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'''Atlantic City''' is a seaside resort city located in [[Atlantic County]], [[New Jersey]], situated on [[Absecon Island]] along the [[Atlantic Ocean]]. Sometimes referred to by its initials A.C., the city is a [[Jersey Shore]] destination that draws visitors from across the northeastern United States. Known for its casinos, nightlife, boardwalk, and beaches, the city is | '''Atlantic City''' is a seaside resort city located in [[Atlantic County]], [[New Jersey]], situated on [[Absecon Island]] along the [[Atlantic Ocean]]. Sometimes referred to by its initials A.C., the city is a [[Jersey Shore]] destination that draws visitors from across the northeastern United States. Known for its casinos, nightlife, boardwalk, and beaches, the city is widely known as the "Las Vegas of the East Coast"<ref name="acnj_about" /> and inspired the U.S. version of the board game [[Monopoly (board game)|Monopoly]], which uses Atlantic City street names and destinations throughout the game. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 38,497. Atlantic City hosts over 27 million visitors a year, making it one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States.<ref name="britannica" /> | ||
== Geography == | |||
Atlantic City occupies the northern portion of [[Absecon Island]], a barrier island approximately 10 miles long situated between the Atlantic Ocean to the east and a series of back bays and tidal wetlands to the west. The island is separated from the New Jersey mainland by Great Egg Harbor Bay to the south and Absecon Bay to the north and west. The city's low-lying topography makes it particularly vulnerable to coastal storms and flooding, a vulnerability dramatically demonstrated during [[Hurricane Sandy]] in 2012. Atlantic City covers approximately 11.3 square miles of land area, of which a significant portion is developed with the dense commercial and residential infrastructure characteristic of a resort city. The surrounding barrier island communities of Ventnor City, Margate City, and Longport occupy the southern portions of Absecon Island. | |||
The city's climate is humid subtropical, tempered by proximity to the ocean. Summers are warm and humid, with average July high temperatures near 84°F, while winters are milder than inland areas of New Jersey, with average January lows near 24°F. The Atlantic Ocean moderates temperature extremes in both directions, making spring and fall particularly pleasant seasons for visitors. Nor'easters and tropical storms represent periodic hazards, and the city's exposure to tidal surge has prompted ongoing discussions about long-term coastal resilience planning. | |||
== Early History and Indigenous Peoples == | == Early History and Indigenous Peoples == | ||
Long before Atlantic City was founded, the island | Long before Atlantic City was founded, the island that would eventually be developed was thick with woods and lined with dunes, serving as the summer home of the [[Lenni Lenape]], an Algonquian-speaking people. These original summer residents named the island Absegami, meaning "little water," a term for the bay denoting that the opposite shore was in sight.<ref name="westfield_nj" /> Over time the name was transformed into the present-day Absecon Island. | ||
Early colonial settlers in South Jersey largely ignored the island because it could only be reached by boat. While the exact date of the first permanent settlement has never been determined, it is generally agreed that Jeremiah Leeds was the first to build and occupy a year-round residence on the island, building his home in 1783. Jeremiah and his family were the first | Early colonial settlers in South Jersey largely ignored the island because it could only be reached by boat. While the exact date of the first permanent settlement has never been determined, it is generally agreed that Jeremiah Leeds was the first to build and occupy a year-round residence on the island, building his home in 1783. Jeremiah and his family were the first permanent residents of the island.<ref name="ac_fpl" /> Their home and farm was called Leeds Plantation, and Leeds grew corn and rye and raised cattle. | ||
A year after Leeds's death in 1838, his second wife Millicent received a license to operate a tavern called Aunt Millie's Boarding House, located at Baltic and Massachusetts Avenue — the first business in Atlantic City. A descendant, Chalkey S. Leeds, born | A year after Leeds's death in 1838, his second wife Millicent received a license to operate a tavern called Aunt Millie's Boarding House, located at Baltic and Massachusetts Avenue — the first business in what would become Atlantic City. A descendant, Chalkey S. Leeds, born on the island in 1824, became the city's first mayor in 1854. | ||
