for the staff of more than 6,500 employees. At the time of the grand opening, mercifully scaled back since,
The core of Trump’s Taj—and from which all blessings flow—is a 120,000-plus-square-foot gambling casino, the world’s largest at the time of its opening. On the day this mirror-lined cavern opened, it increased Atlantic City’s gaming floor space by more than 20 percent. The casino contains more than 3,000 slot machines and nearly 200 gaming tables. To accelerate the pace at which money is fed to the house, there are 1,300 compact change machines scattered over the casino floor along with dozens of ATM machines. The roaring and ringing of the slot machines, and shouting and groaning from the blackjack and craps tables, are endless.
Visually, the casino is dazzling. The lighting is the type you get when you decorate a room in crimson, violet, purple, orchid, fuchsia, salmon, and scarlet—the type of light that makes everyone’s hair look as if it’s been dyed. Toss in big-breasted cocktail waitresses, statues of elephants decked out in jewels, and men on stilts with turbins, and the effect is dizzying. As the
The only vulgar thing to Donald Trump about his Taj Mahal was the debt incurred in constructing it. Despite early receipts averaging in excess of $1 million per day, Trump still couldn’t handle both the construction debt (nearly $1 billion) and daily operating expenses. Within less than a year after opening the Taj, Trump made a prepackaged bankruptcy filing, which reorganized the debt with his banks and bondholders. However, the reorganization plan approved by the Bankruptcy Court clobbered many contractors who had worked on the job. To this day there are local contractors and suppliers who cringe at the mention of Donald Trump’s name. It wasn’t a proud day for the Donald, but he survived it and his Taj Mahal is a winner, earning slim but consistent profits. In the Taj and his other holdings, Donald Trump’s presence will be felt in Atlantic City for many years to come.
Another person who helped transform Atlantic City was Arthur Goldberg of Park Place Entertainment, who died at age 58 in October 2000. Smart and tough, yet ethical and courteous, almost courtly, Goldberg was a leader in the true sense of the word. In the brief period he was active in the gaming industry he earned an enviable reputation with casino moguls and Wall Street investors alike. In August 1999,
Arthur Goldberg’s empire began with his family’s Newark-based trucking company, Transco Group, a hauler of goods for such national accounts as Tropicana, Safeway, and Pepsi-Cola. A graduate of Villanova Law School, he gave up the law after only two years to run the family business for his father, who had suffered a serious heart attack. In 1979, with earnings from Transco, Goldberg acquired a major position in Triangle Industries, a wire and cable maker. He quickly became CEO of Triangle and realized a $7 million profit on his investment when Triangle was bought by other investors a year later. In 1983, Goldberg made another large investment into International Controls, a conglomerate producing everything from bomb casings and electric utility towers to tractor-trailers. Again, Goldberg became CEO and several years later, after improving the value of the company, sold his stock for another large profit. His reputation as an investor willing to get his hands dirty by involving himself in the management of the companies he bought added to Goldberg’s aura.
As the decade of the ’80s came to a close, Goldberg had been so successful that he found himself with little to do. In 1989, he acquired controlling position of a food distributor, DiGiorgio Corporation, which sold Italian food items. It was profitable, but not enough of a challenge. A year later he paid $14 million, or $8 a share, for a 5.6 percent interest in Bally Entertainment, Inc., the owner of Bally’s Park Place Casino Hotel. At the time, Bally’s was in serious trouble and was in danger of being forced into a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
Goldberg had bought into a headache. Consistent with past ventures, he dove into the casino business feet first, never contemplating failure. He went to Bally’s Board of Directors with a turnaround plan, conditioned on his being named Chairman and CEO. The Board accepted his proposal and Goldberg never looked back. His performance in turning Bally’s around was extraordinary by anyone’s yardstick. Investors who stayed with Goldberg from the day he joined the company in November 1990, to the Hilton Hotel’s purchase of Bally’s nearly six years later, saw their shares increase in value from $3.50 to $28. At Goldberg’s encouragement, despite the earlier debacle, Hilton reapplied for licensing and this time was successful.
The Hilton merger moved Arthur Goldberg and the Hilton organization—and with them, Atlantic City as well—to the first tier of the gaming industry, worldwide. Goldberg became President of Hilton Gaming and brought 11 Hilton properties, including the Flamingo and Las Vegas Hilton, under his control with the four he had. That total increased to 18 gaming properties with the purchase of three major Mississippi casinos when newly formed Park Place Entertainment was spun off from Hilton. The final addition to his empire before his early demise was Paris-Las Vegas, a lavish $800 million casino hotel that opened in September 1999. Arthur Goldberg set the standard for the new gaming entrepreneur in Atlantic City and the nation. He is sorely missed.
Several political leaders whose efforts in the public arena throughout the 1980s and ’90s complimented the dynamism of people like Goldberg, Trump, and Wynn are James Usry, William Gormley, and James Whelan. Despite differences in politics and styles, each, in their own way, worked to keep Atlantic City moving forward.
James Usry was part of the last wave of Blacks drawn from the South to Atlantic City’s hotel industry. Born in Athens, Georgia, in 1922, Usry’s family came north shortly after his birth. He was a soldier in World War II, serving in a famous segregated unit, the “Black Buffaloes.” An outstanding athlete, he played for a short time with the “Harlem Globetrotters.” A graduate of Atlantic City High School and Lincoln University, Jim Usry devoted most of his career to education. As a teacher and school administrator, he touched the lives of thousands of local children.
Usry had been a community leader for years prior to making his first run for political office in 1982. He lost to Michael Matthews in a bitterly contested election. Following Matthews’ indictment, Usry was elected Atlantic City’s first African-American mayor in the recall election of 1984. Re-elected to a full term in 1986, Jim Usry’s agenda was Atlantic City’s residents. As stated by the
Jim Usry’s tenure as mayor was scarred by bribery charges arising out of the “COMSERV” investigation in 1989. COMSERV was a seriously flawed state “sting operation,” long on press releases and short on hard evidence. Usry eventually pled guilty to a minor campaign finance violation and was defeated in his re-election bid in 1990 by James Whelan.
Jim Whelan, a genuine Democrat (not an Atlantic City “Republicrat”), came to city politics by a different route. A native of Philadelphia, he vacationed in Atlantic City during the summer and as a teen became a lifeguard on resort beaches. After completing college at Temple University, where he was an All-American swimmer, Whelan relocated to Atlantic City and was hired as a teacher and swimming instructor in the local school system. Through his involvement with both students and parents, he built a strong network of supporters. In the ’80s he was elected twice to City Council, where he was often a lone voice of reason. During his several terms as mayor beginning in 1990, Jim Whelan displayed uncommon political courage in leading a city divided by race and petty factions. He is the first post-Farley era mayor to govern effectively. During Whelan’s three terms in office, whole portions of the city were transformed. His integrity and maturity place him in a class apart from political types. Atlantic City’s debt to Jim Whelan is a large one.
The third player who has had a key role in beginning the rebuilding of Atlantic City over the past 20 years is
