Andrea Barbarotta moved to Atlantic City in 1985, just after graduating from high school, in Delran, on the other side of South Jersey. “It was, you know, the thing to do,” she said on a brisk January afternoon thirty-six years later, looking out over the ocean at a sky split by clouds into gray and blue. “I didn’t go to college, but it just was a good job. And, back then, it was really good. People used to have to wear suit jackets to get into the casinos. So crowded all the time.”

That was the year that Trump’s Castle—a glittering wedge with more than seven hundred rooms, plus a casino and a marina—opened by the water. Barbarotta found a job at the deli there, and the place felt glamorous. There were seven world-title boxing matches in Atlantic City in 1987 alone; tourists were coming in big numbers. After getting married, in 1989, Barbarotta left work for three years and had two kids. By the time she went back, to become a banquet server, Trump Castle had dropped the apostrophe “s,” and had filed for bankruptcy protection.