Dr. Jonathan Pitney, a prominent physician who lived in Absecon, felt that the island had much to offer and had ideas of making it a health resort, but access to the island had to be improved. Pitney, along with a civil engineer from Philadelphia | Dr. Jonathan Pitney, a prominent physician who lived in Absecon, felt that the island had much to offer and had ideas of making it a health resort, but access to the island had to be improved. Pitney, along with a civil engineer from Philadelphia named Richard Osborne, conceived the plan to bring the railroad to the island. In 1852, construction began on the Camden–Atlantic City Railroad. On July 5, 1854, the first train arrived from Camden after a two-and-a-half hour trip, and the arrival of tourists began in earnest. | ||
The city was incorporated on May 1, 1854, from portions of Egg Harbor Township and Galloway Township. Osborne has been given credit with naming the city, while his friend Dr. Pitney devised the plan for the names and placements of the city streets. Streets running parallel to the ocean would be named after the world's great bodies of water — Pacific, Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Arctic — while the streets running east to west would be named after the states. | The city was incorporated on May 1, 1854, from portions of Egg Harbor Township and Galloway Township.<ref name="acnj_history" /> Osborne has been given credit with naming the city, while his friend Dr. Pitney devised the plan for the names and placements of the city streets. Streets running parallel to the ocean would be named after the world's great bodies of water — Pacific, Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Arctic — while the streets running east to west would be named after the states. These same street names would later become famous worldwide through the Monopoly board game. | ||
== The Rise of a Resort Town == | == The Rise of a Resort Town == | ||
Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, beach resorts like [[Cape May, New Jersey|Cape May]] and Newport, Rhode Island, steadily grew, catering to the affluent. Looking to capitalize on the emerging tourist trade, in 1854 a pair of Philadelphia developers pulled out a map and drew a straight line between the city and the shore, landing sixty-two miles away on a spot on the northern end of Absecon Island, which became Atlantic City. | Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, beach resorts like [[Cape May, New Jersey|Cape May]] and Newport, Rhode Island, steadily grew, catering to the affluent. Looking to capitalize on the emerging tourist trade, in 1854 a pair of Philadelphia developers pulled out a map and drew a straight line between the city and the shore, landing sixty-two miles away on a spot on the northern end of Absecon Island, which became Atlantic City.<ref name="phila_encyclopedia" /> | ||
By 1874, almost 500,000 passengers a year were coming to Atlantic City by rail. The city rapidly developed a full resort infrastructure. Its famous Boardwalk, initially 8 feet wide and 1 mile long, was built in 1870; it was later extended to a width of 60 feet and a length of | By 1874, almost 500,000 passengers a year were coming to Atlantic City by rail. The city rapidly developed a full resort infrastructure. Its famous Boardwalk, initially 8 feet wide and 1 mile long, was built in 1870; it was later extended to a width of 60 feet and a length of approximately 4 miles.<ref name="ac_experience_timeline" /> The original structure was built after a conductor on the Atlantic City–Camden Railroad and a hotel owner petitioned the city council for $5,000 — half the city's 1870 tax revenue — to build a wooden walkway separating the beach from the town. It was built to be removable, and was taken apart at the end of each season until it was replaced by a permanent structure in 1880. | ||
The [[Atlantic City Boardwalk]] became the first | The [[Atlantic City Boardwalk]] became the first boardwalk in the United States and the city's most iconic landmark. The game of Monopoly, developed by Charles Darrow and commercialized by Parker Brothers in 1935, used Atlantic City's street names for its properties. Baltic Avenue, Mediterranean Avenue, Boardwalk, and Park Place are among the Atlantic City locations immortalized on the game board, which has since sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide and made the city's geography familiar to generations of players who had never visited New Jersey.<ref name="phila_encyclopedia" /> | ||
Other innovations enhancing the resort's reputation included the rolling chair in 1884, in which guests were wheeled about the Boardwalk, the introduction from Germany of the picture postcard in 1895, and saltwater taffy, which became synonymous with the Jersey Shore experience. Amusement piers jutting from the Boardwalk into the ocean brought a carnival atmosphere with their vendors, shows, and exhibits, drawing visitors who sought novelty as much as rest. | |||
