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“I actually went back two weeks ago and they still haven’t closed off that HR entrance,” says Rose. “The smiling employees are still there, but Trump’s name has been scraped off, which I guess is telling. He’s tried to have his name removed from all his abandoned buildings here, but it’s still there if you look hard enough.”
One such place is the grounds of the Taj, where an elephant has the Trump name emblazoned below its feet. This flashy monument was created by sculptor Michael MacLeod, who was never paid for his work. Rose believes the elephant, which remained at the site when he visited in 2016 because it was too heavy to move, is a great metaphor for Trump’s own legacy in Atlantic City: “Making a lot of noise and stomping his weight around, but ultimately only leaving a trail of destruction.”
At one point, Trump had three casinos in Atlantic City, employing 8,000 people and accounting for nearly a third of the area’s gambling revenues. But they eventually became unsustainable thanks to a mixture of enormous debts, rival venues, weak local demand and negative press, which suggested Trump’s businesses were facilitating money laundering – something later given credence when the Taj was fined $10m for failing to report suspicious transactions.
Two, the Trump Castle and the Taj, now have new owners, but the famous Trump Plaza, which once hosted Wrestlemania and Mike Tyson fights, stands derelict and is set to be demolished.
The failure of the now president’s five Atlantic City businesses resulted in thousands of job losses and put dozens of local contractors out of business because they were, much like the elephant sculptor, unpaid. Yet, during his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump boasted of how he took “incredible” amounts of money out of Atlantic City, borrowing cash from third parties so his own wealth wasn’t affected by his various businesses going under.
According to Rose, his legacy is best reflected by Atlantic City’s 7.4% unemployment rate – nearly double the national average. “When Trump failed with his casinos,” says Rose, “he turned Atlantic City into a ghost town. His legacy still haunts the boardwalk.”
Rose recalls seeing one highly unexpected sight in Atlantic City: “When I was taking photos of the casinos, I saw two women in Maga hats. They live in a place that Trump helped ruin, yet still believe in him. I found that extraordinary.”
MACA: Make Atlantic City Awful
