From battles over traffic and highway signs to lunches with Donald Trump and a temporary home for a struggling school, Kline recalls Brigantine's front-row seat to Atlantic City's casino boom
BRIGANTINE — Long before Donald Trump became president, former Brigantine Mayor Ed Kline remembers climbing aboard a helicopter with the New York developer for a trip to Trenton over something considerably less consequential than presidential politics.
A highway sign.
Trump's Castle was preparing to bring thousands of visitors to the Marina District of Atlantic City, directly across the water from Brigantine, and Kline wanted to make sure motorists knew which way to go.
Kline, who was both Brigantine's mayor and a New Jersey assemblyman during the era, recalled the story Wednesday on The Don Williams Show on News Talk 1400 & 92.3 WOND.
“I told Donald, I want signs set up: right lane, Trump Castle; left lane, Brigantine,” Kline said.
According to Kline, state officials initially rejected the proposed sign.
Trump called.
“The state turned the sign down,” Kline recalled Trump telling him. “I'm picking you up in a helicopter on Tuesday.”
So off they went to Trenton.
There, Kline said, a state transportation official explained the problem: A sign simply referring to “Castle” could confuse motorists familiar with another Brigantine attraction.
Kline realized the official had a point.
Trump, according to Kline, had another idea.
“I want Trump, right lane; Brigantine, left lane overhead,” Kline recalled saying as the discussion evolved.
Then came what Kline remembers as Trump's contribution:
“Oh, can we put lights on it?”
Kline laughed as he told the story.
“I got plenty of stories about the Trump's Castle,” he said.
Nearly four decades later, Kline's recollections provide a glimpse into an extraordinary period when Atlantic City's casino boom was transforming not only the resort but neighboring Brigantine — and when a future president and a small-city mayor regularly found themselves dealing with one another over roads, traffic and development.
And while the colorful conversations are Kline's recollections, historical records confirm that he and Brigantine really were in the middle of some significant battles surrounding Trump's new casino.
From Hilton to Trump Castle
The casino now known as Golden Nugget Atlantic City didn't begin as a Trump project.
Hilton Hotels developed the property but was denied a New Jersey casino license in 1985. Trump moved quickly to acquire the nearly completed casino, according to the New Jersey Casino Control Commission. It opened as Trump's Castle on June 19, 1985.
It was a massive new neighbor for Brigantine.
Kline said he had already been involved with the property before becoming mayor.
“I was on the planning board and approved it,” Kline told Williams. “Then I became mayor and dealt with all the issues.”
One of the biggest issues was transportation.
The Marina District sat immediately along the route motorists used to travel between Atlantic City and Brigantine. Casino development promised economic activity, but it also threatened to funnel considerably more traffic through an already important access point for the island.
Historical records show those concerns weren't merely a fuzzy memory from the 1980s.
A 1986 Casino Control Commission proceeding contains extensive discussion of the roadway issue and specifically references concerns raised by “Mayor Kline and residents of Brigantine.”
The proceeding also discusses a cablegram Kline sent to the commission raising concerns related to Trump's casino licensing because of problems surrounding the roadway.
In other words, behind Kline's funny story about Trump, helicopters and highway signs was a serious dispute over how one of Atlantic City's biggest new developments would affect the people living next door.
'Every Time Donald Came Down'
Kline said his relationship with Trump wasn't limited to government meetings.
Trump's construction operation needed space while the Castle was being built, Kline recalled, and Brigantine provided an unlikely solution.
Kline said there was an old municipal pump-station site near what was then the Lagoon restaurant.
“I said, Donald, clear all that building, that sewer plant away,” Kline recalled.
His proposal, Kline said, was simple: Trump could clean up the property and use it for temporary construction offices until permanent facilities were available at the casino.
“He agreed, but he brought in a prefab building,” Kline said. “He didn't use trailers. It was a real nice deal, and it worked out very well.”
Kline said Trump subsequently became a familiar presence around Brigantine when he visited the casino project.