By 1930, Atlantic City reached its all-time population peak of 66,000 residents, and African Americans — mostly migrants from the South — made up a quarter of city residents, the largest proportion of any New Jersey city at the time. Beginning in the 1930s and continuing over the next three decades, Kentucky Avenue was renowned for its nightlife, with Club Harlem and other venues attracting | The [[Absecon Lighthouse]], first lit in 1857, stands 171 feet tall and is New Jersey's tallest lighthouse. It is also the only lighthouse in New Jersey with its original Fresnel lens still in place. | ||
By 1930, Atlantic City reached its all-time population peak of 66,000 residents, and African Americans — mostly migrants from the South — made up a quarter of city residents, the largest proportion of any New Jersey city at the time. Beginning in the 1930s and continuing over the next three decades, Kentucky Avenue was renowned for its nightlife, with Club Harlem and other venues attracting major figures from the world of jazz and helping establish Atlantic City as an important stop on the circuit that African American performers could access during the era of segregation. | |||
Built in 1929 to host Atlantic City's growing convention industry, Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall — originally Atlantic City Convention Hall — was celebrated as an architectural marvel with a 137-foot-high barrel vault ceiling. Boardwalk Hall hosted many historic moments, including the nation's first indoor college football game, the Miss America Pageant, Army Air Forces headquarters during World War II, the [[1964 Democratic National Convention]], and the country's first indoor helicopter flight. The venue was designated a [[National Historic Landmark]] in 1987. | Built in 1929 to host Atlantic City's growing convention industry, Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall — originally Atlantic City Convention Hall — was celebrated as an architectural marvel with a 137-foot-high barrel vault ceiling. Boardwalk Hall hosted many historic moments, including the nation's first indoor college football game, the Miss America Pageant, Army Air Forces headquarters during World War II, the [[1964 Democratic National Convention]], and the country's first indoor helicopter flight. The venue was designated a [[National Historic Landmark]] in 1987. | ||
== | == Transportation History == | ||
The | The railroad was the original engine of Atlantic City's growth, and for nearly a century rail service defined the city's relationship with the rest of the region. The Camden–Atlantic City Railroad, completed in 1854, carried nearly 500,000 passengers annually by the 1870s and made day trips from Philadelphia practical for the first time. Multiple competing rail lines eventually served the city, reflecting the enormous demand for service to what was then one of America's premier resorts. | ||
Among the most celebrated of these services was the Blue Comet, a passenger train operated by the Central Railroad of New Jersey that ran between Atlantic City and Jersey City beginning on February 21, 1929. Named for its distinctive blue passenger cars and the speed at which it covered the route, the Blue Comet became a symbol of the glamour of rail travel to the shore. The service operated until 1941, when declining ridership and the economic strains of the Great Depression and World War II made it uneconomical. The Blue Comet remains a subject of nostalgia among South Jersey rail enthusiasts and historians of American passenger railroads. | |||
As automobile travel became dominant in the mid-twentieth century, rail service to Atlantic City contracted significantly. Today, NJ Transit operates the Atlantic City Rail Line, providing service between Atlantic City and Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, with a stop at the Atlantic City Rail Terminal on Atlantic Avenue. The line runs through the suburban communities of Absecon, Egg Harbor City, Atco, Lindenwold, and other South Jersey towns, and represents the primary rail connection between the resort city and the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Bus service operated by NJ Transit and private carriers supplements rail access, while the Garden State Parkway and Atlantic City Expressway provide the primary highway connections for the many visitors who arrive by automobile. The Atlantic City International Airport, located in nearby Egg Harbor Township, provides regional air service. | |||
South Jersey residents have long pointed to a relative lack of direct rail connections between Atlantic City and northern New Jersey as a transportation gap, noting that travelers from the New York metropolitan area must transfer or rely on bus service rather than a direct rail link of the kind that once made Atlantic City accessible from across the state. | |||
== | == Prohibition, Political Machines, and World War II == | ||
