Welcome to Revere, Where Nothing Goes Our Way
Only in Revere.
It’s a saying that lots of communities use, but it actually means something in Revere, where expecting the worst is your best-case scenario. And Tuesday’s Massachusetts Gaming Commission decision to award the eastern Massachusetts casino license to Wynn Resorts in Everett delivered the biggest “Only in Revere’’ in the city’s history.
Only in Revere do you have the state’s largest gambling facility and lose the rights to operate a casino.
Within hours of losing the casino vote, Suffolk Downs announced it would end live racing at the horse track, which will mean hundreds of jobs lost in the city, and an uncertain future for the horses that are stabled there. At least one gaming commissioner said the potential loss of jobs was a factor in her decision, but apparently it wasn’t enough to sway her or the full board.
I’m from Revere, born and raised. It’s a nice place to live, despite everything you’ve heard (and probably said) about the place. The beach is not the giant ashtray you might remember as a kid. The schools are almost all brand new. There are new businesses coming into town. For the first time since I can remember, things weren’t quite as bleak as they’d always been.
But we can’t shake our reputation. Or our luck.
Revere is a community ravaged by a tornado, but not ravaged enough to garner aid from FEMA. And when Revere started a GoFundMe drive in an effort to raise private donations, it was eclipsed by an online drive to purchase a Market Basket-related newspaper ad.
Speaking of Market Basket, the company decided to build a location in Revere, completed the project, and then let the building gather dust for a year while the two Arthurs had their inter-generational slap fight. Revere could wait, they decided, even as they re-started a stalled project in Waltham. The Revere location is still mothballed, although the company promises to open it by year’s end.
We can’t even keep the nice things that we have. Revere started a sand sculpting competition, which everyone loved. Then Hampton Beach decided to horn in on our glory.
Revere gave America its first public beach, the roast beef sandwich and actor John Cazale — you know him as Fredo — who never starred in a movie that wasn’t nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
But what do people think of when they think of Revere? Charles Stuart, screaming airplane engines over the beach, and a horse track that will soon no longer exist.
Casino opponents will tell us that this is a blessing in disguise. Now Revere and East Boston can redevelop the Suffolk Downs area into a more worthwhile project! How about an Ikea? Is one LegoLand enough for Massachusetts? If Boston wins the 2024 Olympics, you can bet Suffolk Downs will make the short list. But rest assured, we would lose that, too. These credulous friends think they’re being helpful, or that we just can’t see the big picture.
They also aren’t looking a mile north, to another famous Revere race track that shut down. Greyhound racing was banned in Massachusetts on Jan. 1, 2010, shuttering Wonderland Dog Track. You know what’s on the property today? Wonderland Dog Track. Tell me more about this redevelopment you speak of.
But that’s Revere, a community working hard to shake its old ways in a state that won’t let that happen. It’s almost as if Ray Charles sang “Born To Lose’’ just for us. Only in Revere.
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