For those thinking of buying Atlantic City NJ Real Estate, I have included some history on this unique city:
Please also find useful links to:
Atlantic City Schools, Atlantic City Restaurants, Atlantic City Hotels, Atlantic City Tourist Attractions, Atlantic City Casinos, Atlantic City Web Sites
"Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, USA. It is famous for its gambling casinos and boardwalk. As of the United States 2000 Census, the city population was 40,517, with a population of 271,015 in its combined metropolitan area. It is a resort community located on Absecon Island, off the Atlantic Ocean coast of New Jersey. Other municipalities on the island are Ventnor City, Margate City, and Longport. The main routes into Atlantic City are the Black Horse Pike (US 322/40), White Horse Pike (US 30) and the Atlantic City Expressway.
History
Atlantic City has always been primarily a resort town. Its location in South Jersey, hugging the Atlantic Ocean between marshlands and islands, presented itself as prime real estate for developers. The city was incorporated in 1854, the same year in which train service began, linking this remote parcel of land with Philadelphia. Atlantic City became a popular beach destination because of its proximity to Philadelphia.
In 1870, the first boardwalk was built along a portion of the beach to help hotel owners keep sand out of their lobbies. The idea caught on, and the boardwalk was expanded and modified several times in the following years. The historic length of the Boardwalk, before the 1944 hurricane, was about 7 miles (11.2 kilometers) long and it extended from Atlantic City, through Ventnor and Margate, into Longport. Today, it is 4.12 miles (6.63 kilometers) long and 60 feet (20 meters) wide, reinforced with steel and concrete. The combined length of the Atlantic City and Ventnor Boardwalks is approximately 5.75 miles (9.25 kilometers) long. It is now the world's longest boardwalk.
Ocean Pier, the world's first oceanside amusement pier was built in Atlantic City in 1882.[2] Other famous piers included the Steel Pier, now used as an amusement pier (opened 1898) and the Million Dollar Pier (opened 1906), now the site of a shopping mall.
During the early part of the 20th Century, Atlantic City went through a radical building boom. Modest little boarding houses that dotted the boardwalk would grow into monster sand castles by the sea. Two of the city’s most distinctive hotels were the Marlborough-Blenheim and the Traymore Hotels.
In 1903, Josiah White III bought a parcel of land near Ohio Avenue (today the site of Bally's Atlantic City) and the boardwalk and built the Queen Anne style Marlborough House. The hotel was a hit and in 1905-1906 he chose to expand the hotel and bought another parcel of land next door to his Marlborough House. In an effort to make his new hotel a source of conversation, White hired the architectural firm of Price and McLanahan to design his hotel. The architectural firm decided to make use of reinforced concrete, a new building material invented by Jean-Louis Lambot in 1848 (Joseph Monier received the patent in 1867). The hotel’s Spanish and Moorish theme capped off with its signature dome and chimneys represented a step forward from other hotels that had a classically designed influence. White named the new hotel the Blenheim and merged the two hotels into the Marlborough Blenheim.
Across the way at the corner of Illinois Avenue and the boardwalk, would grow the city’s most distinctive hotel, The Traymore. Began in 1879 as a small boarding house, the hotel grew through a series of uncoordinated expansion. By 1914, the hotel’s owner, Daniel White, taking a hint from the Marlborough-Blenheim, commissioned the firm of Price and McLanahan to build an even bigger hotel. Sixteen stories high, the tan brick and gold-capped hotel would become one of the city’s best-known landmarks. The hotel was best known for making use of ocean-facing hotel rooms by jutting its wings farther out from the main portion of the hotel along Pacific Avenue.
One by one, other large hotels sprung up along the Boardwalk. The Brighton, the Chelsea, The Shelburne. The Ambassador, The Ritz Carlton, The Mayflower, The Madison House, the Breakers, best known for its snob appeal for only the highest class of person roomed there and enjoyed its roof top garden lounge. The Quaker-owned Chalfonte House and Haddon Hall opened in the 1890s, would by the twenties merge into the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall and would become the city's largest hotel with nearly one thousand rooms. By 1930, the city's last large hotel opened its doors. The 400-room Claridge was built by a partnership that included renowned Philadelphia contractor John McShain and at nearly twenty-four stories it would become known as the "Skyscraper By The Sea."
