Good Morning to all you gentle Internet readers!
I am old enough to remember Atlantic City before casinos. Well, just barely old enough. I remember going to the old Steel Pier. I remember the diving horse.
When the casinos came in, it was somewhat cool. They were big. They were shiny. They had cool arcades.
There was a very short time in my life when I liked going into the gambling part of the casinos.
After a few losing nights, I realized it was silly to be giving my money away. If I'm giving it away, it's going to something a little more tangible.
This past weekend, I attended the beach concert in Atlantic City and stayed around for the night.
Walking through the casinos, I was quickly able to see why they are failing (at least the ones on the boardwalk).
They are no longer shiny. They are no longer new. For the most part they reflect those taking up the whole row of slot machines: Old and broken down.
The rugs in many of the places were old and dirty. I saw one that had a huge rip right down the middle.
A couple of the elevators had cracks in the fake woodwork. One was missing something (I think a mirror) on the side. Instead, there were glue marks up and down.
While those working were nice and helpful, the owners have let things fall apart around them.
I think the city will have a tough time attracting people as the casinos shut down.
Maybe if they were kept up a little better, this wouldn't be happening.
1 comment:
I think the biggest mistake they made concerning the casinos in Atlantic City was allowing them to offer everything under one roof. They should have established from the start that all they could have was gambling. That way the thousands of people they attracted would have needed to get rooms at local motels/hotels, eat at local restaurants, and support local merchants. Instead, they allowed the casinos to offer all this so most customers never left the building and the financial benefit to the city was minimal.
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