced some locals’ animosity towards New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, for relaxing the rules that the Casio Control Commission needs to play by. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, Tropicana and other casinos posted their last month’s profit and loss statements, and Trop came out as the biggest loser: during April 2011, amid dwindling slot and table revenues, the wealthiest property on the Boardwalk lost $5.8 million dollars to gamblers' winnings. The next morning’s headline was announced to me by an exuberant valet attendant, who distorted the story into one smart/lucky player/cheater taking the place for all he could—the house was, for once, beat, it seemed.

Atlantic City has changes since its turn-of-the-century hilt; since the 1970s, gambling industry interests have created a new environment of urban development, a specific, transient, and risky economy. The lot where the Sands, one of the first generation casinos, stood, is still empty, following the demolition of the massive building a few years ago: outlived its usefulness, ‘not economically viable.’ The skyway that once led there from the Boardwalk is gone, its entrance serving as a bleak pavilion where ‘Official Atlantic City Information’ is distributed. One can’t find the menu to the Irish Pub here, however, or its specials—those are distributed by a man with a placard two blocks down (whose Boardwalk collapse on Wednesday night drew a crowd and ambulance, but he’s said to be alright). I was enjoying local drafts, a massive salad, and cheese fries at the Irish Pub on Wednesday night when negotiations between Local 68—the maintenance union, represented at all the casinos on the strip—and Tropicana collapsed. All of the other casinos had signed on to the union’s new contract, except Tropicana, who at the last minute demanded a five-dollar-an-hour pay cut. On Thursday, a crowd in hardhats, surrounded by television news cameras, waved American flags on the Boardwalk in front of the Tropicana.

One worker on strike described to me how The Quarter at the Tropicana is a marvel of engineering, a complete and synthetic southern environment, with faux sky ceilings, rotating fans, upscale shops, and food choices that offer a range of entrees, with prices from single-to-triple digits. I walked back to my room (and past some terrible, one-step-above-karaoke singing taking place in the casino bar) and thought of the feats of engineering, the accomplishment at work in the walls, ceilings and floor of the Tropicana--as well as the at the Taj Mahal, but also within the brick majesty of Resorts, built decades prior. There’s a lifespan to every structure, especially in a climate beside the ocean: the wind and sun carried the taste of salt all week in Atlantic City, and most were used to it. This includes the homeless, the chronic gamblers, the locals, and those standing in solidarity over a few dollars an hour.

I’m no high stakes gambler; fifty dollars in video poker over two nights led me to a couple free nights at Trop. In part because of the labor dispute, and in part because of my own thrift, I spent little at Tropicana on my last night—finding myself at the faux Irish Pub, Ri Ra, located near the popular dance club Providence. They could have been charging double; Harp pints were still two-fifty, and the crowd that straggled in and out of the no-cover bar were mostly waiting to go in or out of the dance club (open 11pm-5am). The band, however, was a highlight, perhaps one of the best ways to conclude a week of relaxation, in a place built for such, but a place that is having a hard time relaxing itself: Eleven Eleven (www.eleveneleven.com) is what you’d want from a Jersey Shore bar band, and their extensive touring schedule speaks to their proficiency. The band has over a dozen years under its boozy beach-based belt, started by frontman Jeff Guilani and drummer Rich Franchetta. According to their website, it’s “Mike D!!!” on guitar and “Stebs” on bass, backing up the two band founders. But they’re booked every night in May and June for good musical reason: they listen to each other, even crowded into a corner of a drunken casino, even at three am. At that hour, there’s nothing wrong with a carefully chosen Sublime cover before Bon Jovi, “What I Like About You/You Hold Me Tight,” and other schlock—unless it’s played badly. Eleven Eleven can be relied upon to not mess up anything familiar: high energy live classic rock happening before one’s own eyes makes the conflicts and strife of a rough week of news easier to swallow, aural and artistic truth to match the ever-popular liquid kind in Atlantic City.

I spent my last moments in the hot tub, attached to the pool, which is attached to the health club at the Tropicana: on the sixth floor in the unremodeled West Tower, a faux-gold-frame points to the pool, a remnant of a previous branding of the complete complex-- once, those gold frames were everywhere. I thought of the engineering involved in a sixth-floor swimming pool with attached hot tub; I thought of the workers, likely in the 1980s, tiling this and most other pools on the Boardwalk. Dried off and packed up, I pulled out of the Tropicana parking garage and into the New Jersey sunshine, which was warm, and bright, and free.