The history of gambling in Atlantic City traces back to Prohibition and the 1920s, with racketeer Louis Kuehnle running an underground hotel and casino. Enoch "Nucky" Johnson followed and furthered Atlantic City's rise through the Roaring Twenties as a destination for drinking, gambling, and nightlife. The political machine that Johnson helped build became one of the most powerful in New Jersey history, and his story later inspired the HBO television series ''[[Boardwalk Empire]]''. | |||
The city hosted the [[1964 Democratic National Convention]], which nominated Lyndon Johnson for president and Hubert Humphrey as vice president. The convention and the press coverage it generated cast a harsh light on Atlantic City, which by then was in the midst of a long period of economic decline. Among the significant events of that convention was the challenge mounted by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which sought to be seated in place of the all-white official Mississippi delegation. The MFDP's challenge brought national attention to the ongoing struggle for civil rights and voting rights in the South, and its legacy is commemorated in Atlantic City today by a Mississippi Freedom Trail Marker at Kennedy Plaza — the only such marker located outside the state of Mississippi. | |||
During World War II, the city offered much more than entertainment distractions, as it served as a training site for military recruits and a recovery and rehabilitation center for wounded soldiers. Major hotels along the Boardwalk were converted to barracks and rehabilitation facilities, and the city's infrastructure was pressed into service for the war effort. In the 1950s, as air travel to vacation spots in Florida and the Caribbean became more widely available, Atlantic City's popularity as a resort destination began to decline. By the 1960s, the city was beset with the economic and social problems common to many urban centers at the time. With an economy largely dependent on tourists who were now shunning the decaying resort, the city reached its nadir. | |||
By the late 1960s, many of the resort's once-great hotels were suffering from high vacancy rates. Most of them were either shut down, converted to cheap apartments, or converted to nursing home facilities by the end of the decade. Prior to and during the advent of legalized gambling, many of these hotels were demolished. The Breakers, The Chelsea, the Brighton, the Shelburne, the Mayflower, the Traymore, and the Marlborough-Blenheim were all demolished in the 1970s and 1980s. | |||
== The Miss America Pageant == | |||
One of Atlantic City's most enduring cultural institutions was the Miss America Pageant, which was founded in the city in 1921 as a promotional device to extend the summer tourist season by one week past Labor Day. What began as a modest local spectacle — with young women parading on the Boardwalk before judges — grew over decades into a nationally televised event that represented, for many Americans, the height of postwar ideals of femininity and achievement. | |||
Atlantic City | The pageant was held in Atlantic City continuously from 1921 until 2004, when it relocated to Las Vegas amid declining television ratings and internal organizational disputes. The Miss America Organization returned the pageant to Atlantic City from 2013 to 2018, again departing when its television contract and internal controversies prompted another move. During its long Atlantic City run, the pageant was held at Boardwalk Hall, whose size and grandeur provided an appropriately spectacular setting for the nationally watched event. | ||
The pageant's racial history reflects broader American social tensions. For decades it was effectively closed to women of color, both through explicit policy and through the social barriers of the era. That changed in 1983, when Vanessa Williams of New York became the first African American woman crowned Miss America. Her win was a landmark moment in the pageant's history and in American popular culture, though her reign ended controversially when she resigned the title in 1984 following the publication of unauthorized photographs. She was succeeded by the first runner-up, Suzette Charles, also an African American woman from New Jersey, meaning that an African American woman held the Miss America title for the entirety of the 1983–1984 pageant year. | |||
== Casino Era and Economic Transformation == | |||
As tourism declined during the 1940s and 1950s and visitors were drawn to new destinations such as Las Vegas and Disneyland, local leaders sought new ways to attract people back to Atlantic City. The solution they settled on was the legalization of casino gambling, positioning the city as an East Coast competitor to Las Vegas, which was then the only major U.S. city to permit casino gaming. | |||
