The best nightclub in New Jersey
By Las Vegas casinos invariably give me the creeps. (My entry in a Saddest Place on Earth contest was “Nine PM Christmas Eve, all you can eat buffet, Caesar’s Palace”). I can only imagine the unspeakable dread evoked by a few nights in Atlantic City.
Revel Casino Hotel opened with a bang a little more than two years ago amid high hopes of turning around Atlantic City’s struggling casino market.
But the $2.4 billion resort went out with a whimper in the wee hours of the morning Tuesday, as its casino closed one day after the hotel checked out its last guest. . .
“It’s a … shame,” said Ruthie Fenimore of Warren, New Jersey, one of the last gamblers to play at Revel on Tuesday. “I really love this place. This place would be perfect if it was in Las Vegas. It would be right up there with Wynn. All the restaurants were awesome and HQ is the best nightclub I’ve ever been to in New Jersey. I remember the first time I came here, I was lying on the bed opening and closing the curtains with a remote control. It blew my mind. The bathroom was bigger than my home.” . . .
Revel had been slated to close at 6 a.m., but staff shut it down 35 minutes early, pulling yellow chains across its entrances, and herding the small handful of gamblers that remained inside toward the doors. A pre-recorded announcement programmed in advance blared through loudspeakers precisely at 6 a.m., saying “Attention: Revel Casino is now closed.” Immediately, lights began snapping off inside the glass-covered building, built to appear as it if had been sculpted by waves.
But Revel had gone mostly dark hours earlier. Its hotel, shaped like the 1950s cartoon character Gumby, was closed on Monday, and it was virtually invisible in the early morning darkness. The iconic ball atop the building, designed by the son of actor Frank Gorshin, who played “The Riddler” on the “Batman” TV series, was also turned off, and the only illumination was two emergency red lights at the very top of the structure to warn away approaching aircraft.
Apparently four of Atlantic City’s 12 casinos are closing this year. Of course this is all a product of the gusts of creative destruction unleashed by gradually legalizing gambling from coast to coast. (A few months ago I drove from Ann Arbor to Kalamazoo, MI, and noticed that half the billboards were advertising either “gaming” establishments, or bankruptcy services.)