The Trump Plaza Casino Tower in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is scheduled to implode on January 29, just days after president-elect Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration.
Critics of President Donald Trump and his ongoing “voter fraud” allegations cite the planned demolition of the 39-story tower in January as a metaphor for his own behavior since election day. Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small announced an end to years of financial wrangling over the former Trump casino, which was to open in 1984 and finally close in 2014. Atlantic City officials considered the Trump Plaza structure on the famous Boardwalk last March to be a “public security risk.
The demolition of the building will mean that there are no more major Trump properties in Atlantic City. The New York Times reported on Sunday that Trump’s return to the family’s real estate business will be associated with ongoing financial problems and likely layoffs.
Former Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill showed a video on Sunday in which a resident of Atlantic City proclaimed “Go Biden” as she stood next to the wrapped and networked structure that was about to implode. “There’s something poetic about the fact that Trump Plaza in Atlantic City is scheduled to implode about a week after President Biden took office,” the MSNBC spokeswoman said.
City officials and concerned locals have been suggesting fences for years, saying pedestrians are at risk of being hit by falling debris from the dilapidated former Trump structure.
There is something poetic about the fact that Trump Plaza in Atlantic City is about to implode about a week after President Biden took office. https://t.co/MCbccnxVtN
– Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) November 8, 2020
The billionaire property developer Carl Icahn has owned the property since 2016, and casino operations were discontinued in September 2014. Bankruptcies of the Trump Organization dating back to 1992 burdened the operation with financial difficulties for years, and city officials said the increasingly dilapidated building had become an eyesore. In 2014, citing its decay, Trump sued the Trump Entertainment Resorts, which he no longer controlled, and demanded that his name be removed from the Trump Plaza building.
“Trump Plaza was put out of its misery with stained carpeting, squeaky revolving doors, no room service and in the middle of the board as its dedicated hospice staff handed out one last round of blackjack,” the Philadelphia Inquirer said of its closure in September 2014.
Trump previously had two other casinos in Atlantic City, the Trump Taj Mahal and Trump Marina, but both were later renamed and operated under new management after numerous Trump bankruptcies. Icahn Enterprises continues to own the property, which is scheduled to be cleaned up by June 2021. A smaller tower with a rainforest café and parking deck will remain on the oceanfront property after demolition.
The Trump’s Taj Mahal casino was sold in 2017 for pennies on the dollar, ending the New York businessman’s fame in the seaside gambling city he had built in the 1980s. The Trump Taj Mahal became the Hard Rock Casino and the former Trump Marina building is now the Golden Nugget, Jersey Digs reported.
Trump Plaza opened in the mid-1980s as Harrah’s in Trump Plaza and was the flagship of the Trump Organization in Atlantic City. It had 906 guest rooms and 86,000 square feet of casino space.
Washington Newsday contacted the Trump Organization and the office of the Mayor of Atlantic City on Sunday night.
