February 18, 2021
Trump’s New Jersey Plaza Hotel and Casino is Demolished
Donald Trump’s Atlantic City hotel and casino, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, officially closed on September 16, 2014. The video above shows this New Jersey casino being demolished on February 17, 2021.
The once-popular NJ gambling destination — Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino — was demolished in front of a crowd of cheering spectators in a controlled explosion on Wednesday, February 17, 2021. This former hotspot for New Jersey gamblers opened its doors in 1984 and had a stretch as the most successful casino in Atlantic City. In 2014, this failing NJ casino shuttered its doors. Two years later, billionaire Carl Icahn purchased the plaza along with the Trump Taj Maha — since sold to Hard Rock.
This is the moment Trump Plaza, the first casino Donald Trump ever built and a faded vestige of Atlantic City’s glamorous past, came crashing down in a cloud of dirt, dust and noise https://t.co/wNyH6IhhZN pic.twitter.com/NI3YfLjsdt
— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) February 17, 2021
Atlantic City had originally planned to auction off the rights to press the button that would have initiated the explosion of 3,000 sticks of dynamite, but it was ultimately nixed by Icahn. Marty Small, the mayor of Atlantic City, was hoping to raise upwards of $1 million from the auction to donate to the Atlantic City Boys and Girls Club. For safety concerns, Icahn decided to cancel the fundraiser and donated $175,000 himself to the cause, instead.
The former Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino took years to build and was a staple of New Jersey gambling for decades, and in less than 30 seconds — it was reduced to rubble. The casino had suffered a sharp decline in revenue since its peak in the 90s. When it finally closed in 2014, it was performing worst than any other casino on the strip. At its worst, it was earning in eight months what the Borgata casino down the road was earning in two weeks. The increased competition from other land-based casinos and the rise of NJ online casinos were too much for the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino to overcome.
The demolishing of the 39-story building was met with cheers from bystanders who paid $10 to watch. Mayor Small went on to tell the AP: “I got chills. This is a historic moment. It was exciting.”
The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino was the last remaining casino with Trump’s name after the Trump Taj Mahal and Trump Marina were changed to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and Golden Nugget Atlantic City respectively.
