Jersey (Part Two):

From Borg to Borgata. Our Friday night trip to Atlantic City - the first time Maria and I had been back to the seaside casino town since she'd gotten pregnant - had but one objective, to check out the latest addition to "Soddom by the Sea", the monumental Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa (leaving the definitive article out of your venue's name is all the rage these days, from Borgata's Vegas twin Bellagio to Toronto's baseball stadium Skydome; it's funny, the owning companies of these places will actually give you an earful if you put a "the" in front of their names, as many a Major League Baseball color commentator found out a year or two ago when referring to the home of the Blue Jays). And monumental it is. (The) Borgata positively dwarfs the other bayside casinos, and is in fact the second-tallest structure in the State of New Jersey. From publicity pictures I'd seen of it, I wasn't expecting much on the outside; but those were all taken by day, and we had the good fortune to approach the building by night. Its bluish-purple wraparound neon lights make for a stylish exterior, although I have to admit the bright red "Borgata" on top:

looked a little too much like the corporate logo for Bojangles' Fried Chicken:

Kind of puts a damper on the whole "classy" feel, if you ask me. But all was forgiven when we ventured inside. The lobby and casino floor is a work of art, from its mosaic floor patterns to its hand-blown hanging glass sculptures to the po-mo addition of slow-motion whitefaced performers made to look like marble statues (people coming to stuff their faces at the buffets and gamble away their money in Atlantic City don't quite know what to do with what is more suited to streetside Cambridge or the Village, so it was hoot to watch the more determined Bill Bennett-types jump out of their skins when one of the pieces of art suddenly turned its head or waved its hands). I wish I had pictures to show you, but as the lobby was adjacent to the gambling areas on all sides, the normal prohibitions against photography on the casino floor applied to the whole interior.

That and I'd already run down the battery of my digital camera taking "action shots" on the ride down!

Another nice thing was that (the) Borgata had a ring of what appeared to be haute cuisine restaurants, as well as the obligatory buffet. The prices - although high - weren't quite as stratospheric as one would suppose, and comparable to a night out at one of the fancier places to eat in Boston's North End; and some of the menus actually made my mouth water, a first for Atlantic City eateries aside from the boardwalk's ubiquitous Cheese Fries booths.

But let's get to the gambling, shall we? Even though we were there on a Friday night, the casino didn't feel crowded, just busy. And it was a good busy, not your compulsive seniors triple-fisting the nickel slots, but gamblers of all ages, including a lot of smartly dressed young adults doing their best to look and feel like Ben Affleck or the cast of Swingers, which is all well and good, as far as I'm concerned. Put on that leisure suit, that white pimp hat with the feather in it! Casinos should be dignified, and gosh darn it, I think Borgata pulled it off, bringing an Old World gaming feel to the town that Donald Trump built. We've come a long way from the fiberglass chintz of the Taj Mahal and the faux-Roman swank of Caesar's, that's for sure...

(Not that I'm knocking either the Taj or Caesar's, just that it's nice to see that class can be perfectly doable theme for a casino, Bojangle's lookalike signs notwithstanding!)