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In many ways, the casinos have achieved exactly what they were supposed to. Because of them, Atlantic City's tax base is 21 times as large as it was in 1976. In addition to all the new jobs, the casinos have generated more than $1.8 billion in tax revenue for the state, most of it earmarked for the elderly and handicapped. "People see the contrast between the facilities we've put up and the rest of the town, and they think, 'What happened? Why did these bastards not do what they were supposed to do?' The fact is, we did," says Carver. "We came here to produce the money, not to run the city."
In some cases, the casinos' impact on the lives of Atlantic City residents has been direct and enormous. Redenia Gilliam-Mosee, 41, is vice president of a casino in a city where she once worked as a chambermaid. She had been moving up and away from her childhood in the Inlet, earning a Ph.D. in urban planning at Rutgers University, when Bally's Park Place Casino tapped her for the job. Now she has transformed the row house where she grew up into a modern testament to her faith in the neighborhood. Her picture hangs inside Dave's Groceries nearby.
Gilliam-Mosee's job is to create some goodwill between the city and the casinos, a task that is just about impossible. The trouble is that the two centers of power have completely different visions for Atlantic City. At one extreme is Trump, who believes Atlantic City should be turned into a giant nonresidential entertainment park on the scale of Disneyland. At the other extreme is Benjamin Fitzgerald, the city clerk since 1985. "Does Trump think people in Atlantic City are going to be just like lemmings and go to the sea and drown?" asks Fitzgerald. "This is an industry that spends over $70 million a year in complimentary food, liquor, rooms, limousines and helicopters. Why can't they pamper the residents?"
Instead the casinos have sometimes behaved cavalierly -- even arrogantly -- toward their hosts. Under an early, vague requirement that casinos invest in Atlantic City, Caesars Atlantic City Hotel Casino tried to get credit for the $625,000 statue of Caesar Augustus that guards its entrance. Trump promised to build affordable homes in Atlantic City when he bought Resorts International Casino Hotel in 1987. Then last year he sold the casino to entertainer Merv Griffin, leaving Griffin with $925 million in debt. "I gave that obligation to Merv," says Trump now. "He got the debt, and he got the low-income housing." These days, to satisfy a city beautification ordinance, Trump has tried to get the Trump Plaza garage, a plain block of white concrete, declared a work of art.