In | In 1974, New Jersey voters rejected legalizing casino gambling at four sites statewide by a margin of 60 percent to 40 percent. Two years later, in 1976, a revised referendum that restricted casinos specifically to Atlantic City passed by a margin of 56 percent to 44 percent.<ref name="rutgers_governor" /> Proponents promised that casino revenues would spur investment in the city, improve schools, reduce crime, and generate tax revenue that would benefit the entire state. The New Jersey Casino Control Act established a regulatory framework that required casinos to reinvest a portion of their revenues in infrastructure and community development. | ||
== | Resorts Atlantic City was the first casino to open, in May 1978, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring Governor Brendan Byrne.<ref name="rutgers_governor" /> Opened as the first legal casino outside Nevada, it occupied the historic Chalfonte-Haddon Hall hotel on the Boardwalk and drew enormous crowds in its early months, with lines stretching down the street as gamblers waited for admission. By 1988, a dozen casinos were operating in Atlantic City. Visitors in 1990 exceeded 30 million, and the city's taxable real estate, valued at just over $316 million in 1976 when the casino referendum was approved, had risen to more than $6 billion by 1988.<ref name="rutgers_governor" /> | ||
For a time, casinos brought the languishing Boardwalk back to life and generated significant state tax revenue. However, the promised transformation of Atlantic City's broader community proved more elusive. Poverty and urban blight persisted in residential neighborhoods removed from the casino corridor, and critics argued that the casino economy created an enclave of prosperity along the Boardwalk that failed to lift the surrounding city. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, Atlantic City's poverty rate has remained among the highest of any New Jersey municipality, with recent estimates placing it above 30 percent — a figure that stands in stark contrast to the billions of dollars generated by the casino industry over the same period.<ref name="britannica" /> | |||
<ref name=" | |||
The casino industry also proved vulnerable to competition. The spread of legalized gambling to neighboring states throughout the 1990s and 2000s eroded Atlantic City's regional monopoly on casino gaming, as gamblers in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New York gained access to facilities closer to home. In 2014, four casinos closed within a single year — the Atlantic Club | |||
Latest revision as of 03:20, 3 April 2026
Atlantic City is a seaside resort city located in Atlantic County, New Jersey, situated on Absecon Island along the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes referred to by its initials A.C., the city is a Jersey Shore destination that draws visitors from across the northeastern United States. Known for its casinos, nightlife, boardwalk, and beaches, the city is widely known as the "Las Vegas of the East Coast"[1] and inspired the U.S. version of the board game Monopoly, which uses Atlantic City street names and destinations throughout the game. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 38,497. Atlantic City hosts over 27 million visitors a year, making it one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States.[2]
Geography
Atlantic City occupies the northern portion of Absecon Island, a barrier island approximately 10 miles long situated between the Atlantic Ocean to the east and a series of back bays and tidal wetlands to the west. The island is separated from the New Jersey mainland by Great Egg Harbor Bay to the south and Absecon Bay to the north and west. The city's low-lying topography makes it particularly vulnerable to coastal storms and flooding, a vulnerability dramatically demonstrated during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Atlantic City covers approximately 11.3 square miles of land area, of which a significant portion is developed with the dense commercial and residential infrastructure characteristic of a resort city. The surrounding barrier island communities of Ventnor City, Margate City, and Longport occupy the southern portions of Absecon Island.
The city's climate is humid subtropical, tempered by proximity to the ocean. Summers are warm and humid, with average July high temperatures near 84°F, while winters are milder than inland areas of New Jersey, with average January lows near 24°F. The Atlantic Ocean moderates temperature extremes in both directions, making spring and fall particularly pleasant seasons for visitors. Nor'easters and tropical storms represent periodic hazards, and the city's exposure to tidal surge has prompted ongoing discussions about long-term coastal resilience planning.
Early History and Indigenous Peoples
Long before Atlantic City was founded, the island that would eventually be developed was thick with woods and lined with dunes, serving as the summer home of the Lenni Lenape, an Algonquian-speaking people. These original summer residents named the island Absegami, meaning "little water," a term for the bay denoting that the opposite shore was in sight.[3] Over time the name was transformed into the present-day Absecon Island.
