She once called Donald Trump “a maggot, a cockroach and a crumb.” This week, he remembered her as “an impossible person.”
The 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 91 and, apparently, the victor.
Vera Coking has moved to California to be near her family. And the 29-room property she and her husband bought for $20,000 in 1961 and fought to hold onto is on the auction block Thursday for a $199,000 starting bid. The now-vacant property had been listed for $995,000 since September.
The long-running saga has paralleled the rise and fall of Atlantic City’s real estate fortunes, which in recent months imploded. The decision to auction the property was made by Coking’s family after they could not find a buyer in recent years, said Oren Klein of AuctionAdvisors, which is handling the sale.
The 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.