Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino imploded on famous Atlantic City Boardwalk

Feb. 17 (UPI) — Atlantic City, N.J., on Wednesday toppled one of its Boardwalk properties that was a landmark in the seaside tourist town for almost 40 years — the now-abandoned Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.

The $200 million property built by real estate developer and former President Donald Trump opened in 1984 and was a staple along the city’s Boardwalk for three decades before it closed seven years ago.

Long after it closed its doors, the 34-story tower was imploded into a cloud of dust just yards from the Atlantic coastline a little after 9 a.m. EST on Wednesday.

A separate tower that was part of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino was left standing for redevelopment. The property is owned by billionaire investor Carl Icahn.

Wednesday’s demolition marked the end of what became a love-hate type of a relationship between Trump and the resort city.

“This is the fitting end of Trump’s era,” Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small told the Cherry Hill Courier Post.

“You can’t take away the fact that he invested his money and got a lot of jobs for people. But he stiffed a lot of people and was selfish.”

The tower was one of four casino properties Trump owned in Atlantic City, which were all the subject of controversies over the years.

In 1991, Trump was fined by New Jersey regulators in a discrimination case involving the Plaza.

“[Regulators] fined the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino $200,000 for catering to a high-roller by transferring Black and female dealers from his table,” UPI reported at the time.

“There are, or ought to be, certain things that a casino hotel cannot sell or provide to a customer in order to assure his continued patronage,” New Jersey Casino Control Commission Chair Steven Perskie told UPI then. “These things include honor and decency and simple human courtesy.”

Trump included the Plaza in a 1992 bankruptcy restructuring package and later spent $40 million to expand the property. In 2011, Trump’s company unsuccessfully attempted to sell the Plaza and it was closed three years later.

Trump’s company no longer owns any of his former Atlantic City properties. The Trump Taj Mahal and Trump Castle were redeveloped by other companies and the Trump World’s Fair was razed in 2000.