Atlantic City: Open for Business After the Storm
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Atlantic City: Open for Business After the Storm
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12/5/12 10:57 AMAtlantic City: Open for Business After the Storm - NYTimes.com
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12/5/12 10:57 AMAtlantic City: Open for Business After the Storm - NYTimes.com
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November 13, 2012, 7:18 pm 21 Comments
Atlantic City: Open for Business After the StormBy SETH KUGEL
Seth Kugel The section of AtlanticCity’s Boardwalk that runs in front of casinos and other attractions was left mostly undamaged by HurricaneSandy.
The morning after Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey, television networks broadcast startlingimages of the Atlantic City Boardwalk. It appeared to be shredded to pieces. Pylons stuck out of the water.Chunks of wood had been swept inland and deposited on city streets.
“One of the most famous landmarks in the country, so much of it destroyed,” intoned George Stephanopouloson ABC.
It was terrible news for Atlantic City tourism. It was also entirely misleading, as I learned during a visit thisweekend.
The footage was real, but was from the section of the Boardwalk that runs along Absecon Inlet, fronting aresidential neighborhood that did suffer severe damage. But the legendary promenade, lined with casinos andpalm readers and carnival games and stores selling saltwater taffy and funnel cakes cheese fries, was barelydamaged at all. That should have come as a relief to gamblers, not mention anyone needing a T-shirt that
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reads “I love purses, shoes, jewelry and men.”
ABC later corrected the online text version of its report. Still, the public relations damage had been done. Sowhen the city struck back with a flood of “we’re open for business” dispatches, I decided to take a day trip tosee for myself, booking a seat on Greyhound’s “Lucky Streak” bus service from Port Authority ($38 roundtrip, including fees). I was due to leave at 8:30 a.m. for to Bally’s casino, with a return trip at 7 p.m.
Greyhound is one of many companies that run between New York and Atlantic City – about a two-and-a-half-hour trip — and turned out to be the wrong choice. The company had pared back its service because ofreduced post-storm demand, but had not bothered to adjust its online ticketing service, so neither of the twobuses I had reserved the night before actually existed. (After my trip, a company spokesman told me theproblem would be rectified. “It’s not our policy to allow tickets to be purchased for a schedule that’s not inservice,” he said.)
Seth Kugel Atlantic City boostersduring a walk to promote tourism.
So I took a later bus, but arrived just in time to catch several hundred Atlantic City boosters in yellow T-shirts marching down the gloriously sunny Boardwalk, trying to get the word out that the city was open forbusiness. Led by Elvis and Michael Jackson impersonators, they included a colorful crop of characters,including a ventriloquist in Uncle Sam gear and a group of four women who ditched the demonstrationalmost as soon as the march started to buy rum and cokes. “It’s Atlantic City,” one told me. “You can dowhatever you want.”
I dropped out too, though with a loftier goal: to scout out the work in progress that is Artlantic, a five-yearpublic art project in large part filling vacant lots along the Boardwalk with public art. One site I viewed frombehind fences was a lot of undulated terraces housing a half-buried pirate ship – part art, part playground –and illuminated words by the artist Robert Barry, placed around the seven-acre space. The sites were mostlyspared by the storm, and work continues; the first phase will open to the public in 2013.
From there I went to visit two of the few Atlantic City attractions not on the Boardwalk. First was the local
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Tanger Outlets, a surprisingly vast outlet mall woven into the city blocks just behind Bally’s. I window-shopped, but held off on buying anything, given my limited budget (more on that later). I then headed threeblocks inland to the White House Sub Shop, at the corner of Mississippi and Arctic Avenues, a tiny cornerstore that serves up meatball subs, cheese steaks and their loaded Italian special of cappicola, salami, ham andprovolone doused with chopped hot peppers.
It was closed, but a scribbled sign — “Sandy did us in” — directed customers to the its other branch, on“Spice Road,” a restaurant row within the Taj Mahal complex. I found it packed – though it was surroundedby almost deserted more generic spots like Sbarro and Panda Express – and ordered the Italian special for$7.25.
