Abandoned Trump Plaza — © Brian Rose I’ll tell you, it’s big business. If there is one word to describe Atlantic City, it’s big business. Or two words – big business. — Donald J. Trump Trump Plaza poking up above Boardwalk Hall — © Brian Rose During Prohibition, Atlantic City created the idea of the […]

Trump Plaza — © Brian Rose Trump’s wall in Atlantic City. (Reuben) Kramer shows us the shuttered Trump Plaza, which will likely be torn down. It is one of four casinos that closed in 2014, representing a third of Atlantic City’s gaming halls. Trump’s name has been removed from the Trump Plaza facade. Only the […]

Abandoned Trump Plaza, Atlantic City — © Brian Rose I made my second trip to Atlantic City. It was a grey, damp, December day — chilly, but not too bad. The project is beginning to take shape. I will focus, to start, on the Trump Taj Mahal and Trump Plaza, two recently bankrupted casinos that […]

Atlantic City — © Brian Rose (4×5 negative) When people show you who they are, believe them. Donald Trump made a bad gamble in my community, devastating thousands of American citizens. In his own mind, of course, he was a success. In May, Trump told the New York Times about his 25 years in Atlantic […]

Atlantic City — © Brian Rose Home of James’ Only original Cut-to-fit-the-mouth Salt water taffy

Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City — © Brian Rose Valerie McMorris writes in “I Was A Trump Taj Mahal Cocktail Waitress:” Now, 26 years later, I look back and reflect on my personal journey and Trump’s promise of greatness. I see now that the opulence and glamour were all just bait. His rhetoric was supported […]

Revel, Atlantic City — © Brian Riose On the north end of the Boardwalk just beyond the abandoned Trump Taj Mahal, Governor Chris Christie’s tax payer supported mega project. Washington Post: Two years later, the Revel is shuttered — wiping out thousands of jobs amid an economic implosion of the gambling industry here. Rather than […]

Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City — © Brian Rose The bankrupt Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. Closed in October 2016. The beginning of a new series of photographs. Chicago Tribune: The closure of the sprawling Boardwalk casino, with its soaring domes, minarets and towers built to mimic the famed Indian historic site, cost nearly […]

Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg, Virginia — © Brian Rose Although I tend to keep politics in the background on this blog, there are times when the background and the foreground collapse into one another and it becomes impossible to separate them. So, I’d like to address the question of the appropriateness of the cast of […]

Chrystie and Stanton Street — © Brian Rose Chrystie Street — © Brian Rose Post election New York. Despite the shocking result — Trump mustered barely 10% in Manhattan where his fraudulent antics have been known for decades — beauty is still to be found in the ordinary. The morning sun glints off of aluminum […]

© Brian Rose Whither America?

Screen capture of Untapped Cities website An article and portfolio of my photographs from WTC on Untapped Cities, a web journal about New York City. WTC is book about the Twin Towers, their presence and absence, and the rebuilding of the city after September 11. It is also a tribute to New Yorkers and all […]

Williamsburg, Brooklyn — © Brian Rose Random street scene without comment.

Close up of Folk City 20th anniversary flyer (1979) 4-11-61 Robert Dylan In many respects, Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize in literature is an affirmation of what those in my songwriter circle have been doing for decades – crafting songs in which music and lyrics interlock in poetic balance. Is it literature, or something else? Certainly, […]

Mural by Joe Lanzilotta, Hingetown, Cleveland, Ohio — © Brian Rose Passing through Cleveland on the way to Oberlin, Ohio we stopped in an area called Hingetown west of the city’s Warehouse District. Had a great coffee at Rising Star Coffee Roasters in an old firehouse. Across the street was a mural by Cleveland artist […]

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College — © Brian Rose We traveled Upstate to visit colleges last weekend — my son is a high school senior — and he is looking at various options. We stopped briefly at Bard, a couple hours up the Hudson from New York City, […]

WTC book launch, the Great Hall, Cooper Union The launch of WTC took place at Cooper Union in the Great Hall, the famous room where Abraham Lincoln gave his “right makes might” speech. It was an honor to present my book there as an alumnus of Cooper, and it seemed the right place for a […]

Storage closet in Chelsea — © Brian Rose This is what 2,000 books looks like when stacked nine boxes high. 169 boxes in all. Your first thought when they arrive is — what have I done?! — and then they fit exactly as determined weeks ago when they were on a container ship slowly making […]