The city hosted the 1964 Democratic National Convention which nominated Lyndon Johnson for President and Hubert Humphrey as Vice President. The ticket won in a landslide that November. The convention and the press coverage it generated, however, cast a harsh light on Atlantic City, which by then was in the midst of a long period of economic decline. Many felt that the friendship between Johnson and the Governor of New Jersey at that time, Richard J. Hughes, led Atlantic City to host the Democratic Convention.
Like all major cities, Atlantic City contains distinct neighborhoods or districts. The communities are known as: The North Inlet, The South Inlet, Bungalow Park, Monroe Park; The Marina District (also known as Back Maryland),Venice Park, The Downtown(Midtown), Ducktown, Chelsea, and Chelsea Heights.
Demise and Rebirth
Like many older east coast cities after World War II, Atlantic City became plagued with poverty, crime, and disinvestment by the middle class in the mid to late 20th century. The neighborhood known as the "inlet" became particularly impoverished. The reasons for the resort's decline were multi-layered. The automobile become available to many Americans after the war. Atlantic City had initially relied upon visitors coming by train and staying for a couple of weeks. The car would allow people to come and go as they pleased, and many people would spend only a few days, rather than weeks. Also the advent of suburbia played a huge role. With many families moving to their own private houses, luxuries such as home air conditioning, and swimming pools diminished the necessity for people to flock to the beach during the hot summer. Perhaps the biggest factor in the decline in Atlantic City's popularity came from cheap, fast jet service to other premiere resorts. Places such as Miami Beach, and Nassau, Bahamas superseceded Atlantic City as favored vacation spots.
By the late sixties the typical Atlantic City tourist was invariably poor, black, elderly, or all three. Many of the resort's great hotels, which were suffering from embarrassing vacancy rates, were either closed, converted to cheap apartments, or converted to nursing home facilities. Prior, and during the advent of legalized gambling, many of these hotels would be demolished. The Breakers, the Chelsea, the Brighton, the Shelburne, the Mayflower, the Traymore, and the Marlborough Blenheim all fell to the wrecking ball in the seventies and the eighties. Of all the pre-casino resorts that bordered the Boardwalk only the Claridge, the Dennis (now part of Bally's Park Place), the Ritz Carlton, and the Chafonte-Haddon Hall survive to this day. The steel frame work of the old Ambassodor Hotel was used for the Tropicana Hotel and Casino, although its distinctive brick facade was removed and replaced with a more modern one. Smaller hotels off the Boardwalk, such as the Madison House, also survive.
In an effort at revitalizing the city, New Jersey voters in 1976 approved casino gambling for Atlantic City, this came after a 1974 referendum on legalized gambling failed to pass. The Chafonte-Haddon Hall became Resorts International and was the first legal casino in the eastern United States when it opened on May 26, 1978. Other casinos were soon added along the boardwalk and later in the marina district for a total of thirteen today. The introduction of gambling did not, however, quickly eliminate many of the urban problems that plagued Atlantic City. Many have argued that it only served to magnify those problems, as evidenced in the stark contrast between tourism-intensive areas and the adjacent impoverished working-class neighborhoods. Drug-infested tenements in poor condition stand directly beside multi-billion dollar casino hotels along the ocean in some locations. In addition, Atlantic City has played second-fiddle to Las Vegas, Nevada, as a gambling mecca in the United States, although in the late 1970s and 1980s, when Las Vegas was experiencing a massive drop in tourism due to crime, particularly the Mafia's role, and other economic factors, Atlantic City was favored over Las Vegas. The rise of Mike Tyson in boxing, having most of his fights in Atlantic City in the '80's, also helped Atlantic City's popularity. On July 3, 2003, Atlantic City's newest casino, The Borgata, opened with much success. Another major attraction is the oldest remaining Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditorium in the world.
Atlantic City is home to New Jersey's first wind farm. The Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm consists of five 1.5 MW turbine towers, each almost 400 feet (120 meters) high.
Geography
Atlantic City is located at 39°21'54?N, 74°26'21?W (39.364966, -74.439034)GR1.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 44.9 km² (17.4 mi²). 29.4 km² (11.4 mi²) of it is land and 15.5 km² (6.0 mi²) of it (34.58%) is water.
Climate
Atlantic City has a humid continental climate, but it is almost on the borderline of the humid continental/subtropical climate zones. In the winter, the city does not get as much snowfall as northern New Jersey or inland areas because it is moderated by the ocean. In the summer, Atlantic City gets a sea breeze off the ocean that makes temperatures stay cooler than inland areas." source Wikipedia