Seth Kugel A playgrounddamaged by Hurricane Sandy along the Atlantic City Boardwalk.
That was slightly pricier than what it costs at the corner store – “we’ve got to pay the rent,” the cashier said –but I was not concerned. When I set my budget for the trip, I had used the same techniques members ofCongress use to create their budget plans. I simply projected large gambling winnings and put the total costof the trip at $0.
Not really. I am neither a gambler nor a Congressman. I do, however, like to wander casinos and study theintense faces of the men and women crowded around poker and baccarat tables, always an interestingcontrast to the nonchalance of the dealers. (That’s one reason for New Yorkers to come to Atlantic Cityinstead of Resorts World, the new casino in Queens, which has no live dealers.)
But I did want to get in the spirit of things, and as long as I was already in the Taj Mahal, I decided to blow alittle money there. So I looked for games where my lack of skill would do the least damage — namely,roulette. But the open tables all had $15 minimum bets, too pricey for me. (I had allotted a whopping $20 forgambling.) So I headed straight for the slots, skipping ones with names like Kitty Glitter and UnicornDreaming for simpler machines with bars and 7’s. I walked off half an hour later with a $60 profit.
Instead of risking my winnings on four roulette chips, I gave in to my personal vice: sugar. Saltwater taffy
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originated in Atlantic City, and it remains a popular item. If you want to try one piece of every flavor – frompeach to molasses mint – at the Fralinger’s store on the Boardwalk, it will cost you about $2.74, at $7.99 apound.
Seth Kugel Fralinger’s saltwater taffy.
So, yes, Atlantic City is open for business. But clues abounded that not all was well. There was the closed subshop, for example. And when I had picked up the Sunday Press of Atlantic City on my way back from there,the cover feature profiled five families in the region whose homes were destroyed or damaged. A womanworking in the taffy shop spoke of cars ruined, bottom floors flooded and waterlogged belongings lining thecurves.
I walked out to the end of the surviving Boardwalk – not far past the Revel, the huge glass-encased resort thathouses Atlantic City’s newest casino – where crime scene tape and sawhorses blocked pedestrians fromgoing any further. Beyond it, just like the images on TV, the Boardwalk was in tatters. It was another world:sand had invaded the streets, and I found a team of volunteer workers in from Georgia who had no idea thecasinos were still open.
A multigenerational group of men speaking Spanish drank beers near a damaged playground; some hadgrown up fishing off the Boardwalk. They pointed me a bit farther north, where piles of trash bags andwaterlogged furniture lined the sidewalks outside homes and many garage windows and doors were stillcovered in plywood. I noticed that at least some of the wood had been recycled: scribbled on one square ofwood that covered a garage someone had written – apparently over a year ago – “Stay Away Irene.”
I knew that it was out this way that one of Atlantic City’s best-known non-Boardwalk restaurants, Kelsey andKim’s Southern Cafe, was located, and went to see if it had suffered damage. I found the restaurant operatingat full tilt, already full for supper at 5 p.m. I joined the crowds, ordering tangy pork ribs with salad, collardgreens and candied yams ($15.99). As I was eating, a manager named Stephanie told me that though therestaurant had suffered no damage, her own house had not been so lucky. Flying debris had opened a widehole in her siding and soaked the upper floors. A crew was working on it as we spoke, she said. It wasSunday after dark: the casinos may be having trouble attracting customers, but construction crews wereclearly working overtime.
A $10 taxi took me back downtown, and I told the driver to stop at the outlets, where I decided to dedicate abig portion of my winnings on a $38.99 Banana Republic sweater I had spotted on my first pass through theoutlets earlier in the day and before my slot machine success.
Back at Bally’s, I learned there was no 7 p.m. bus, and headed to the Tropicana to gnaw on leftover saltwatertaffy and wait for the 8 o’clock, feeling bloated but happy that my spending might have contributed just a tinybit to the recovery of the city.
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Seth Kugel, the Frugal Traveler, seeks first-class living at steerage prices. Follow his column as he wines,dines, slogs and blogs his way around the world. About Seth Kugel:
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