Atlantic City: Casinos and Clams
By J.Lewis-Katz

I arrive Friday afternoon on a Greyhound bus.  Having traveled this route many times, I find I am numb to the final miles of the Atlantic City Expressway; but I remember how odd and tactless they first seemed.  The billboards boasting of performances by washed-up pop stars and rock bands with dead lead singers.  The casinos and hotels standing over a city that is otherwise rarely taller than two-stories.  These spectacles, though I still acknowledge them, do not have anything to do with the Atlantic City I know.  They are simply another part of the trip, a facade through which I must pass in order to reach my destination; and they are forgotten as quickly as the wrapping paper on birthday presents. 

As the bus chugs down the expressway, the casinos inflate, growing from nameless rectangular blocks into trademarked towers.  We pass under a sign that has changed since I was last here: “America’s Playground” has become “Always Turned On.”  The new slogan is part of the changing face of AC, an attempt by the city to promote tourism outside of the casinos.  Included in this effort is a new convention center, waterfront shopping center and commercial vendors such as Armani Exchange, Louis Vuitton and Planet Hollywood.

For six years, I’ve been coming to Atlantic City to escape New York – the noise, my job, social obligations, bruised produce.  It may seem less desirable than many more conventional tourist destinations; but for me, and many others on the bus, it is as close as we will come to a vacation this year.  I cannot afford pâté on le Champs Elysees; so the boardwalk and cheese steaks will have to suffice. 

The bus always stops first at a casino and then at the Atlantic City Bus Terminal.  At the casino, a casino agent boards and makes announcements, while anxious passengers waver in a position that is neither sitting nor standing.  Those who exit at the first stop are handed an envelope containing either cash or a gambling voucher.

Afterward, the emptied bus proceeds to the bus station, carrying locals and visitors who are intent on gambling elsewhere, Caesar’s or the Trump, or – most likely – the newly constructed Borgota, Atlantic City’s first Vegas-style casino.  The Borgota is integral to the city’s present attempt to recapture the esteem it lost in the middle of the last century. 

Most visitors do not see many exteriors during their one or two days here.  The walk from the bus to the casino is never more than ten feet and it is usually canopied.  Once inside, windows are scarcities. Barring a late night or early morning trip to a pawnshop, there is little reason for casino patrons to venture outside.

A casino worker hands me an envelope as I exit the bus.  Inside is a twenty-dollar voucher for the slot machines.  I was hoping it would be cash.  However, I can’t pass up an opportunity to win back my bus fare; so I call Tom, the friend picking me up, and tell him I’ll be a few more minutes. 

Fifteen minutes later I meet Tom on the street.

“How’d you do?” he asks. 

“Six dollars, fifty seven cents,” I say.  He congratulates me facetiously.

Soon I find myself in front of a house I have visited before, once, two years ago on Massachusetts Avenue.  A lot has changed in the past two years, and the neighborhood has been almost entirely rebuilt and gentrified.

I first saw this the block soon after Tom’s father, purchased his house from the city.  At that time, the north side of the block was abandoned.  The lots were all vacant dirt patches with the exception of two adjacent homes.  The other side of the street was populated with ramshackle houses.  Racial tensions in the neighborhood ran high.

There are houses on the north side of the street now.  Most of these houses are two-stories and have grass yards and cars parked in the driveway.  It is a picture of quiet, suburban life, save the two casinos in the backdrop.   This dichotomy is Atlantic City; it's half carnival and half idyllic, undisturbed ocean-side community.

Gardener’s Basin is an area that speaks mostly to the latter.  It is a small section of town located on the northwest end of the island.  The economy and lifestyle here remains dependent on Clam Creek, a group of three inlets connected to the Absecon Channel. As the city comes out of a prolonged depression, the neighborhood surrounding Gardener’s Basin is beginning to change.   Massachusetts Avenue is one of the main streets where these changes are taking place.

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