Early colonial settlers in South Jersey largely ignored the island because it could only be reached by boat. While the exact date of the first permanent settlement has never been determined, it is generally agreed that Jeremiah Leeds was the first to build and occupy a year-round residence on the island, building his home in 1783. Jeremiah and his family were the first permanent residents of the island.[4] Their home and farm was called Leeds Plantation, and Leeds grew corn and rye and raised cattle.
A year after Leeds's death in 1838, his second wife Millicent received a license to operate a tavern called Aunt Millie's Boarding House, located at Baltic and Massachusetts Avenue — the first business in what would become Atlantic City. A descendant, Chalkey S. Leeds, born on the island in 1824, became the city's first mayor in 1854.
Dr. Jonathan Pitney, a prominent physician who lived in Absecon, felt that the island had much to offer and had ideas of making it a health resort, but access to the island had to be improved. Pitney, along with a civil engineer from Philadelphia named Richard Osborne, conceived the plan to bring the railroad to the island. In 1852, construction began on the Camden–Atlantic City Railroad. On July 5, 1854, the first train arrived from Camden after a two-and-a-half hour trip, and the arrival of tourists began in earnest.
The city was incorporated on May 1, 1854, from portions of Egg Harbor Township and Galloway Township.[5] Osborne has been given credit with naming the city, while his friend Dr. Pitney devised the plan for the names and placements of the city streets. Streets running parallel to the ocean would be named after the world's great bodies of water — Pacific, Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Arctic — while the streets running east to west would be named after the states. These same street names would later become famous worldwide through the Monopoly board game.
The Rise of a Resort Town
Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, beach resorts like Cape May and Newport, Rhode Island, steadily grew, catering to the affluent. Looking to capitalize on the emerging tourist trade, in 1854 a pair of Philadelphia developers pulled out a map and drew a straight line between the city and the shore, landing sixty-two miles away on a spot on the northern end of Absecon Island, which became Atlantic City.[6]
By 1874, almost 500,000 passengers a year were coming to Atlantic City by rail. The city rapidly developed a full resort infrastructure. Its famous Boardwalk, initially 8 feet wide and 1 mile long, was built in 1870; it was later extended to a width of 60 feet and a length of approximately 4 miles.[7] The original structure was built after a conductor on the Atlantic City–Camden Railroad and a hotel owner petitioned the city council for $5,000 — half the city's 1870 tax revenue — to build a wooden walkway separating the beach from the town. It was built to be removable, and was taken apart at the end of each season until it was replaced by a permanent structure in 1880.
The Atlantic City Boardwalk became the first boardwalk in the United States and the city's most iconic landmark. The game of Monopoly, developed by Charles Darrow and commercialized by Parker Brothers in 1935, used Atlantic City's street names for its properties. Baltic Avenue, Mediterranean Avenue, Boardwalk, and Park Place are among the Atlantic City locations immortalized on the game board, which has since sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide and made the city's geography familiar to generations of players who had never visited New Jersey.[6]
Other innovations enhancing the resort's reputation included the rolling chair in 1884, in which guests were wheeled about the Boardwalk, the introduction from Germany of the picture postcard in 1895, and saltwater taffy, which became synonymous with the Jersey Shore experience. Amusement piers jutting from the Boardwalk into the ocean brought a carnival atmosphere with their vendors, shows, and exhibits, drawing visitors who sought novelty as much as rest.
The Absecon Lighthouse, first lit in 1857, stands 171 feet tall and is New Jersey's tallest lighthouse. It is also the only lighthouse in New Jersey with its original Fresnel lens still in place.
By 1930, Atlantic City reached its all-time population peak of 66,000 residents, and African Americans — mostly migrants from the South — made up a quarter of city residents, the largest proportion of any New Jersey city at the time. Beginning in the 1930s and continuing over the next three decades, Kentucky Avenue was renowned for its nightlife, with Club Harlem and other venues attracting major figures from the world of jazz and helping establish Atlantic City as an important stop on the circuit that African American performers could access during the era of segregation.
