Though the former president built it, the building is now owned by a different billionaire, Carl Icahn, who acquired the two remaining Trump casinos in 2016 from the last of their many bankruptcies.Ītlantic City Mayor Marty Small proposed using the demolition as a fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Club of Atlantic City and began an auction for the right to press the button that would bring the structure down.īut Icahn - a donor and former special economic adviser to Trump - objected on safety and liability issues, and got the auction house to halt the bids. To complete the implosion, demolition crews positioned explosives at strategic points along the building’s support structures designed to knock its legs out from under it, bringing the building down on itself, with the debris falling in a slightly north-northeast direction, Atlantic City Fire Chief Scott Evans said. I’m sorry to see it go.” People watch as a dust cloud rises after the former Trump Plaza casino was imploded on Wednesday “It was like that a lot: You had Madonna and Sean Penn walking in, Barbra Streisand and Don Johnson, Muhammad Ali would be there, Oprah sitting with Donald ringside,” he recalled. One night before a Tyson fight, I stopped dead in my tracks and looked about four rows in as the place was filling up, and there were two guys leaning in close and having a private conversation: Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty.” “Everyone from Hulk Hogan to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it was the whole gamut of personalities.

“The way we put Trump Plaza and the city of Atlantic City on the map for the whole world was really incredible,” said Bernie Dillon, the events manager for the casino from 1984 to 1991. The removal of the one-time jewel of former US President Donald Trump’s casino empire clears the way for a prime development opportunity on the middle of the Atlantic City Boardwalk, where the Plaza used to market itself as the city’s “centrepiece”. Overall, it took the building less than 20 seconds to fall.

The structure’s collapse started almost like a wave from back to front until it went straight down in a giant cloud of dust that enveloped the beach and boardwalk. Keep reading list of 4 items list 1 of 4 Trump impeachment acquittal not end of legal troubles list 2 of 4 Boeing backs Trump plane emission rule seen by US states as weak list 3 of 4 Biden admin ends Trump-era Houthi ‘terrorist’ designation list 4 of 4 Republicans who voted to convict Trump face censure at home end of listĪ series of loud explosions rocked the building around 9am (14:00 GMT) as spectators looked on from a distance.

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