Atlantic City

Awards Atlantic Scaffolding and Atlantic Plant Services, units of Columbia-based Atlantic Industrial, received 10 Meritorious Safety Awards for Contractors from the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Software engineering firm Datatel Inc. presented Villa Julie College in Green Spring Valley with its 2007 Partner In Excellence award. Contract The Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association signed a contract to bring the Becker Pet Industry trade show to Baltimore for four successive years beginning in 2008.

Seven years after New Jersey legalized gambling in 1977, state lawmakers created an agency called the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority to redirect some casino revenue to blighted areas in Atlantic City and across the state. But the agency, contending that the gambling industry's success is a critical component of the state's economic health, has handed about $400 million back to the casinos, a sum that accounts for more than 20 percent of the money it has committed since its inception.

ONCE A bee, always a bee, so buzz along and be there. Brooklyn Park High School's alumni are forming an association. A meeting has been planned from 6: 30 p.m. to 8: 30 p.m. April 29 at Brooklyn Park Library on 11th Avenue.The idea is to reunite classmates and share school spirit and memories, achievements and goals for the future.Information: Arlene Hodges, 410-636-3269, or Christine Bittner, 410-789-7214.CASOS plans trip, luncheonCommunity Advocates for Senior Opportunities and Services will sponsor a trip to Wildwood, N.J., May 24-28.

David Cordish recalls that critics jeered when his Baltimore development firm announced plans to redevelop the Power Plant downtown.At the time, there was good reason to be at least skeptical. After all, Six Flags Corp. -- a publicly traded entertainment giant much larger than Cordish -- had given up on an adult theme park there after years of trying."People said, `Don't do it. What do you know that they don't?' " Cordish, chairman of the Cordish Co., said yesterday. "My own father said not to do it. What we did differently was in our approach.

In the latest effort to attract more visitors and stem a tide of deterioration in Atlantic City, a New Jersey commission tapped the Cordish Co. yesterday to develop a largely barren 15-acre site connecting the resort town's boardwalk and casinos to its $254 million convention center.In hiring Cordish, the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority is hoping the Baltimore development company can achieve the same results as it has at the Power Plant at the Inner Harbor and in Houston and Charleston, S.C.Cordish intends to develop an entertainment and retail project on what is currently two surface parking lots and a number of vacant structures, although no tenants have been signed.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- In all, the NBA lockout is approaching its sixth month and has cost basketball fans nearly two months of the regular season. So to satisfy their competitive juices -- and bring light to their cause -- 16 of the NBA's biggest names played an exhibition here last night before bright television lights and hundreds of media members.So how did the people in this casino town react to "The Game on Showtime?""I don't give a rat's butt about this," answered David Priest, who lives 10 minutes away in Margate.

FOR THOSE who enjoy spending time in casinos, Atlantic City's big gamble has worked. But for those who live in that New Jersey town of 38,000, 20 years of casino gambling has proved a mixed blessing.The community remains dilapidated, despite recent efforts to start plowing back casino taxes into Atlantic City. Some 4,000 homes have been built, some of the worst slums have been cleared, crime is down, and there's a stunning $83 million high school overlooking the Jersey wetlands.Yet once you leave the casino areas along the Boardwalk and inlet, and the costly roadways and Convention Center boulevard designed for visitors, Atlantic City remains a city that is both depressing and full of unfulfilled promises.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- On a gray midweek day on the Boardwalk, the sea birds scold and a taped announcement from a casino hawks Don Rickles' show. Nickel slots and aging acts are the draw here now -- but once, oh, once you really could have seen something.Diving horses. Boxing midgets. Frank Sinatra and the Harry James Band. Rex the Wonder Dog. Human cannonballs. Flagpole sitters. Enrico Caruso. The last of vaudeville. The first of teen idols.Steel Pier, which played host to class and crass and geeks and greats alike, turns 100 today.

Total games missed: 322Earliest estimated date season can start: Jan. 22.Projected player salary losses (through Jan. 22): $480 million.Negotiations: Nothing scheduled.Today's best game: "The Game on Showtime," which features 16 current or former All-Stars competing to raise money for charity and boost the players' flagging popularity. Tip-off is at 9 p.m. at the Atlantic City (N.J.) Convention Center. Cable customers who pay the premium for Showtime will see a "Red" team that includes Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone and Reggie Miller face a "White" team with Alonzo Mourning, Chris Webber and Gary Payton.

The Sun's Reading by 9 project, which focuses on improving how children are taught to read, won first place for public service in this year's National Headliner Awards, a competition sponsored by the Press Club of Atlantic City, N.J.The Sun's long-term project began with a four-part series in November that highlighted the failure of children to learn how to read adequately by the third grade. It has continued with additional articles focusing on two Baltimore schools, teacher training and other reading issues.