Built in 1929 to host Atlantic City's growing convention industry, Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall — originally Atlantic City Convention Hall — was celebrated as an architectural marvel with a 137-foot-high barrel vault ceiling. Boardwalk Hall hosted many historic moments, including the nation's first indoor college football game, the Miss America Pageant, Army Air Forces headquarters during World War II, the 1964 Democratic National Convention, and the country's first indoor helicopter flight. The venue was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
Transportation History
The railroad was the original engine of Atlantic City's growth, and for nearly a century rail service defined the city's relationship with the rest of the region. The Camden–Atlantic City Railroad, completed in 1854, carried nearly 500,000 passengers annually by the 1870s and made day trips from Philadelphia practical for the first time. Multiple competing rail lines eventually served the city, reflecting the enormous demand for service to what was then one of America's premier resorts.
Among the most celebrated of these services was the Blue Comet, a passenger train operated by the Central Railroad of New Jersey that ran between Atlantic City and Jersey City beginning on February 21, 1929. Named for its distinctive blue passenger cars and the speed at which it covered the route, the Blue Comet became a symbol of the glamour of rail travel to the shore. The service operated until 1941, when declining ridership and the economic strains of the Great Depression and World War II made it uneconomical. The Blue Comet remains a subject of nostalgia among South Jersey rail enthusiasts and historians of American passenger railroads.
As automobile travel became dominant in the mid-twentieth century, rail service to Atlantic City contracted significantly. Today, NJ Transit operates the Atlantic City Rail Line, providing service between Atlantic City and Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, with a stop at the Atlantic City Rail Terminal on Atlantic Avenue. The line runs through the suburban communities of Absecon, Egg Harbor City, Atco, Lindenwold, and other South Jersey towns, and represents the primary rail connection between the resort city and the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Bus service operated by NJ Transit and private carriers supplements rail access, while the Garden State Parkway and Atlantic City Expressway provide the primary highway connections for the many visitors who arrive by automobile. The Atlantic City International Airport, located in nearby Egg Harbor Township, provides regional air service.
South Jersey residents have long pointed to a relative lack of direct rail connections between Atlantic City and northern New Jersey as a transportation gap, noting that travelers from the New York metropolitan area must transfer or rely on bus service rather than a direct rail link of the kind that once made Atlantic City accessible from across the state.
Prohibition, Political Machines, and World War II
The history of gambling in Atlantic City traces back to Prohibition and the 1920s, with racketeer Louis Kuehnle running an underground hotel and casino. Enoch "Nucky" Johnson followed and furthered Atlantic City's rise through the Roaring Twenties as a destination for drinking, gambling, and nightlife. The political machine that Johnson helped build became one of the most powerful in New Jersey history, and his story later inspired the HBO television series Boardwalk Empire.
The city hosted the 1964 Democratic National Convention, which nominated Lyndon Johnson for president and Hubert Humphrey as vice president. The convention and the press coverage it generated cast a harsh light on Atlantic City, which by then was in the midst of a long period of economic decline. Among the significant events of that convention was the challenge mounted by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which sought to be seated in place of the all-white official Mississippi delegation. The MFDP's challenge brought national attention to the ongoing struggle for civil rights and voting rights in the South, and its legacy is commemorated in Atlantic City today by a Mississippi Freedom Trail Marker at Kennedy Plaza — the only such marker located outside the state of Mississippi.
During World War II, the city offered much more than entertainment distractions, as it served as a training site for military recruits and a recovery and rehabilitation center for wounded soldiers. Major hotels along the Boardwalk were converted to barracks and rehabilitation facilities, and the city's infrastructure was pressed into service for the war effort. In the 1950s, as air travel to vacation spots in Florida and the Caribbean became more widely available, Atlantic City's popularity as a resort destination began to decline. By the 1960s, the city was beset with the economic and social problems common to many urban centers at the time. With an economy largely dependent on tourists who were now shunning the decaying resort, the city reached its nadir.
