ATLANTIC
CITY - Toni Peterson was among the last customers to leave the Showboat casino
Sunday afternoon as "closed" signs went up, bringing an end to the
Mardi Gras-themed gaming hall and hotel that opened on the Boardwalk 27 years
ago.
"We're
going to miss it," said Peterson, who came from Brooklyn for the day to
say goodbye to Showboat, where she had been a customer for the last eight
years.
Caesars
Entertainment Corp.'s closing of Showboat marked the start of a wave of
casino-industry downsizing in Atlantic City that will eliminate 5,700 jobs in
the next two weeks. Revel's last hotel guests were scheduled to check out
Monday morning, though gambling is supposed to continue until 6 a.m. Tuesday.
Trump Plaza plans to close Sept. 16.
The closures
follow a collapse in Atlantic City's gambling revenue to $2.86 billion last
year from a peak of $5.17 billion in 2006, the year Pennsylvania's first
casinos opened, allowing many former Atlantic City regulars to gamble closer to
home. New York and Maryland soon opened their own casinos, diverting even more
gamblers from Atlantic City.
Closing day
was rough on Showboat's 2,100 employees, though more than 470 of them had been
offered jobs at other Caesars casinos.
"I was
surprised I got so emotional" saying goodbye to colleagues, Brian Klinger,
61, a Showboat games supervisor, said as he was leaving the casino floor for
the last time.
"A lot
of these people I'll probably never see again, unless it's by chance,"
said Klinger, who has worked in Atlantic City casinos for 32 years, the last 10
at Showboat.
Klinger was
offered a part-time position at another Caesars property but turned it down
because he wants to work full time in the casino-support industry.
Josie
Anzisi, who has worked at Showboat's House of Blues since it opened in 2005,
has deep roots in the Atlantic City casino industry.
Her father
worked at Resorts International when it opened as the city's first casino in
1979. "I remember going there when I was little and playing on the piano
and doing my homework in the ballroom," Anzisi said.
Anzisi has
worked in the casinos since she was 18, at Bally's, Resorts, and then Showboat.
She said
Showboat was her favorite. "It's the strongest family, as far as casino
families go," she said.
But now,
it's time for a change. Her whole family will be out of work soon, Anzisi said.
Her son works at Showboat and Revel, and her husband works at Trump. They plan
to move to Florida in October, she said.
Loyal customers
have helped Showboat win $8.5 billion from gamblers since it opened in March
1987 as Atlantic City's 12th casino.
When
Showboat Inc. opened its casino, it was known as a company that specialized in
appealing to low rollers. It promoted bowling as a family-friendly activity to
go along with a casino floor that heavily emphasized slot machines.
Those
child-friendly features attracted Gabrielle Cataldi's family.
"I
started coming here when I was 4," Cataldi, 31, of Nesco, N.J., said
Sunday while walking through Showboat with her mother, husband, and son.
Since then,
she has celebrated her birthday there every year.
In addition
to bowling, there was an arcade and all kinds of games for little children,
said Marie Cataldi, Gabrielle's mother, who would spend time on the second
floor with her daughter while her husband, Joseph, gambled on the first floor.
Aside from
visits with Gabrielle - including a birthday trip every year - Joseph and Marie
Cataldi used to be at Showboat every Thursday, but always "home in time to
meet the school bus," Marie Cataldi said.
Showboat was
bought by Harrah's Entertainment Inc. in 1998 and eventually became part of
Caesar's Entertainment. The bowling lanes closed in 2001 to make room for more
restaurants.
Showboat
distinguished itself in 1999 by building an 800-car parking garage for
employees, the first in Atlantic City.
Adding to
the disappointment Sunday was an earlier-than-anticipated closing. The casino
stopped letting people in at 3 p.m., despite the announced closing time of 4
p.m., annoying patrons who spent the day at the beach and were told, as they
approached Showboat's boardwalk entrance, that they couldn't walk through the
property to get to their cars.
The early
closing was to ensure the casino floor could be cleared of gamblers by 4 p.m.,
employees said.
Security
guards in yellow shirts dashed the hopes of many others who wanted to sneak in
for a quick visit in the last hour.
Among the
disappointed were John Paxton Jr. and Jason Lantz, two Atlantic City natives
who said they became friends while they were interns at Showboat in the late
1990s. Both said they had college scholarships from Showboat.
"We
came just to walk though one last time," said Paxton, 38, who works in
academic support services for athletes at Rutgers University.
"This
place gave me what I call a cornerstone," Paxton said.
Source: Philly.com
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