Word: bryants
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Lillian E. Bryant, 53, knew just what to do, and so did several other residents of Horace Bryant Jr. Drive in Atlantic City, N.J. They looked that man in the eye, pointed to the door and told him to get lost. "It's total arrogance," fumes Bryant, who had one more reason than her neighbors to be ticked off. The street she lives on is named after her father, a former state banking and insurance commissioner who died in 1983. She and her mother Lillian W., 86, wouldn't think of leaving. "I can't," Lillian W. says...
...Bryants have grown more and more alone in voicing opposition in the year and a half since Mirage casino mogul Steve Wynn said he would build a Las Vegas-style extravaganza a mile from the Boardwalk in Atlantic City's Marina district. The women do have Donald Trump--that renowned champion of the little guy--on their team. How could so many politicians bend over backward to please an out-of-town money changer? asks the man who would be in direct competition with Wynn. Oh, the hypocrisy! But even Donald has been trumped. Seven of the 10 homeowners...
...Tell me about it," says Lillian E., a retired city employee who heard the same hustle when the casinos came to town 20 years ago. Today, Bryant's neighborhood is the last stable, middle-class, mostly black area in all of boom-or-bust Atlantic City. Bryant says she's not against new casinos, she's against uprooting good neighborhoods so outsiders can pretend they're in Shangri-La. "Steve Wynn must have something good on these people. The state is bickering about having to pay $200 million for public education by an order of the Supreme Court, but they...
...holdout residents are trying to bluff more money out of Mirage, says the project will provide road improvements that were planned years ago and will make the neighborhood a better place. Mayor Whelan insists that other roadway routes would have displaced even more homeowners. He's sorry about Bryant Drive, but if Atlantic City doesn't take this next step--"Not just another casino, but an 'Oh, wow!' destination resort"--it will die. He says Circus Circus and Boyd Gaming may build next to Mirage's planned Le Jardin, which will resemble a gigantic terrarium...
They could have Siegfried and Roy swinging from vines, and it wouldn't change the take on Bryant Drive. Residents and three homeowner associations lost a lawsuit to block the takeover, which is now on appeal. In March the same group filed suit in federal court, alleging a civil rights violation. The state stands prepared to wield the power of eminent domain, a legal term meaning "we can do anything we want." But the Bryants and their neighbors--Gussie Ellis and her family of five, and Pierre Hollingsworth's family of three, which rents from a local minister--are digging...