Icahn had offered to restore benefits but not close to the level of other casinos. He has no stake left in the casino, which was bought out of bankruptcy by his friend the billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who has been mentioned as a possible treasury secretary should Trump secure the White House in November’s election.Īs part of the bankruptcy deal, the Taj workers were stripped of their healthcare, pensions, meal breaks and other benefits. Trump has scrubbed his name from the boarded-up Plaza, but it still shines brightly above the elephants at the entrance to the Taj at the eastern end of the boardwalk. But Trump, 70, has gone.Īfter stripping hundreds of millions of dollars in assets from his casinos in successive bankruptcies, all that’s left of Trump’s legacy here is the forlorn and empty Trump Plaza and the down-at-heel Taj, which is set to close its doors permanently on 10 October. Trump soon became the biggest employer in town, running three casinos, and the city was, as the Republican candidate put it recently, “a very good cash cow”.

I loved working for Trump back in the day.” We were going to make a lot of money, we were going to have benefits, healthcare, we were going to be able to raise our children. “This was going to be the great place to work. “Trump was like the second coming of Atlantic City,” Condos, 54, said near the nine carved marble elephants that line the entrance to the 42-storey Trump Taj Mahal casino and hotel. Photograph: Ron Galella/WireImage ‘It was really, really awesome’ Michael Jackson and Donald Trump at the grand opening of the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City in 1990.

Trump's atlantic city casinos