\nSamantha Henry, Associated Press<\/p>\n
\tShe once called Donald Trump \u201ca maggot, a cockroach and a crumb.\u201d This week, he remembered her as \u201can impossible person.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe woman who became a folk hero for resisting decades-long efforts by big-name developers like Trump to displace her Atlantic City boardinghouse is now 86 and, at last, has sold.<\/p>\n
\tThe 29-room property Vera Coking and her husband bought for $20,000 in 1961 and fought to hold onto went at auction Thursday afternoon for $530,000 plus 10 percent commission, said Joshua Olshin of AuctionAdvisors, which handled the sale. Bidding started at $199,000, priced to sell in Atlantic City\u2019s depressed real estate market.<\/p>\n
\tCoking has moved to California to be near her family amid a long-running saga that has paralleled the rise and fall of Atlantic City\u2019s real estate fortunes. The now-vacant property had been listed for $995,000 since September, and the decision to auction was made by Coking\u2019s family after they could not find a buyer, said Oren Klein of AuctionAdvisors.<\/p>\n
\tThe winning bidder is a local real estate person who wishes to remain anonymous, Olshin said.<\/p>\n
\tThe famously stubborn Trump laughed off a question this week as to whether he would bid on Coking\u2019s home \u2013 just to have the last word. A message left for him inquiring whether he was behind the anonymous bid was not immediately returned.<\/p>\n
\tThe road to the auction block has been circuitous. Coking first took on Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione in the 1970s, who was reportedly so angered by her refusal to sell that he started building his casino above and around her property.<\/p>\n
\tTrump, who bought Guccione\u2019s unfinished project, also tried to buy Coking\u2019s building to tear it down and use the land for his Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. Coking battled with Trump and prevailed in a 1998 state Supreme Court case that blocked attempts by the state to use eminent domain to condemn the property.<\/p>\n
\tCoking\u2019s one-woman battle was closely followed in the press and by the people of Atlantic City, where she and her property, sitting defiantly in the shadow of Trump\u2019s casino, have been a familiar sight for decades.<\/p>\n
\tThe modest, three-story clapboard structure is a block from the famous Atlantic City boardwalk and adjacent to the casinos, that like Trump\u2019s, have sought to expand their parking facilities or outdoor footprint.<\/p>\n
\tAuctionAdvisors had stressed the boardinghouse\u2019s location just steps from a planned Bass Pro shop and adjacent to an outlet mall that the city advertises as a main attraction. Klein and his associates say that they are confident that Atlantic City will bounce back and that the Coking property is a great buy in one of the last affordable beachfront towns in New Jersey.<\/p>\n
\tAtlantic City\u2019s real estate market and casino businesses have faltered amid increased competition in nearby states. Trump Plaza may close in September, although Trump himself is largely divested.<\/p>\n
\tThe portrait of Coking as a principled holdout is wrong, Trump said, asserting that she had been willing to sell but that they could never agree on a price.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cShe could have lived happily ever after in Palm Beach, Florida; instead, she was an impossible person to deal with,\u201d Trump told The Associated Press this week. In addition to millions of dollars, he said, he had offered Coking housing for the rest of her life in one of his properties.<\/p>\n
\tCoking\u2019s grandson, Ed Casey, previously told the Press of Atlantic City that it wasn\u2019t true his grandmother had once been offered millions. He said she wasn\u2019t opposed to selling but was proud to live in and fight for her longtime home.<\/p>\n
\tMessages left at a California listing for Casey were not returned, and Klein said the family had told him they no longer wished to speak publicly about the matter. Information about Coking\u2019s health wasn\u2019t available.<\/p>\n
\tBut back in the day, Coking wasn\u2019t afraid to throw a zinger. At the height of their battle in 1998, the 70-year-old Coking said of Trump to the New York Daily News: \u201cA maggot, a cockroach and a crumb, that\u2019s what he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIf Trump\u2019s thinking I\u2019m gonna die tomorrow, he\u2019s having himself a pipe dream,\u201d she said then. \u201cI\u2019m gonna be here for a long, long time. I\u2019ll stay just to see he\u2019s not getting my house. We\u2019ll be going to his funeral, you can count on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Samantha Henry, Associated Press She once called Donald Trump \u201ca maggot, a cockroach and a crumb.\u201d This week, he remembered her as \u201can impossible person.\u201d The woman who became a folk hero for resisting decades-long efforts by big-name developers like…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}