In A.C., it's Christie vs. history

George Anastasia

spent his formative summers in Atlantic City in the 1950s and 1960s, and covered casino gambling for the The Inquirer from 1976 through 1982

It was supposed to be a unique form of urban renewal.

That's what the political pitchmen were saying in 1976 when they sold legalized gaming - they never called it gambling - as a way to rebuild Atlantic City.

Casinos were a means to an end, not an end in themselves, they told the voters who two years earlier, in a similar referendum, had rejected the idea of legalizing casinos at various locations throughout the state.

This was the narrow pitch. Atlantic City. An island. An oasis. A chance to be something special. Not, they said, Las Vegas East. But, rather, a cool, sophisticated gambling mecca. Think Monte Carlo. Think Europe.

Are you kidding me?

But that was the spiel and, for whatever reason, New Jersey voters went along with it.

Now, 34 years later, Gov. Christie has decided things have gotten off track.

You think?

Atlantic City isn't thriving, he says. In fact, it's dying.

What went wrong?

Other jurisdictions got gaming. The economy went in the tank. The city never took advantage of the catalyst the casinos provided.

All of that is probably true.

Still, there's more.

If you really want to understand why it hasn't worked out, you have to understand Atlantic City. It is not just a place. It is a state of mind. And the billions of dollars that have passed through the city since Resorts International opened the first Boardwalk gaming hall in May 1978 haven't changed that.

Casino gambling has just made the pot bigger.

If New York is the Big Apple and New Orleans is the Big Easy, then Atlantic City was, is, and probably always will be the Big Hustle.

And whether he knows it or not, that's what Christie is up against.

It's a city built around a mind-set that tourists come for a limited period and success is measured by how much money you can suck out of their pockets.

It's not an endearing place. Never has been.

There used to be carnival barkers and bingo parlors on the Boardwalk; now there are casinos. Bigger games, but still the same attitude.

Atlantic City has always sold form over substance, and that has permeated the city's soul. Its character is cotton candy and saltwater taffy.

For years it's been racked with greed and corruption.

Mike Matthews, a mayor during the early days of the casino era, was convicted of selling his office to the mob. At his sentencing he uttered the phrase that has defined the city:

"Greed," he said, "got the best of me."

Greed, coupled with incompetence and smothered in a layer of petty racial tension, has created the quagmire that is the Queen of Resorts.

It's hard to imagine Christie finding his way out.

For years in the precasino era, Atlantic City was a plantation town with rich, white businessmen running the hotels that provided jobs for the city's poor, minority underclass. Over time blacks and Hispanics came to dominate the city's population, but by then the city was in precasino ruins.

And, the record will show, in most cases when those minorities got into positions of power during the current casino era, they used that power not for the betterment of the city, but to line their own pockets.

(For a recent reference, see the history of now-jailed City Council President Craig Calloway, convicted of accepting petty bribes in an FBI sting operation and of setting up a rival by arranging to videotape him having sex with a prostitute in a seedy motel. "Strange bedfellows" doesn't begin to tell the story.)

It wasn't about doing the right thing. It was about "now it's our turn."

There's still some of that sentiment in play. And a general distrust of outsiders.

Lorenzo Langford, serving as mayor for the second time in the last 10 years, says he's looking for a partnership with the state in the current don't-call-it-a-takeover scenario.

The plan is for the city to give up control of most of the casino zone.

But for the state to succeed - for Christie to save Atlantic City - there has to be more.

The town needs an attitude adjustment.

Don't bet on it.

HBO is about to launch a new, highly touted series called Boardwalk Empire.

It's a fiction-based-on-fact story about some of the major players in the city in the Prohibition era, guys named Nucky and Stumpy (and, later, a guy named Hap who became a state senator).

It's all about greed and power and corruption.

It's Atlantic City, then and now.

The Big Hustle.