Atlantic City's attractions are being rediscovered like delicate seashells emerging from the surf because tides are changing in the seaside resort. Thirty-one years after Atlantic City was reborn as the East Coast's answer to Las Vegas, visitors no longer have to head for the Jersey shore town to gamble. They can do it closer to home, now that Pennsylvania and other nearby states also have legalized casino gambling. Operators of family-style attractions say they sense a growing spirit of cooperation from the big guys lining the Boardwalk's Casino Row and at the Marina.

Mr. Rodney is in rare form today. Wearing sunglasses, a baseball cap pulled backwards that says "I (heart) Jesus" and a loud green-and-blue tie, he's at the wheel of a Hunt Valley Motor Coach bus cruising north on Interstate 95 through Harford County, bound for the glittering casinos of Atlantic City. "How y'all doin' this morning?" he bellows over the intercom. "Hey! We're not going to a funeral!" To many, the funeral reference is apt, since much of Atlantic City seems enveloped in gloom these days.

Robert E. Kersey, a trumpet player, music educator and Carroll County public schools administrator, died of cancer Sunday at the Shores at Wesley Manor Health Care Center in Ocean City, N.J. The former Westminster resident was 84. Born in Trenton, N.J., he played the trumpet as a boy. When his father was named manager of the Hotel Lafayette in Atlantic City, N.J., he became a regular listener to live bands at venues at the resort. During World War II, he played in an Army Air Forces band and was an infantry rifleman at the Battle of the Bulge.

Cordish Co., the Baltimore-based real estate developer looking to become a major player in the casino business, has made two alternative bids for bankrupt Tropicana Entertainment LLC's casino in Atlantic City, N.J. - an all-cash bid of $575 million, as well as a cash-and-debt deal the firm values at $700 million, according to the casino's court-appointed trustee. Cordish is also proposing a $100 million face-lift for the troubled casino hotel after the deal goes through, trustee Gary Stein said.

Atlantic City, N.J. - On stage a few weeks ago at the Music Box Theater at the Borgata Hotel, Idina Menzel (star of Broadway's Rent and Wicked) admitted having some anxiety about bringing her singing act to this seaside resort. A peasant dress she'd worn when performing in Manhattan the night before, Menzel said, didn't feel right for this evening. So, just before the curtain went up, she'd rushed out to buy a sexy black lace camisole and brassiere - the straps of which she flashed to her audience.

The chairman of Baltimore-based Cordish Co., which is expanding into gaming management, confirmed yesterday that it is among a number of bidders vying to acquire Atlantic City's Tropicana Casino and Resort. The casino hotel complex lost its gambling license in December and was turned over to a New Jersey-appointed conservator, who is trying to sell the still-operating property. The Cordish Co. and gaming industry veteran Dennis Gomes recently formed a gaming management company - Gomes + Cordish Gaming Management LLC - to pursue projects in Atlantic City.

MRS. JESSIE C. MARSHALL of Farm Pond Lane, Columbia. Celebration held in Atlantic City, NJ. Services entrusted to HARI P. CLOSE FUNERAL SERVICE, P.A., 5126 Belair Road.

Poker players can get pretty obnoxious - just watch any tournament on TV - so imagine what the behavior must have been of the player who was disqualified from a World Series of Poker Circuit final table in Atlantic City on Thursday. The player, identified as a contractor from Richmond, Va., was actually the chip leader with five players remaining and at least had a shot at winning the first-place prize of $76,000. He had already been warned for rowdy behavior Wednesday, and by Thursday apparently he was driving everyone nuts, according to the official tournament report.

JOSEPH LAZAROW, 84 Former Atlantic City mayor Joseph Lazarow, a record-breaking glad-hander who presided as mayor of Atlantic City, N.J., during the dawn of the casino industry, died Thursday in St. Petersburg, Fla., after a long illness, said his daughter, Robin Lazarow. She declined to identify the illness. With little political experience, Mr. Lazarow was elected to the Atlantic City Commission - now the City Council - in 1972. His counterparts on the council named him mayor in 1976, the start of the aging beach town's transformation to a glittery gambling mecca.

A nascent gaming management company formed by Baltimore-based Cordish Co. and a prominent gaming industry veteran could make a play for Atlantic City's Tropicana Casino and Resort since the loss of its gambling license. Gomes + Cordish Gaming Management LLC, formed by Cordish and gaming consultant Dennis Gomes, has been on the prowl since announcing its first venture - running an Indiana slots parlor - last month. Speculation has centered on Atlantic City as a target because both have interests there.