Apr. 14, 2003 - The No. 453 was late, and Denise Mosby, her cold hands tucked inside her skirt pockets, began to pace nervously. 

"Come on, bus," pleaded the 43-year-old single mother on a Camden street corner. "It's really late." 

Fifteen minutes passed. 

Then 20. 

Still no bus. 

Time was slipping away and, with it, Mosby's interview at the $1 billion Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa for a housekeeping job. 

The scheduled summer opening of Atlantic City's first new casino in 13 years has attracted more than 52,000 applicants for about 4,800 jobs -- card dealers and cooks, mechanics to repair slot machines and janitors to polish floors. 

That's an average of 11 applicants for every spot, and Mosby's experience this month was representative of the hopes they share and challenges they face. 

"The response from the program has been tremendous," said Larry Mullin, a Borgata executive vice president. He said that about 21,000 had interviewed so far, and that some had been hired. 

The "nonglamorous" jobs -- such as "guest room attendant," as the housekeeping position at the Borgata is called -- are difficult to fill, Mullin said. 

If Mosby is hired, Atlantic City will be a return engagement: She worked from 1982 to 1990 at the Sands Hotel Casino and the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino. Her pride is making beds -- she once won a contest at a Mount Laurel hotel. 

But for Mosby and others like her throughout South Jersey, transportation to Atlantic City can be a major hurdle. And just showing up for a job interview is a challenge. 

Twenty-five minutes. 

Then a half-hour. 

Panic set in. 

The No. 453 didn't show: Mosby had misread the schedule. She ran to the funeral home next door and asked her cousin's husband to take her to Camden's Rand Transportation Center, where she could catch the Atlantic City Express bus. She rode there in a funeral car. 

NJ Transit is working with Atlantic City casinos to expand bus operations from places such as Camden and Vineland to attract more labor. 

So far, there is no plan. George Warrington, executive director of NJ Transit, said his office and the New Jersey Casino Association might provide a shuttle from the neighborhoods to the Lindenwold PATCO station. 

While 36,923 of the approximately 45,000 casino employees live in Atlantic County, the casinos reach elsewhere in South Jersey for workers. 

Mosby is a Camden native and -- until last year -- had worked her entire adult life, starting at the former Hilton in Mount Laurel at age 17 as a housekeeper. She lost her job at the Hilton in Cherry Hill early last year. 

She lived on unemployment benefits until she landed at the Radisson Hotel in Mount Laurel in May. When she was let go six months later, she reapplied for unemployment benefits, but did not qualify because of too few continuous weeks of employment. 

Mosby reluctantly turned to welfare assistance in February for the first time. She receives $366 in food stamps and a $424 welfare check each month. 

"I'm ashamed of that," Mosby said. "It's embarrassing from where I came from and where I've been -- to know that I'm a working person and to have to go on welfare. 

"I've always been independent." 

That is why she dreams of the job in Atlantic City. 

Mosby raised two sons -- Tyree, 17, and Brandon, 12 -- on her own in a tidy three-bedroom rowhouse that she bought five years ago. 

Several generations of Mosbys have made Camden home, providing stability to the neighborhood on Jackson Street. 

Mosby's nephew Terrence Mosby, 17, lent his aunt the $12.50 round-trip bus fare to try to secure the hotel job. 

A report by the Rutgers Economic Advisory Service listed service industries -- including hotels and casinos -- among the fastest-growing in New Jersey. Between 2002 to 2007, service industries are expected to provide 61 percent of new jobs. 

About 260 people will get spots as housekeepers tending 2,002 hotel rooms at the Borgata. 

Other casino hotels, including the Tropicana, Showboat, Resorts and Harrah's, are adding 1,500 to 2,000 rooms. 

Bob McDevitt, president of Local 54 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, which represents Atlantic City casino workers, said its 1,800 to 2,000 housekeepers earn an average about $15 an hour, including the cost of benefits. (Hourly pay alone ranges from about $8 to $13.50.) 

"Beautiful," Mosby said as the bus rolled by the golden-hued Borgata. 

But it was noon. She was a half-hour late for her interview, her first after being recruited at a casino-industry job fair in Lindenwold. 

Luckily, interviews were running late when she arrived inside the Atlantic City Convention Center. She joined nearly 50 other applicants seated in the cavernous room that the Borgata has rented since January to conduct its recruitment. 

"I can't be doing this when I get a job," Mosby worried. Then she heard her name called. 

She stood up, straightened the cotton blue skirt and matching blouse that she had ironed extra carefully that morning, and followed a Borgata employee to a cubicle. 

"What do you have to offer?" asked Nancy Lorraine, the Borgata's housekeeper manager. 

"Good hospitality," Mosby said matter-of-factly. "I'm a people person, and I'm a very hard worker." 

Lorraine told Mosby that the Borgata would tell her within three weeks whether to come in for a second interview. 

When Mosby first dropped off her Borgata application, her jaw dropped as she entered Atlantic City for the first time in 12 years, she said. "I looked at all the new buildings and all those hotels, and I couldn't believe it," Mosby said. 

As she walked toward the convention center from the bus depot, it struck her immediately that it had moved from old Convention Hall at the Boardwalk to a new building at the end of the Atlantic City Expressway. 

"I was shocked when I saw the new one," Mosby said. "I felt like Dorothy going down the yellow brick road." 

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(c) 2003, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.