By the late 1960s, many of the resort's once-great hotels were suffering from high vacancy rates. Most of them were either shut down, converted to cheap apartments, or converted to nursing home facilities by the end of the decade. Prior to and during the advent of legalized gambling, many of these hotels were demolished. The Breakers, The Chelsea, the Brighton, the Shelburne, the Mayflower, the Traymore, and the Marlborough-Blenheim were all demolished in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Miss America Pageant
One of Atlantic City's most enduring cultural institutions was the Miss America Pageant, which was founded in the city in 1921 as a promotional device to extend the summer tourist season by one week past Labor Day. What began as a modest local spectacle — with young women parading on the Boardwalk before judges — grew over decades into a nationally televised event that represented, for many Americans, the height of postwar ideals of femininity and achievement.
The pageant was held in Atlantic City continuously from 1921 until 2004, when it relocated to Las Vegas amid declining television ratings and internal organizational disputes. The Miss America Organization returned the pageant to Atlantic City from 2013 to 2018, again departing when its television contract and internal controversies prompted another move. During its long Atlantic City run, the pageant was held at Boardwalk Hall, whose size and grandeur provided an appropriately spectacular setting for the nationally watched event.
The pageant's racial history reflects broader American social tensions. For decades it was effectively closed to women of color, both through explicit policy and through the social barriers of the era. That changed in 1983, when Vanessa Williams of New York became the first African American woman crowned Miss America. Her win was a landmark moment in the pageant's history and in American popular culture, though her reign ended controversially when she resigned the title in 1984 following the publication of unauthorized photographs. She was succeeded by the first runner-up, Suzette Charles, also an African American woman from New Jersey, meaning that an African American woman held the Miss America title for the entirety of the 1983–1984 pageant year.
Casino Era and Economic Transformation
As tourism declined during the 1940s and 1950s and visitors were drawn to new destinations such as Las Vegas and Disneyland, local leaders sought new ways to attract people back to Atlantic City. The solution they settled on was the legalization of casino gambling, positioning the city as an East Coast competitor to Las Vegas, which was then the only major U.S. city to permit casino gaming.
In 1974, New Jersey voters rejected legalizing casino gambling at four sites statewide by a margin of 60 percent to 40 percent. Two years later, in 1976, a revised referendum that restricted casinos specifically to Atlantic City passed by a margin of 56 percent to 44 percent.[8] Proponents promised that casino revenues would spur investment in the city, improve schools, reduce crime, and generate tax revenue that would benefit the entire state. The New Jersey Casino Control Act established a regulatory framework that required casinos to reinvest a portion of their revenues in infrastructure and community development.
Resorts Atlantic City was the first casino to open, in May 1978, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring Governor Brendan Byrne.[8] Opened as the first legal casino outside Nevada, it occupied the historic Chalfonte-Haddon Hall hotel on the Boardwalk and drew enormous crowds in its early months, with lines stretching down the street as gamblers waited for admission. By 1988, a dozen casinos were operating in Atlantic City. Visitors in 1990 exceeded 30 million, and the city's taxable real estate, valued at just over $316 million in 1976 when the casino referendum was approved, had risen to more than $6 billion by 1988.[8]
For a time, casinos brought the languishing Boardwalk back to life and generated significant state tax revenue. However, the promised transformation of Atlantic City's broader community proved more elusive. Poverty and urban blight persisted in residential neighborhoods removed from the casino corridor, and critics argued that the casino economy created an enclave of prosperity along the Boardwalk that failed to lift the surrounding city. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, Atlantic City's poverty rate has remained among the highest of any New Jersey municipality, with recent estimates placing it above 30 percent — a figure that stands in stark contrast to the billions of dollars generated by the casino industry over the same period.[2]
The casino industry also proved vulnerable to competition. The spread of legalized gambling to neighboring states throughout the 1990s and 2000s eroded Atlantic City's regional monopoly on casino gaming, as gamblers in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New York gained access to facilities closer to home. In 2014, four casinos closed within a single year — the Atlantic Club
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