Sands of time
In Las Vegas, imploding old casinos to make way for new ones is almost a way of life. (And, judging by the casino hotel I stayed in there just yesterday, it needs to happen a little more frequently.) But in my old stomping grounds of Atlantic City, it hadn’t happened until last night, when they blew up the Sands real good.
I remember playing blackjack at the Sands when it opened in 1980 (and when it was called the Brighton, after the hotel that originally stood there), and yes, I was underage and got in anyway. (I don’t recall any of my friends ever being stopped at any casino hotel.) I would drop in occasionally for the next eight years until relocating to Los Angeles, but after that I never went again. If they blow up Harrah’s — or, perhaps, when they blow up Harrah’s — I will lose a large chunk of my history: just out of college, I worked at Harrah’s for almost a year, and often booked suites on the sly so I could host poker parties; at the end of one of them, my father sadly shook his head and said about one of my more, um, entertaining friends, “Joe shouldn’t play cards,” and then left with all of Joe’s money in his pocket.
Here’s the true lesson to learn from this implosion: that Kansas was right, and we are indeed all dust in the wind. Because if in Atlantic City nobody was able to save the site of the final concerts by New Jersey native Frank Sinatra, then there is no final hope for a legacy by any of us.
October 19th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Beautiful. Maybe your book should be a collection of these essays.
October 19th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Hey, I just had that news sent to me by another friend… from Florida. I didn’t know anything about it until after it happened. Ruth and I were watching the news and — BANG! — there it went.
One summer many years ago I worked a second job at The Claridge, right next door. That place is ancient and the smallest casino/hotel on the island. Any smaller and it would be a casino/motel. Maybe it’ll be the next to go. How strange to watch the landmarks of our past vanish.
October 20th, 2007 at 10:13 am
I had a head to toe look at it….from the Boardwalk….it was a beautious night too – she went so easily. After the initial detonation of the explosives, there was dead silence and that was in a crowd of nearly 100k. It felt like a long exhale of breath.
Funny, I didn’t blink once on purpose during the entire fall, and it was so fast that I couldn’t believe it.
On Friday morning, I walked over to the pile, it was under 50 feet high and there were teams of photographers wearing hard hats taking up close photos of The Claridge with expensive cameras, to record any damages – they explained.
When I was in grammar school, my friend Paul and I used to sneak into the Claridge and ride the elevator to the top floor solarium, fantastic floor to ceiling windows encasing the tophouse of the building, furnished like an expensive club (yes, with club chairs!). The terrace was made of flagstone and the view was spectacular, it was the tallest structure in AC until the casino era.
J
October 20th, 2007 at 10:37 am
…as to Joe losing his money to Lee at cards: Joe went and got more money, he still has it ALL.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
I worked at the Sands for several years while going to community college. The property was small and was never a big hit with gamblers. I did have some fun working there and some times I would have liked to walk out of the place.
Paul