Column: The magic is gone from Mashantucket Pequot casino

Monday, April 9, 2012  

"A recent posting by Lori Potter, a Mashantucket Pequot who blogs about things on the reservation, got me reminiscing, too, about the heady days at Foxwoods Resort Casino.

Potter wrote about looking out the windows of the high rollers suite - "I gently pressed my forehead against the panoramic eighth floor lounge window to observe the moonlit roads below" - to see a long line of traffic coming up Route 2.

I presume she was describing the high rollers suite in the original hotel tower at Foxwoods, when it opened in 1993, back when the casino was building and growing constantly.

I also have a vivid memory of that same scene, watching an endless stream of car headlights heading up Route 2, toward the new casino in the woods. Potter is right. It was remarkable to think of all those people driving into Ledyard.

My visit to the new eighth-floor lounge was to interview Tribal Chairman Richard "Skip" Hayward, the dealmaker who had touched the match to the Foxwoods money machine, then burning very brightly."

Get the Story:
David Collins: When the Pequots were rich (The New London Day 4/7)

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