“Every time Donald would come down from New York to check on his project, he went to Brigantine,” Kline recalled. “He ate lunch in Brigantine.”
“I had to be with him,” he added. “A lot of history.”
South Jersey NewsBeat could not independently verify the individual lunches or the details surrounding Trump's temporary construction facility, so those portions of the story remain Kline's recollection.
But another seemingly unlikely Kline story has substantial support in the historical record.
A Casino Construction Building Becomes a School
Kline's daughter attended Atlantic City Friends School.
Then the school lost its longtime home.
Kline recalled that his daughter had already experienced the complications that came with being the mayor's child and had finally found some normalcy at Friends School.
Then, he said, the family learned the school's building had been sold.
“My daughter was devastated,” Kline said.
That's when he thought about Trump's temporary construction complex.
“Trump's moving out of this complex,” Kline recalled thinking. “I said, don't take that away. I need it for a year.”
According to Kline, Trump's response was straightforward.
“Yep, you got it.”
“We moved Friends School to Brigantine,” Kline said.
Records maintained by the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College corroborate the broader story.
The Atlantic City Friends School's property was sold in 1985. After plans for a permanent replacement failed, the school left Atlantic City for temporary facilities, first in Northfield and later in Brigantine. The school ultimately closed in 1988 after enrollment fell too low to continue operating.
The archival record does not establish that the Brigantine facility was Trump's former construction headquarters or that Kline personally arranged its use. Those details come from Kline.
But the records independently confirm the unusual underlying fact: the century-old Atlantic City Friends School really did wind up operating temporarily in Brigantine during precisely the period Kline describes.
For Kline, there's a humorous family postscript.
His daughter, he recalled, thought Friends School would finally give her some distance from her father's political life.
Instead, her father helped bring the school to his hometown.
Kline recalled her joking about it years later: “I finally go to a Friends School to get away from my dad being the mayor. What's he do? Moves Friends School to Brigantine.”
The Traffic Problem Outlasted Trump Castle
The transportation debate Kline encountered during the Castle's earliest years didn't disappear.
Years later, Kline appeared before New Jersey lawmakers to support funding for what would eventually become the Atlantic City-Brigantine Connector.
By then, he was arguing that the highway wasn't simply about serving another proposed casino development.
“The biggest beneficiary is the City of Brigantine,” Kline told lawmakers, describing the road as an important connection for casino traffic and island residents alike.
The state ultimately moved forward with the massive connector project. In 1997, the New Jersey Department of Transportation described it as a 2.5-mile corridor connecting the Atlantic City Expressway, Convention Center, Route 30 and Brigantine. Funding came from a combination of public agencies and private casino-development money.
The episode provides a historical bookend to Kline's memories.
What began in the mid-1980s as Brigantine worrying about how motorists would navigate around a new Trump casino eventually became part of a much larger debate about how the entire Marina District should connect with the Atlantic City Expressway and Brigantine.
The Castle Is Gone, but the Building Remains
Trump's Castle eventually became Trump Marina.
Trump's company sold the property in 2011, and it was renamed Golden Nugget Atlantic City. The casino remains at Huron Avenue and Brigantine Boulevard today.
The Trump name is long gone from the building.
But for Kline, the property remains connected to a period when casino development was remaking Atlantic City at extraordinary speed — and Brigantine found itself with a front-row seat.
There were serious fights over traffic and roads.
There were government hearings.
There were construction projects and political battles.
And, according to Kline, there were also helicopter rides, lunches and conversations about whether Donald Trump's name could be put on a highway sign — with lights.
“There's a lot of history,” Kline told Williams.
More than 40 years after Trump Castle opened, Kline still has the stories to prove it.
Ed Kline made his comments on The Don Williams Show, heard Monday through Friday from 6 to 10 a.m. on News Talk 1400 & 92.3 WOND.
About the Author
Scott Stephens
Scott has been an on-air personality, producer and newscaster for 30+ years. He has been a mainstay in the South Jersey Community and on the air across many different area stations. Scott can currently be heard on Kool 98.3 and News Talk 1400 & 92.3 WOND.
