Don and dusted: prized Trump casino demolished
ATLANTIC CITY: The former jewel in the crown of Donald Trump’s bankrupt Atlantic City casino empire has been demolished with 3000 sticks of dynamite.
The detonator button was pressed shortly after 9am local time on Wednesday (1am yesterday AEDT), reducing the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino to a pile of rubble in just a few seconds.
Closed since 2014, the casino was Mr Trump’s first property in the US coastal gambling town, in which he came to own several properties before they went bust.
It opened in 1984 and has undergone little to no maintenance since shuttering. On several occasions during storms, pieces of its exterior have fallen onto the seaside promenade that runs alongside the building.
Since 2016, the two-building complex has belonged to billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who was one of Mr Trump’s main Atlantic City financiers.
In mid-June 2020, Atlantic City mayor Marty Small announced the building’s demolition, after taking legal action over what he considered to be a danger to residents.
Mr Icahn has not said what he will do with the land now the building has been destroyed.
Mr Trump filed a lawsuit in 2014 asking that his name be removed from the building’s facade, believing its presence there was bad for the Trump name and brand.
The former real estate developer has owned up to four casinos in the northeast gambling capital. Apart from Trump Plaza there was also Trump World’s Fair, which closed in 1999, Trump Marina, which was sold by creditors in 2011, and the Trump Taj Mahal, which closed in 2016.
The subsidiary that ran the former president’s Atlantic City properties, Trump Entertainment Resorts, filed for bankruptcy three times — in 2004, 2009 and 2014 — due to heavy debts.