Atlantic City

Atlantic City was born in the mid-nine­teenth cen­tu­ry and grew so big, so fast, that it cap­tured the Amer­i­can imag­i­na­tion. It was ​‘the World’s Play­ground’. Its hotels were the largest and finest, its night­clubs leg­endary. And then, as it began to fade, the casi­nos came. But instead of reviv­ing the city they killed it. Chief among the vil­lains in this piece is Don­ald J Trump, who built his casi­nos on dunes of debt and bled them into bank­rupt­cy. On the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign trail Trump boast­ed of his ​‘suc­cess’ in Atlantic City, how he had out­wit­ted Wall Street and lever­aged his own name for rich­es. He would do for Amer­i­ca what he had done for Atlantic City, he said. And so it came to be. Bri­an Rose has doc­u­ment­ed what remains of the city in the after­math of the casi­no explo­sion. The images are haunt­ing. Atlantic City may nev­er recover.

Bri­an Rose stud­ied at Coop­er Union with pho­tog­ra­phers Joel Meyerowitz and Lar­ry Fink. He has pub­lished numer­ous books, includ­ing The Lost Bor­der, The Land­scape of the Iron Cur­tain (2004). His pho­tographs are in the col­lec­tions of the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art and the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art. 

Paul Gold­berg­er is a Con­tribut­ing Edi­tor at Van­i­ty Fair. He also holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Archi­tec­ture at the New School in New York City. His many books include Build­ing Art – The Life and Work of Frank Gehry (2015).